ADVENTUREinPROGRESS Pursuing adventure. Together.



The Case For Minimalist Footwear [Introduction - TCFMF]

22 Apr 2009
Posted by damien

damien's picture

Note: I recently launched a new minimalist community site called Toe Salad. It includes a comprehensive directory of minimalist footwear products, as well as user reviews and forums. I encourage you to check-it-out, it includes a lot of great information that can't be found anywhere else.

Over the next two months I will be writing a series of blog posts on minimalist footwear. This series is being done in preparation for a 2-hour seminar that I will be giving to fellow employees at my place of work, Bates College. My plan is to video record the seminar and post the video to this blog as the final part in the series.

 


All posts in this series will be tagged with TCFMF. If you are a Twitter user, you can follow us (@advinprogress) and join in the conversation using the #tcfmf tag. The more that you participate by leaving comments and questions, the better prepared I will be for delivering a great seminar. Your help will be much appreciated!

In terms of relevance to ADVENTUREinPROGRESS, I see this topic as very important. Human powered adventure almost always requires footwear and selecting the right footwear can make all the difference between success and failure both over the short and long term. If you are anything like us, you want to be active, healthy, injury free, and doing the things you love well into old age. It is my hope that through this series of posts, we all might be able learn more about a movement that is emerging where people are beginning to realize that when it comes to footwear, less is more.

Trackback URL for this post:

http://www.adventureinprogress.com/trackback/188

Thoughts on hiking, knitting and healthy feet

~My feet after this weekend's hike.~

Sometimes hiking is mostly hard work and the best part is reaching the end, propping up your tired feet and knitting. As was the case with last weekend's hike but you can read more about that over at our family adve

Tags:

Thoughts on hiking, knitting and healthy feet | FIMBY's picture

Pingback

[...] of feet, I wanted to direct your attention to a series of posts my husband is writing on healthy feet and minimalist footwear. In the past he has struggled with sore feet, sore joints and back. I also had a "bum knee" that [...]

Karen's picture

very interested

I'm keen to follow these posts - you know I have enough joint (and sometimes back) issues to be open to other footwear possibilities. Perhaps not for all running surfaces but maybe for some.



Barefoot Ted's picture

Good Case

Enjoyed reading about your personal journey discovering the benefits of the minimalism.

It is becoming a mainstream debate, and I believe an important one.

BFT



damien's picture

Thanks

Hello Ted,

Thanks for joining in the conversation, and offering to help me out with the series. You have been an inspiration to me on this journey, and now I want to try to give back a little too.



Minimalist Footwear for Winter? | ADVENTUREinPROGRESS's picture

Pingback

[...] it comes to minimalist footwear, there are several options available, all of which work very well in warm conditions. When it comes [...]

Josh's picture

Great series

Great series! Keep up the good work.

Oh yeah, why don't you have an RSS feed on your blog?



damien's picture

I have several RSS feeds

Glad you have enjoyed the series.

My blog has two RSS feeds, one for posts, and one for comments. If you are using Firefox, you can see them by clicking on the little RSS icon in the address bar when visiting the home page. I am not sure how you do this in IE. Perhaps you are having problems by subscribing to the wrong one?

For your reference, these are the feeds:

http://www.adventureinprogress.com/rss.xml (Main feed)
http://www.adventureinprogress.com/crss (Comments feed)



Progressing back to barefoot « The L.I.F.T. Weblog's picture

Pingback

[...] Progressing back to barefoot 2009 July 15 tags: adventureinprogress.com, barefoot, bodybuilding, boot camp, brachiation, christopher macdougall, damien, development, DIAKADI Body, eckhart tolle, erwan le corre, evolution, exercise, exploration, exuberant animal, fitness, fivefingers, foot camp, free guide, freedom, fun, improvement, leeger, LIFT, movnat, nature, personal trainer, play, san francisco, self, strength, survival, terra plana, the case for minimalist footwear, the power of now, trackersbay, tracking, vibram, vivo barefoot, weightlifting, workout by jleeger I recently read Damien’s entry on his blog at AdventureinProgress called “The Case For Minimalist Footwear.” [...]

Notleh's picture

Good luck on your journey...I

Good luck on your journey...I hope you find everything you are looking for and more. If you are interesting in finding a community of like-minded people come join us on the Runnersworld.com forums/barefoot section.

Have fun!



First Impressions - Feelmax Niesa | ADVENTUREinPROGRESS's picture

Pingback

[...] for me when I got home. My Feelmax shoes had finally arrived! Back in May when I was working on my TCFMF series, I contacted Feelmax asking them if they would let me test and review a pair of their shoes [...]

First Impressions - Feelmax Kuuva | ADVENTUREinPROGRESS's picture

Pingback

[...] Last week I talked about my first impressions on the Feelmax Niesa shoes. This week I would like to talk a little about the Kuuvas, Feelmax's first minimalist boot. (Don't know what minimalist footwear is? Read this.) [...]

Run 100 miles barefoot? | ADVENTUREinPROGRESS's picture

Pingback

[...] barefoot runner and ultra-marathoner who kindly provided comments/advice while I was working on my minimalist footwear series. You are not watching this post, click to start watching [...]

Mountainman's picture

Footwear

Hmm, i like hiking , i love it, i travel to the mountainside as often as i can, but those shoes, dunno if they are comfortable maybe in the city, but when walking over stones and rocks , omg I think high heel women's sandals would be more comfortable



Tim's picture

minimalist footwear

I have owned my FLEXIBLE FOOTWEAR for for a while and have been impressed with their quality and durability. Recently I tried hiking at Hocking Hills in Ohio.The traction on steep climbs,descents and loose surfaces was excellent. I will continue to hike with these shoes. Tim



will kimbrough's picture

barefoot/minimal

I've been running/walking/hiking barefoot for 7 months. Really enjoying healthy feet, ankles, achilles tendon, knees, back, hips. Wearing Soft Star moccasins for chillier weather. Definitely looking for minimalist hiking boots/shoes, for those rocky trails.



damien's picture

Cold weather

I have been quite happy with the Feelmax Kuuvas for rocky terrain and cold weather. I wouldn't recommend them for running though due to the high ankle.

Wayne's picture

new to minimalist footwear

I am brand new to minimalist footwear. i just bought some Vibram KSU's to try out. I have been having knee pain, so I am hoping this will aleviate that some. also, my brother turned me on to the birthday shoes forum, too. Great stuff for people like me trying to get educated.


Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly. If you have a Gravatar account associated with the e-mail address you provide, it will be used to display your avatar.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.