calling all Vibram Fivefingers owners

[topaz]

This question is particularly directed at users of Vibram FiveFingers who have had them for at least a year: Do you still like them? Are you still wearing them? If not, why not? Have you encountered any drawbacks you didn't expect?

Comments

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I still love them. When I get out of the habit of wearing them, I have to ease back into it slowly so that my feet don't ache too much. Also, they can get a little stinky. But really: love love love. I can't wear mine right now because of an injury (they would be super bad for me), but I keep wanting to try just because of how good they feel.

[dbang.livejournal.com]

What about them makes your feet ache?

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I don't know. It's as if walking barefoot uses some muscles on the insides of my feet that don't get good use when I'm wearing shoes. It feels similar to the process of getting back into any physical activity after taking a hiatus - I just have to retrain myself to do it.

My completely unsubstantiated theory is that there is some more balancing that has to happen when I'm barefoot/wearing barefoot shoes, but I just made that up. There are lots of anecdotal reports about this out there, too, including some folks who say that the added musculature from wearing VFF's made their feet wider.