Walking In Vibram Five Fingers

Dr. Nick Campitelli, a medical advisor to Vibram Five Fingers released this response to repeated customer inquiries into the proper way to walk in your Five Fingers:

Walking in a Minimalist Shoe. By Dr. Nick Campitelli 

As with the controversy and debate over the proper way to run, we also have questions as to weather or not we should be heel striking when we walk. I will do my best to answer this question, and I want to emphasize that we do not have a preponderance of evidence to support walking barefoot.  What we do know however is that the information we base our decisions on for proper gait and the phases of walking (heel strike, mid stance, and toe off) are all based on theory and evaluations of subsets of people and then deemed as being normal or abnormal.  We have never directly randomized foot strike patterns and compared injury rates.  

My belief is that we have "trained" our feet into walking as if we had an inch to even higher heel under our foots own heel.  When we walk we tend to swing the foot forward, lift ourtoes to get that heel off the ground, and then drive the heel into the ground to land.  So in essence what we are doing is accentuating heel strike because we have either cushion or a blockunder our heel. 

Our minds and bodies are now subconsciously trained to swing our foot forward and strike the more posterior or back part of our heel on the surface and have the heel counter of the shoe "grab" or "cup" the heel.  When we remove our shoes and walk barefoot we continue this so called "habitual" form of walking. 

The foot was engineered to work without the shoe, more importantly without a heel.  Having said this, when we walk barefoot, instead of trying to land on our forefoot/midfoot as we do with barefoot running, we should land with more of the bottom or plantar surface of the heel first, as opposed to the back. As this is done, our foot tends to land flatter as opposed to the accentuated heel strike with toes pointing up in the air.  

Of course simply removing our shoes and walking barefoot for miles at a time would create overuse injuries to the foot or leg muscles as they have not been adapted.  I would recommend a little moreaggressive transition with walking.  First I would adapt to the VFFs by wearing around the house, then I would begin first start with the 10 % rule with respect to the amount nor miles your are doing, but you may be able to increase faster then 10% each week.  Listen to your body and do not overdo it.  When in doubt, walk 10-20 % of your workout in FFs then switch to a traditional shoe, but try to use the short stride and not accentuate the heel strike.  By 3 months you should be transitioned.  

Dr. Campitelli recommends consulting a physician prior to starting any exerciseprogram and the information provided here is not recommended to be advice in place of seeing your doctor for a medical problem.  

~more about Dr. Nick and Barefoot Education @ Vibram's Website