Wine Country CrossFit

Recently, in the CrossFit Journal, there was a video posted from a CrossFit Endurance seminar that I think really gets to the heart of the CrossFit shoe issue.  If you subscribe to the journal, it is well worth a watch.  It delves into the issue of minimalist shoes for running, and I think that it is worth a bit of time to talk about this and its relationship to all CrossFit related activities.

If you have been around the gym for much time at all, you have heard that generally we recommend that you wear a shoe that is thin and flat.  This can come in many forms.  It can be something as simple as an old pair of wrestling shoes or chuck taylors, the fanciest new $125 Reebok or New Balance offering, or even some good ‘ol fivefingers.  As a sound byte, this sounds all well and good, but there is more to consider than might meet the eye.

Minimalist shoes require a certain level of foot strength to be able to handle the demands that they place on the foot.  If you have been wearing standard running shoes all your life (or, heaven forbid, motion control) I liken this to having your foot put into a cast.  Your foot is perfectly cradled and never has to work, so the muscles are not forced to develop.  Think if you put your left arm in a sling for a year, and continued to perform normal workouts with your right arm.  Your right arm would surely be better suited to any given task after that year, right?  Now let’s say that you pull that arm out of the sling and ask it to perform 100 pull ups along side your strong arm.  We would see a great potential for over working that arm and injury.  The same thing happens with your feet coming out of bulky shoes.

If you want to make the transition to minimalist shoes, I am all for it.  However we need to be smart about this transition.  To do this, there are a couple of options.  First, rather than moving right from a thick heeled shoe to a very aggressive shoe like say the New Blanace Minimus, you might try a shoe that is in between for a few months to allow your foot to adapt (Something like the Innov-8 F-Lite 230 would work well for this).  Another option is to go straight to the aggressive shoe, but slowly work your way into it.  Wear them around the house, in WODs that are easy on the feet, and short jogs for a few months, ramping yourself up.  I can tell you from personal experience and a 6 week foot injury that it is absolutely no fun to run too far too fast in minimalist shoes.

Minimalist Shoes and Running Form

Along with the considerations above, you need to decide if you wish to run correctly or not.  The cushioned heel in standard running shoes is a crutch which allows our body to run in a way that it was not meant to.  If you do not have this cushion, heel striking while running is all but impossible.  That being said, if you are going to heel strike while running, I DO NOT want to see you in minimalist shoes.  You are begging to injure yourself.  It is my sincere hope that we could get everyone running well and landing on the midfoot, however, I still see many of you dropping that heel while running in your WODs.  If the heel is going to strike, we need to be sure we have some sort of protection back there.  None of this is to say that I think heel striking is okay.  Remember that as shoes get softer and bulkier, we see a correlation in rise in injury rates.

As I stated above, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to talk to your coaches or shoot me an email: ryan@winecountrycrossfit.com

-Ryan

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Monday’s Benchmark WOD:

“Kelly”

5 Rounds:
400M Run
30 Box Jumps (24/20)
30 Wall Ball (20/14)

Compare to:
2/20/12
10/17/11
6/7/11