Vibram Five Finger Injuries – Lessons Learned about Avoiding Barefoot Injuries

I’ve been running in Vibram’s since September, that is up until about 2 weeks ago. 

I ramped up through the learning training curve last fall and things were going fantastic.  Loved the results, loved the feel, loved the new strength in my feet and legs after getting trained up, even started to love running for the first time in 37 years, despite always being naturally ‘good at running’. I just read this article about “The Dangers of barefooting – How to Start Off on the Right Foot” by Al Gauthier.

The Problem – My Vibram Five Finger Toe Injury

So a couple weeks back I was running, I had been building up to longer and longer distances thinking about attempting my first marathon (I was just getting to the half marathon distance.

But I live in BF NC where there are mostly 2 lane roads, and no running conducive areas.  The paper has an article at least every month about a runner or bicyclist that has been run down by a car, typically because the driver didn’t see them, didn’t allow enough space or because they were drunk, but also because there is no shoulder on most of these roads, so even a driver paying attention is not going to have a lot of room to make space, let alone time to react if they are coming around a corner at the posted speed limit.

So as I trek out to build up my distance, this is the environment I have to run in. 

Sure I have a nice life insurance policy, or at least nice enough to cover college for the kids and pay off our debts, but not much more.

That said, I don’t plan on running in the clouds anytime soon, so I started trying to learn how to run through the grass and ditches along the side of the road, especially through those dangerous areas of blind curves.

Running in grass in Vibrams is like getting a foot massage.  It feels great!

But running on a softer surface, like grass, or lately spongy rain soaked turf and soil, requires a lot more muscle and concentration, both to power through the distances trudging through a resistance like environment, but also to avoid injury from twists.

One thing I’ve noticed with bare footing in Vibrams is that when your legs get tired, or you get tired, you are more prone to an injury because you don’t have the protective encasement of shoes to compensate for a slight miscalculation.

The Injury – Bend your big toe underneath your foot while you run and it will hurt!

So 2 weeks back I twisted something slightly in my left foot.

It wasn’t anything real bad and I stopped running for a few days.  After about 5 days, I thought I was mostly better, and I headed out for a run.

I thought I would try some sprinting exercises, run full out for 100 m then jog super slow for 200-300 and repeat.  After about 3 repetitions, I quickly realized that my foot wasn’t 100% yet, so I then switched into a casual run, planning to do about 3 miles, which would have normally been very easy for me even in Vibrams after running those distances for months.

Halfway through, I was limping, and headed back home.

I should have walked but didn’t think it was ‘too bad’.

Well the limping run actually made my legs and feet a little more tired, because I hadn’t trained in a limping gate.  Shortly there after, I stumbled a bit on my bad foot, literally tripping over my big toe.

The toe stubbed on pavement, and knuckled under my foot.

A sharp burst of pain hit and went away.  I looked down and had skinned the top of my toe slightly through both the Vibram mesh, the injinji toe socks and my skin.

My toe felt like it had either been jammed, slightly dislocated temporarily at the knuckle from a hyperextension, or possibly fractured (when I was younger 20 years ago, I had fractured both my big toes several times either during kick boxing, riding a three wheeler once and catching my foot between a tree and the back tire, and a half dozen other situations).

I was still a mile from home when this happened and slowly jogged home on the foot.  (mistake again)

Lesson Learned – Avoiding Vibram Five Finger Toe Injuries

I’ve learned and re-learned several lessons over the last 7 months about running in Vibrams.  Most of them involved taking things very slow, because even though I’ve been running for over 25 years, I’ve only been running in Vibrams for 6 months.  I’M A NEWBIE!

Most of the lessons have been about my stride in Vibrams, my form, differences in stride and form when I’m running on different terrains and when I’m running fresh, or tired or stiff or in the cold etc.  Every difference is a major new lesson that I have to learn.

I can’t run the same way every day in Vibrams if I’m running under a different set of circumstances, and as such I get stronger because my muscles are dealing with completely different circumstances (that’s the good thing).

But my chances of injury increase because I’m dealing with something I’ve never dealt with before and I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I’M DOING YET!

The swelling has gone away, my bruises on my toe are almost gone too.  I REALLY want to go running and think I could, but I have to check myself with my brain. 

Instead, I walked a half mile last night instead of running 3.  This morning I woke up and had the feeling of a slight not under the ball of my foot just below my second toe.  Its just a little swelling, but it goes to show I wasn’t ready to run last night.

Today, I’ll need to walk somemore, but probably no more than a mile.

Basically, I’m starting all over again with my Vibrams post injury.  Sure, I’ll probably learn faster and move up the curve back to half marathon level faster, but it is still starting over.

This time, I’m also going to do some cross training, weight training to strengthen my feet and ankles.  I’m still thinking about the types of exercise I will do, probably a lot of things involving inclines and soft spongy surfaces.

My Wife’s Vibram Injury

My wife has a pair of Vibram Sprints.  She has only had them for about 3 months.  The first or second week she had them, she tried to run a 2.5 mile stretch up a steep hilly mountain with a friend.  She too suffered from a trip where her toe stubbed and went under her foot.  She skinned up her toe worse than I did, but didn’t seem to suffer from the pull/jam/fracture that I went through.  She was dumb and lucky.

She should have tried to go that far that fast and definitely not through a hilly area.  She learned a hard lesson quick.  I usually learn the hard lessons a lot slower than she does.