An update on the release of Elements of Form and the pre-order bonus materials as well as a new Q&A will be posted either very late tonight or tomorrow.

I appreciate the patience of everyone who has pre-ordered and apologize for the multiple delays. I think everyone will agree once they’ve read it that it was worth the wait. I want to make sure everything is as accurate, clear and concise as possible and that there are no ambiguities. I have also been trying to address some of the questions people have asked recently as well as common misconceptions related to the chapter topics without going off on too many tangents.

I also have several Q&A posts coming up over the next week, and if you’re one of the people who has sent an email and hasn’t received a response yet your question might be one of those being addressed on the site.

Question:

How long should I rest between exercises if my goal is muscular strength and size increases?

Answer: 

As a general rule you should rest as little as possible between exercises, moving from one to the next as quickly as you can while:

• being able to properly and safely get into and out of correct position for free weight or body weight exercises or enter and exit machines
• being able to breathe and mentally focus well enough to perform each exercise with a high level of muscular effort
• not becoming so nauseous, light-headed or dizzy that you might vomit or be unable to complete your workout

Typical recommendations to rest several minutes between exercises or sets are meant to allow the use of heavier weights or the performance of more repetitions on subsequent sets, based on the mistaken beliefs that heavier loads and higher volume are required to stimulate optimum strength and size gains. However, while weight is a factor in stimulating muscular strength and size increases it is not heavier weight but higher intensity or relative effort that determines exercise effectiveness. Also, performing more than a single set of an exercise or more exercises than necessary to effectively target all the major muscle groups will not improve strength and size gains and can actually reduce them by using energy and resources the body could have otherwise used to recover from and produce the adaptations stimulated by the workout.

At first, when moving more quickly between exercises you may require a reduction in weight on subsequent exercises, but those weights will increase quickly as your strength and overall conditioning improve. As long as you continue to train with a high level of effort and take each exercise to a point of momentary muscular failure you will still achieve an optimum stimulus for strength and size increases.

While anecdotal, in my experience shorter rest periods appear to be more effective for improving cardiovascular and metabolic efficiency.

Have a question about exercise or nutrition? E-mail me at drew@baye.com

I received several e-mails with questions about and requests to repost the following response I wrote to a question in the comments on My Philosophy of Exercise.  If you find anything I write on this web site helpful I encourage you to share it and appreciate you doing so, but please link back to the original, and limit copying and pasting to brief quotes. By having people read and comment on things I write here at Drew Baye’s High Intensity Training rather than on other sites or forums I am able to respond to everything in one place for the benefit of my other readers, and provide additional information or thoughts on the original post or comments.

My response, to a question about mechanical work and repetition speed:

“The most important thing to keep in mind is the key appears to be relative effort, and not load. A wide range of loads and repetition ranges have been shown to be equally effective for strength and size increases in the long run, provided they are used with a high level of effort. With this in mind, the ideal approach would be to use the lowest load required to get the job done. Rather than focus on how much weight you can lift, you should focus on how intensely you are able to get your muscles to contract with a given weight, how efficiently you can use that weight to fatigue the muscles, and only increase it when you are unable to achieve failure within a reasonable time frame.

Rather than trying to lift the heaviest weight you are capable of, you should be lifting the least weight required to effectively load the muscles and thoroughly inroad them within a reasonable time. While it may seem counterintuitive, the better you are at an exercise the sooner you will fail with a given weight.

Don’t mistake being better at exercise for being better at lifting weights or being stronger. Beingbetter at exercise means being more skilled at using the weight to challenge the muscles, to make the movement harder. Being better at lifting weights means being more skilled at creating favorable leverages and using momentum to make it easier for your muscles to move the weight. Being stronger means being able to produce more force, not being able to lift more weight, because the manner in which you lift it makes a huge difference in how much force is required.

If you want to impress ignorant people in the gym, learn to lift weights in the easiest manner possible so you can load lots of plates on the bar and make all sorts of noise.

If you want to become as strong as possible, learn to use the weight to make the exercise as hard as possible to create a stronger stimulus for growth.”

Responses to email questions:

Weight vs. lever

A few people asked how this is possible with the same weight. It is because weight is only one of several factors affecting the resistance the muscles encounter during exercise, the force they must overcome to lift, hold, or lower the weight under control. Leverage, which is affected by body positioning and alignment and range of motion, is a major factor. Acceleration and velocity are major factors. The ability to focus on intensely contracting the target muscles is a major factor. Depending on the exercise and equipment used there are many more. Depending on how you use it, a given weight can be harder or easier to lift, as well as safer or more dangerous.

For example, consider the effect of leverage during a leg press or squat. Despite the weight pinned on the stack or loaded on the barbell being the same over the entire range of motion, the lower half of the range of motion of a leg press or squat is harder than the top half due to the differences in leverage. If you don’t believe me, try a few reps in only the bottom half of the range of motion, then try a few in the top half, keeping everything else (speed, turnarounds, etc.) as equal as possible. The bottom half is more difficult because the longer levers (moment arms) result in more resistance. Weight x lever = resistance (torque, actually).

The goal of proper form is to use the weight to create a a level and variation in resistance that is both maximally challenging to the muscles being targeted and minimally harmful.

How much weight

Enough that you are able to recruit all the motor units in the targeted muscles and achieve momentary muscular failure within about  90 seconds, or around 6 to 10 reps at a moderately slow speed.

If the weight is too light you’ll keep recycling the more fatigue resistant fibers and not recruit and effectively stimulate the larger, high-threshold motor units. If the weight is too heavy form tends to fall apart and injury becomes more likely, especially when approaching momentary muscular failure.

Speed and weight

Moving more slowly in and of itself does not reduce the weight you can use. Your muscles are actually capable of contracting with more force at slower velocities (do not confuse the velocity/force curve with the acceleration formula – they are two different things). Moving more slowly makes exercise harder because it allows you to better control body position and movement and levers and keep the tension on the targeted muscles, as well as improves your ability to focus on intensely contracting them.

Criticisms of rest-pause, negative-only, and “advanced” training techniques

This resulted in more email than anything else. There are numerous problems with each of these, all of which are discussed in Elements of Form,  and I’m not going to repeat all of it here, but the main issues are the misguided focus on mechanical work (total weight or reps) rather than intensity of effort and various safety problems inherent in repeated loading and unloading and intra or interpersonal resistance transfer compounded by progressive fatigue.

Maintaining your health and achieving and maintaining a high level of functional ability should be among your highest priorities. You only live once, and both how long you live and your enjoyment of it are directly affected by your health, your physical capabilities and your appearance.

Proper exercise is a requirement for living the longest, happiest life possible. It is a requirement for self-actualization – realizing your full human potential and necessary for achieving the ideal of a sound mind in a sound body.

While many people have at least some awareness of the potential benefits of exercise relatively few fully realize its importance. I believe at least two of the main reasons for this are failure to associate a lack of exercise with the resulting physical consequences, and underestimation of human physical potential.

It is easier to make cause and effect associations when the cause is one of commission rather than omission and when the time between cause and effect is shorter. The consequences of a lack or omission of exercise are not immediately apparent and in some cases take years. Nautilus inventor Arthur Jones once explained during a seminar:

“If I were to grab you by the throat, and choke off your air supply, it would immediately become apparent to you that oxygen is absolutely essential for life. If I were to lock you in a room with no water, after several hours, the degree of thirst you would experience would indicate to you that water is a requirement for life. If I were to lock you in that room with water, but no food, it would take a little longer, a matter of a couple of days, before you would be ravenously hungry, and there would be no question in your mind that food was absolutely essential for life. However, it often takes years before ones body begins to show the harm done by a lack of proper exercise.”

In the long run, if nothing is done to prevent it, we gradually lose muscle as we age, becoming weaker and more frail and suffering other problems as a result such as decreased basal metabolic rate, decreased insulin sensitivity, increased body fat, decreased cardiovascular and metabolic capacity, increased blood pressure, osteoporosis, increased risk of falling due to reduction in speed and steadiness of movement, etc.

In the meanwhile, if you do not exercise you live with a level of functional ability and a physical appearance far below your potential. Compared to what you can and should be, you are weak, slow, and fragile. If you do exercise, properly, the improvements in strength, speed, durability, and overall health will allow you to do more, do it better, do it longer, and look good while you’re at it. I believe the average, untrained person grossly underestimates their potential, would be surprised at what they are capable of becoming with proper exercise.

Exercise is one of the most important things you can do to improve your life. It deserves the same serious consideration, attention to detail, and effort – both physical and mental – as any other major life goal or achievement of high value. It is not enough to just do exercise, you should strive  to master it.

You should perform every exercise and every workout in the safest, most effective, most efficient manner possible.

Safety

It ought to go without saying that exercise should performed in the safest manner possible, but considering the sloppy and haphazard form commonly displayed in gyms and the outright dangerous antics of Crossfit, plyometrics, “core stability training” and similar activities touted as exercise it is apparent most either aren’t aware of or underestimate the potential for injury and long term damage of improper training.

While all physical activity poses some risk of injury exercise can and should be performed in a manner and with a level of control which makes it safer than almost any other activity. It would be counterproductive and downright stupid to perform an activity for the purpose of physical improvement which simultaneously poses a significant risk of causing physical injury or undermining your long term functional ability and health.

This does not mean exercise should be easy. On the contrary, to be effective exercise must involve a high level of effort. There is no conflict between safety and intensity of effort during exercise, however; the manner of performance required to minimize risk of injury is the exact same required to maximize the quality of muscular loading and effectiveness.

Effectiveness 

More than any other factor, exercise effectiveness is related to effort, and effort is maximized with proper form. Contrary to claims of some ignorant trainers that how you perform an exercise is less important than the effort you put into it, proper form and maximum effort are not mutually exclusive but directly related. The better your form the higher the intensity.

The histrionics and bodily contortions often associated with a high level of effort during training are not an indication of greater intensity; many trainees commit these discrepancies even when they are not actually working hard. They are attempts to reduce the difficulty of the exercise or distractions from the discomfort of hard work.

The person who grunts, grimaces, and makes a show of heaving or jerking to gain momentum and leaning this way and that to find a lever advantage during exercise is not the one training the hardest, but rather the person who remains stoic as the pain of effort increases, impassive and expressionless, focusing on intensely contracting the targeted muscles while maintaining strict control of the position and movement of their body.

Correct form during exercise involves positioning and or alignment of the body and a path, range and manner of movement designed to effectively load the muscles. Breaking or “loosening” form makes an exercise easier, not harder. Some trainers claim “loosening” form is advantageous because it allows more repetitions to be performed displaying their ignorance of the real objective of exercise.

Efficiency

Exercise is not an end in itself, but a means to improving your health and functional ability to better enjoy other activities and aspects of life. You should spend no more time exercising than necessary for best results. Doing so will not give you better results, but will take away from the finite amount of time you have to pursue other goals or  interests and enjoy the company of friends and family. Fortunately very little exercise is required if performed properly and with a high level of effort.

The only exercise you need – in fact the only activity that truly qualifies as exercise – is progressive resistance training. When performed properly it is the safest and most effective method of stimulating improvements in all trainable factors of fitness; muscular strength, size and endurance, cardiovascular and metabolic efficiency, flexibility, bone density and connective tissue strength, and body composition.

The Standard

There are other considerations, but these three – safety, effectiveness, and efficiency – are the highest priorities and the standard against which different methods should be compared if the ultimate purpose of exercise is to contribute to greater enjoyment of life.

There are a lot of training methods, programs, and modalities which can eventually maximize your strength and overall fitness and functional ability.

Any strength training method performed with a relatively high level of effort, consistently, and progressively, and any program that addresses all the major muscle groups without exceeding a volume and frequency of work your body can recover from and adapt to can eventually get you about as strong and as muscular as your genetics will allow.

Any physical activity or combination of activities performed with a relatively high level of effort, over a full range of joint motions, involving loads meaningful to the skeletal system, can eventually result in significant improvements in cardiovascular and metabolic conditioning, flexibility and bone density.

Any modality that provides the ability to meaningfully and progressively load the muscles – free weights, machines, body weight, manual resistance, isometric stations, etc. – can be effective for this purpose if used correctly.

These things are often pointed out to avoid criticizing or making comparisons between methods, however in any objective comparison of different methods of achieving the same goal one will be best.

Your life, your health, and your time, are far too important to settle for just any training method, program, modality. Accept nothing less than the best.

The Mission

My mission is to promote this philosophy, of training in the safest, most effective, most efficient manner possible to maximize life-long health and functional ability with enjoyment of life as the standard, and to teach the best methods of achieving this.

I apologize for the lack of updates and for not being able to answer all e-mail quickly, but all other projects are on hold while EoF is finalized. Yes, it is way behind. I’d rather be late than not be happy with it, and I’m picky. If you want to get the absolute most out of your exercise program, I promise it will be worth the wait. The third pre-order video will be sent out with the ebooks rather than now so it doesn’t get in the way.

Although I have not responded I am reading all of the feedback on the previous post and everything is being taken into consideration in the overhaul of the site. The priorities are relevance, utility and simplicity and your questions and comments influence the information I prioritize in creating new content. There are going to be some significant changes. Get ready to change the way you think about training and nutrition.

Update: The UXS has been completely redesigned and a new model with better ergonomics, additional handles for more exercises, and other improvements will be available in January 2013.

When performed correctly, chin ups and parallel bar dips are two of the best exercises for increasing the strength and size of the major muscles of the upper body. They’ve been cornerstones of my workouts for years and when we started looking at new equipment for our home training studio a chin/dip station was at the top of the list.

Although we already had both a power rack with a chin up bar and adjustable dipping bars and a selectorized multi-exercise machine for performing weighted chin ups and dips, there were several things about each of them I didn’t like. The chin up bar on the power rack was too thin and the width of the adjustable dipping bars wasn’t right. The chin up bar on the multi-exercise didn’t allow for a wide enough grip for pull ups and the dip bars weren’t thick enough either.

Unfortunately, almost every other commercial body weight exercise station I looked at had similar design flaws. Among other things, the bar diameters and dimensions were all wrong and most did not feel very strong or stable.

For a while I considered modifying the selectorized machine, adding larger-diameter dipping handles and altering the carriage to widen the parallel pull up bars. The more I thought about it the more things I wanted to change, and eventually I decided it made more sense to just design my own entirely new station.

An improved chin up and dip station wasn’t enough to justify the time, effort and expense of developing a new piece of equipment, though, especially considering we already owned two to perform chin ups and dips on. It wasn’t enough to just be better, it had to do more. If it could be used to perform several additional exercises it would save us money by eliminating the need for more equipment and allow us to make optimum use of our limited floor space.

I started by considering other bodyweight exercises that required or could be made safer or more effective with equipment and what was needed, focusing primarily on the upper body;

• Chin ups and pull ups require an overhead bar
• Dips required parallel bars at around mid torso height
• Inverted rows and arm curls require a bar just out of reach while laying on the floor
• Various types of push ups can be performed over a greater range of motion or with more wrist comfort on elevated handles

The bars for pulling and hanging exercises needed to be thick enough to be comfortable to grip without being too thick to grip securely. The bars for pushing and support exercises needed to be even thicker to distribute force over a larger area of the palms. They also needed to be angled for two reasons; for a more comfortable wrist position during parallel bar dips and push ups and to provide varying widths to accommodate different sized users.

The angle was especially important for the chinning bar. Allowing an angled grip made it possible to use any hand spacing desired during chin ups or pull ups without the wrists being supinated or pronated to an uncomfortable degree.

Each of the bars had to be high enough to allow adequate clearance over a full range of motion for taller users without being too high for easy entry and exit for shorter users. It had to be possible to reach the chin up, pull up and dip bars from a standing position without having to jump so the bars could be gripped correctly at the correct position. The heights were based on what an adult male of average height could reach standing flat on the ground, and by stepping on the push up bars even users only 5? tall can reach the chin up and pull up bars.

A roller pad at the front of the station can be leaned against to maintain balance during squats, similar to wall squats with a stability ball but safer and easier to get into and out of position to perform. The pad can also be used to alter the body angle during push ups and rows or used in combination with the push up and row bars to perform knee extension and flexion exercises.

I was very excited about the ability to perform these leg exercises as it made it possible to effectively train the entire body on the station – a huge plus when space is limited.

A rounded step towards the front provides both a comfortable platform for heel raises and a brace for the feet during “shoulder push ups” and other exercises.

Although the station was designed with a single user in mind it is possible for two or three people to perform certain exercise combinations on it simultaneously, making it a versatile tool for couples and small group training.

The station is constructed of heavy gauge steel tubing and plating for extreme strength and stability. It will not flex or wobble at all during use like most other body weight equipment.

Considering the heavy use I anticipated it would receive I wanted the finish to be as wear resistant and easy to clean as possible, so a powder coat finish and BoltaFlex upholstery were chosen for both durability and appearance.

Although it is not a standard feature, I added 1/8 inch metallic pinstriping around the exact center of all the bars to use as a reference point during instruction and for consistent hand positioning between workouts.

Thanks to all of you who have been reading my articles on the web for the past 15 years, from the first AOL site, to Cyberpump, to baye.com for all the feedback and for helping spread the word about proper exercise. You rock, and I’m proud of every one of you who has taken the information and used it to transform your bodies and lives, and especially all the high intensity personal trainers out there who have done the same for thousands of others.

Working on the book Elements of Form has involved a lot of thinking about how to optimize various aspects of exercise performance and how to best teach them, as well as why people really exercise and how to help them better achieve those goals. As a result I’ve been refining my own training and that of my clients, and experimenting with approaches that I believe will make significant differences in people’s results as well as the safety and efficiency of their workouts.

I want the web site to reflect this, and have been thinking about how to better use the site both to teach and learn. I can only personally train a certain number of people weekly, but by organizing structured programs and collecting data through the site (which attracts over a quarter million visitors yearly) a lot more is possible. I will be cutting my personal training hours way back and making the site and these programs my priority, as it is of greater interest to me personally and allows me to reach and help a much larger number of people.

We are still in the planning stages, but nearly everything will be changing over the next couple of months. In the meanwhile, there may be technical problems with the site, some content may not be available for periods of time while things are being restructured, and on occasion I may request feedback from visitors on things like topics and features we are planning so I can better tailor the material to your information needs and interests.

I would appreciate it if you could take a few minutes and post your answers in the comments below to the following questions:

1. What are your short and long term training goals?
2. How can we better help you to achieve them through this web site?
3. Would you be interested in participating in large, structured group programs if it required sharing data which would be used to improve future programs?

The recent review by James Fisher, James Steele, Stewart Bruce-Low and Dave Smith should be on the “must read” list for everyone with an interest in exercise. In fact, you should download and read it before you read the rest of this post which is the second of several commentaries I will be writing on their review.

Click here to read part 1 on anti-HIT bias, intensity and one rep max testing

Momentary Muscular Failure

Momentary muscular failure (MMF) occurs when your muscles become too fatigued for you to continue an exercise in the prescribed form. Several arguments have been made for training to failure, most originating with Nautilus inventor Arthur Jones.

1. There is no way to know the exact level of intensity required to stimulate maximum muscular strength and size increases. There is also no way to accurately measure intensity of effort during exercise except when one has reached MMF, at which point the intensity (the percentage of your maximum momentary capability you are working at) is 100%. The only way to know you have trained intensely enough to stimulate the maximum possible response is to perform an exercise to the point of MMF.

2. Optimum long term progress requires adjusting the volume and frequency of your training to your body’s response to exercise. Part of this is being able to compare exercise performance between workouts. If you do not perform an exercise to failure there is no way to know how many repetitions or seconds of time under load you could have done, so there is no way to objectively compare your strength between workouts.

3. Motor units are recruited in order from smallest to largest. Over the course of an exercise as smaller motor units are fatigued, more and larger motor units are recruited to maintain the required level of force (until all the motor units are recruited at which point rate coding is increased to maintain force output). The motor units with the greatest potential for strength and size increases are the last to be recruited. Training to MMF ensures you have recruited all of the motor units, including the high threshold ones.

All the studies comparing training to MMF with training submaximally showed training to failure produced results that were equal, better, or more efficient (required only 30% of the time). While it is possible to get good results from training without consistently working to failure as long as it is done progressively (in which case MMF will occur at least occasionally), and while all the motor units in a muscle will be recruited before reaching MMF with typical loads and rep ranges, if you want the best possible results you should go to failure on each exercise.

Criticisms of Training to Failure

Most criticism of training to MMF is actually blame for other things.  Some people blame training to MMF for overtraining, calling it “CNS “burnout” (the CNS and immune system are both part of the response to chronic overtraining). There is nothing about training to failure in and of itself that would cause this. What is more likely is they did not compensate for the increase in training intensity when switching to training to MMF by reducing their training volume appropriately. As long as the overall training volume and frequency are not excessive for an individual there is no reason training to MMF alone would cause overtraining or any related effects.

Some people claim training to MMF is dangerous, which is nonsense. An injury occurs during exercise when a tissue is exposed to an excessive level of force, either due to rapid acceleration or by moving into a position resulting in too much compression or stretching. As long as an exercise is performed in a smooth and controlled manner, without any quick, bouncing, jerking, or yanking movements, and as long as the correct positioning and movement is performed and proper safety equipment used when necessary, there is nothing about training to failure that will harm a person.

One of the more ridiculous claims is “training to failure is training to fail”, and that by performing an exercise to MMF you are conditioning yourself to expect to fail in other activities. While it makes a nice, neat soundbite for those opposed to training to MMF, it is based on the erroneous assumption that the goal of an exercise is to lift the weight (or move against whatever type of resistance you’re working with). The real goal is to work the target muscles as intensely as possible to stimulate an adaptive response, and lifting a weight or moving against some other form of resistance is just a means to that end. When you have achieved MMF you have succeeded in the real goal of exercise. If anything, training to MMF teaches you to work as hard as possible and give 100%, while submaximal training teaches you to quit when things start to get really hard.

Part 3: Rating of Perceived Exertion and Load and Rep Range

I’ve always preferred being barefoot. Having relatively wide feet I could never find shoes that fit comfortably, and the ability to wear sandals, thongs and other less restrictive footwear year round is one of the things I like most about living in Florida. While more comfortable and less restrictive these aren’t quite the same as being completely barefoot, but are necessary for protection against things like hot asphalt and gravel, crushed seashells, and other sharp, pointy stuff. As much as I would rather not wear shoes at all, having stepped on nails and sliced the bottom of my left foot wide open playing in a field as a child I prefer to err on the side of caution.

Thanks to the rise in popularity of barefoot running a few companies and enterprising individuals have started producing “minimalist” footwear, designed to provide some protection for the foot while minimizing the material between the foot and the ground and allowing the foot to work and move the way it is supposed to when standing, walking, running, jumping, etc. While I don’t recommend you take up running for exercise since a proper strength training program can improve general functional ability to a much greater degree in a shorter period of time and with less time in the gym, or for fat loss since it is a relatively slow and inefficient way to eventually burn a very small number of calories, I do recommend switching to more minimalist footwear for the more general health and fitness benefits. If, however, you run for recreation or enjoy competition going barefoot, or almost, is best.

Two of the biggest problems with conventional shoes are the very things they claim as benefits; support and cushioning. The artificial support they provide has an effect similar to wearing a cast, causing the muscles and ligaments of the foot to become weaker over time. If you’ve ever broken a bone and been in a cast for a few weeks you know how quickly muscles can atrophy due to disuse. Restrictive shoes can do something very similar to your feet, and even if you don’t wear them continuously most of us are in some kind of footwear most of the time we’re awake from early childhood on. Whenever people ask about the shoes I wear and question the lack of support I tell them a healthy foot doesn’t require it — if they transition to minimalist footwear gradually their feet will become stronger and support themselves.

Despite the marketing claims of athletic shoe companies there is no evidence that conventional athletic shoe designs with all their air, gels, springs and other cushioning gimmicks do anything to reduce injuries. If anything, all the cushioning is more likely to increase injury. Your foot contains about 200,000 nerve endings which provide feedback necessary for balance, protection, etc., and cushioning dampens your feet’s sensitivity, tending to cause people to plant their feet even harder trying to compensate for lost feedback. Additionally, all the heel cushioning and unnatural stiffness encourages runners to run with a heel strike rather than planting the forefoot, resulting in an increase in impact forces which is greater than the reduction provided by the cushion and affects everything from your heels all the way up your spine. Running barefoot on your forefeet actually results in lower impact forces than running in cushioned shoes and planting your heels.

Shoes which raise the heels significantly can also result in shortened calf muscles and achilles tendons, which may also increase the risk of injury to these during running and jumping. When squatting or deadlifting heel elevation moves the knees further forward increasing the torque around them and can impair balance and reduce the lateral stability of the ankles. During leg presses the knee torque can be reduced by placing the feet higher on the pedal but thick heels still decrease lateral ankle stability. Elevated heels also tend to shift the balance forward which can be a problem during standing exercises. While anecdotal and subjective, I feel my balance and stability is noticeably better when wearing Vibrams or huaraches when squatting or deadlifting (and, contrary to nonsense claimed by “functional training” advocates, balance and stability improve exercise effectiveness).

Also, while anecdotal and subjective, since switching from regular tennis and dress shoes to Vibram Five Fingers in Spring of 2009 a persistent, nagging pain in my left hip (probably the result of lots of running from junior high til early in college) and occasional lower back discomfort from a deadlifting injury in 2004 have disappeared.

Recently, I’ve started wearing huaraches made by InvisibleShoe.com and prefer them to the VFF’s for general wear, as they’re more comfortable and not as weird looking. Wearing their huaraches feels more like being barefoot, and unlike the VFF’s they do not need to be washed every week to prevent them from smelling.

Depending on your feet (Vibrams will not fit correctly on people with longer second toes), intended usage and style preference there are a lot of options for minimalist footwear, ranging from the relatively inexpensive Invisible Shoe huaraches to the more expensive VFF’s and Terra Plana’s Vivo Barefoot. Ideally, whatever you get should be extremely lightweight and flexible with a very thin sole, allow unrestricted movement of the toes, and have minimal support or control elements.

If you need something dressier for work, the Vibram Trek’s with kangaroo leather uppers can pass for dress shoes if people don’t look too closely, and Terra Plana has some nicer looking minimalist footwear. VFF’s are probably the best option if you work out at a gym since most require closed toed shoes for insurance reasons (even though nothing short of steel-toed boots will help if you drop a forty five pound plate on your toes) and their Flow model is specifically designed for water sports. For general wear, working out, walking, hiking, etc.,  my preference is huaraches since they are the closest you can get to being barefoot while still having some protection against abrasion, cuts and hot surfaces and not getting kicked out of restaurants.

I have two pairs from InvisibleShoe.com, one 6mm and one 4mm. The 6mm’s give a little more protection when walking “off-road” in areas with lots of rocks, branches, etc. but I prefer the 4mm’s the rest of the time. I ordered the 6mm’s custom made (you send them a tracing of your foot following the video instructions on their site) and the kit for the 4mm’s, which includes the soles and cord and instructions for trimming if necessary and punching the hole where the cord starts between the toes, which was pretty straight forward. There are numerous videos on their web site demonstrating the different tying methods, and I chose the “slip-on” method, which was easy to tie, and I can put mine on and take them off without constantly having to tie and untie them.

My wife and son liked mine and wanted their own so I bought kits and made each of them a pair, using purple cord and a more decorative tying style for hers (also shown on their web site). If you don’t want to make them yourself they’ll make a custom pair for you using a tracing of your feet for a little extra, but I enjoyed making them and while I prefer simplicity and utility if you want to add a personal touch you can incorporate beads, pendants or other decorative elements into the cords, which you can get through their site or your local art supply or crafts store. We’ve been putting a few miles on ours each week walking the dogs and are really liking them.

If you get VFF’s I recommend the Sprints but not the KSO’s. I’ve had a few pairs each of the Classics, Sprints and KSO’s and while I haven’t had any problems with the Classics or Sprints the straps on both pairs of KSO’s have worn through quickly where they pass through the medial eyelet, and I’m not pulling them tight. Contrary to their name, which is an acronym for “Keep Stuff Out” the KSO’s don’t do a very good job of preventing sand from getting inside them and when it does it’s more of a hassle to take them off and put them back on to get it out than with the Classics or Sprints. I have not had structural problems with the other VFF’s and considering how much I wore them before getting my huaraches they were surprisingly durable. The only downside is you have to wash them very frequently to prevent them from smelling, especially if you are working out or running in them, which is a problem a lot of people have been reporting. I can’t comment on Terra Plana or any of the other brands since I don’t own any, but I have tried the Vivo Barefoot on at the store and for the very short time I had them on they were comfortable. If you do try any of the other brands, just remember to look for the qualities mentioned above; lightweight, flexible, very thin sole, unrestricted toe movement, minimal support or control elements.

When making the transition you might want to start slow, a few hours a day at first then gradually increase the time, since some people’s feet take a few weeks to get used to them. Once you get used to them and your feet strengthen a bit you won’t want to go back.