I'm going to attempt to summarise my personal thoughts so far on shoes for people who are looking at 'paleo lifestyle' and general health and good posture. I hope that people will add their thoughts.
Before I begin, I should mention that I have mortons foot structure which causes my feet to 'lean' inwards and causes knock on problems throughout the whole body. It is well worth checking to see if you have this. There is a link to diagnose and deal with the problem here
http://www.triggerpointbook.com/mortons.htmI always knew I had broad feet, but since starting to wear wide 'barefoot' type shoes I have discovered that my feet are in fact naturally
very wide and they have been held compressed for years by too narrow shoes. It is my hope that eventually the structure will improve and I'll be able to walk barefoot without problems.
There are (at least) 2 types of shoes that I feel may be of interest to people here:
Active footwearI'm using this category for the type of shoe that attempts to replicate walking barefoot on a slightly uneven surface. They have a pad widget thing in the heel which causes an 'uneven' impact of the heel and which makes the whole foot roll as you step, placing the heel down first and rolling to the toes. It is often sold as 'toning the thighs' which it might well do, but for me the most interesting aspect is that they create a rolling motion walking which stretches the whole skeletal system, and stretches and exercises various muscle groups. Also they claim that problems are caused by walking on concrete all the time causing shocks along the spine and that these shoes avoid the problem.
Shoes in this category: MBT, Skechers 'shape ups', RYN footwear.
MBTthese are the only shoes I have owned. I had them for 3 years of solid use before they gave out. When walking in them I felt spinal muscles in my lumbar region stretching and articulating and they stretched my hamstrings. They also threw problems in my neck into focus. My analogy is that the body is like a whip...if one part of the whip straightens i.e. the femoral muscles lengthen and the legs straighten, the whip is cracked and the upper body attempts to straighten and improve posture. So it's good to improve one part, but it will force you to look at other parts of the body.
I knew about trigger point therapy at this time and was working out trigger points in muscles that needed stretching.
Potential advantages Avoiding the repetitive motion of walking on a flat surface, Avoiding putative problems with the impact of walking on concrete, stretching the muscular and skeletal system, maybe simulates one of the natural modes of walking. My pair were extremely hard wearing. They lasted for 3 years of serious use including a stint as running shoes, building services work shoes and more or less constant street wear. So despite the price tag in a sense they were good value. However people are saying the new ones are not as well made so look into this if you consider them.
Potential disadvantages I've increasingly come to think that this rolling motion is not the be all and end all of 'natural walking'. A lot of the videos of the savannah show it as being quite flat hard ground. More on this later. So the rolling motion may in itself create a repetitive stress.
Add to this the fact that the shoe is not the same as natural walking, so the devil is in the details...if part of the movement is slightly wrong it might cause an unnatural stress on some structure in the body.
Also the majority of people have some postural problem or other caused by trigger points holding muscles shortened, other injuries etc. If they don't know how to treat themself in other ways, I feel the shoes may exaggerate problems and cause potentially serious discomfort and harm over time.
The shoes are also designed to be worn tight to stay on. I don't like this as I feel strongly now that this harms the feet. My feet are very wide as I said so YMMV, but I think MBT acknowledge that they are tight.
Cost...they're bloody expensive
Summary - Despite a long list of disadvantages I feel they might be worth considering if you've got the money as a second pair of shoes to wear
some of the time. I'm not sure about the tightness thing...someone with narrow feet might be ok, but they will fuck up broad feet more than normal shoes.
If this problem could be somehow removed I think it would be good for the body to go through this range of motion some of the time, and it would cut down potential impact problems from concrete which would be a good way of hedging bets.
Skechers active summary I haven't tried a pair of these, but would like to try these on if I see them. They potentially have some of the advantages and disadvantages of MBT, but I don't think they have the same level of research so that could be a concern, and no doubt will not be as hard wearing. Word on the web is that they're more comfortable so maybe they're broader. They're also cheaper, so if they fit well I might get one as a second pair of shoes, however I would definitely not wear them all the time.
RYN active summary I can't find out what they claim for these as the site's down, but they look similar to the other two. Again might be worth a try if they're comfortable but proceed with caution.
Part 2 coming next time...
In the meantime check out the feet on this. It's half monkey but still food for thought.
http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/chiefeditor/earliest-human-ancestor-picture.jpg 
