Minimalist Marines

My son the marine pointed me to this article, Minimalist Footwear Hits the Military Barracks.

I’m usually pretty down on minimalist shoes. Most of that is because people call them “barefoot shoes” which is just plain inaccurate. The other reason is cautionary: everything I have gleaned is that the transition from fully shod to minimalist can lead to more injuries than transitioning from fully shod to barefoot. I’ve stated this before. Long-term shoe wearing will have weakened not only the skin of the soles, but all of the internal structures of the foot: the bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments. When you go minimal, the only one of those weakened structures you continue to protect is the skin. Instead, the skin should be used as an early warning device to protect the entire foot in its weakened state.

Back to the military . . .

It is actually a very good article. There are military doctors who see the minimalist shoes as good therapy for lower back, ankle, calf, and similar injuries.

What prompted this article was a rumor that the military was banning minimalist shoes. The article debunks that (mostly), by talking to spokesmen from the services. However, it also notes that a lot depends on the local commander.

Obviously, we’re not talking here about making minimalist shoes part of combat uniforms (and I think it would be pretty silly to go into combat wearing minimalist shoes). Shoes are tools, and for a combat environment, the entire uniform, including combat boots, is designed to give the most protection possible. However, I do suspect that minimalist shoes could be useful in some sorts of covert mission. It is a lot easier to be quiet and sneaky while wearing Vibrams (or going barefoot) than while wearing boots. And if you are not able to watch where you are stepping, I doubt barefoot would do it. So, that leaves minimalist footwear. (I wonder if the military might consider investigating an even more protective minimal shoe that might be useful in those situations—still quieter while offering more protection?)

What the soldiers are doing is using the minimalist footwear for PT (Physical Training), mostly running. That seems best. However, it seems that many of the services require that the PT test itself not use minimalist shoes. This also makes sense to me. I’ve seen what combat boots do to feet (you should have seen what they did to my son’s feet after Basic Training, particularly the Crucible—admittedly, some of that is deliberate to show the recruits that they can continue through the pain). But you also need the feet to regularly experience and train in combat boots so that they can resist what those boots often do.

So, I would say that a mixture of minimalist shoes (for aerobic training and to keep the foot’s internals strong) and regular combat boots (to keep the feet acclimated to the rigors of using those tools) would probably provide the strongest and most able soldier. (Actually, I’d advocate a mixture of barefoot and combat boots, but I’m not holding my breath for that to be allowed.)