I’m calling BS on this one.  I’ve been in minimalist shoes for 5 years, I’ve run up and down Pike’s Peak in Vibrams, and I’ve never had an injury at a distance less than a 1/2 marathon.

And I can’t do this on either foot.  One leg is much weaker than the other, and that leg has had all the injuries.  The stronger leg has never been injured, and I can’t do it on that leg.

At what point in barefoot running is standing on one leg for 30 seconds with your eyes closed a requirement?

Never, IMHO.

Great response. Funny, Jay told me the same thing about skateboarding and
longboarding – he does both and said they are probably the two best
activities for developing foot strength and internal stability. Personally,
I’ve gone flat pretty much full time – barefoot or in Vivobarefoot Achilles
sandals in the house, Vivobarefoot Aquas at work during the school year. I’m
at the point where a traditional heel rise feels like standing on a steep
slope to me!

Tuck – I replied over on BFT.

Anders,

I’m tempted to try this in a bunch of my shoes and see how much it varies.
Jay tends to believe in low heel, firm shoes, and I agree that excessive
soft cushioning can actually make things worse. I filmed my wife running in
Nike Free 5.0’s, and the side where she has the bunion caved in immensely –
it was frightening to watch. I’m wondering if part of her success moving to
the Vibrams over the winter is simply because they get her closer to the
ground and actually thus allow for more stability than the Nike’s. I also
wonder whether the toe pockets pread her big toe out just a bit. The great
thing about posting things like this is that in the responses, we all learn
from the exceptions to each rule. Stationary balancing may not be a perfect
analogy for the stance phase of running, but it does give some sense about
how well people can control the stability of the foot and leg, which is
important during stance. The question of which shoes can actually help if
one is weak is an open one, but would be easy enough to examine. I may just
have to try my little experiment!

A question – is the test meant to test balance, or to test lower leg muscles? If you have exceptionally good balance, your lower leg muscles /foot will not need to work nearly at all when standing on one leg, since your body is perfectly balanced over the foot without shifting.

When I did rehab exercises for a lower leg injury a while back the PT suggested one legged balance plate exercises and make them as difficult such that the foot would wobble on the plate, in order to give the msucles training. When I got too good at balancing the foot would not wobble and I had to raise difficulty by closing my eyes or holding a weight or similar.

Tuck – like everything, just because you can’t do it does not mean you are
guaranteed to get injured. It’s just a criterion that they use to screen
people who might run into trouble, and their clinical experience working
with a lot of runners suggests that it works. During stance phase in
running, you are balancing on one foot, and the idea is that if you can keep
your foot and ankle stable using your musculature rather than a shoe, you
will have an easier time moving to less shoe than someone who has weak feet
and legs (possibly from long term shoe use…). We talk all the time about
strengthening the feet and legs by running barefoot and/or minimalist – do
you consider improved balance and stability to be part of that?

However–

I cannot stand on one foot with my eyes closed!  With eyes open, I can stand on my left foot for a minute, or my right foot for 30 seconds, but I am wobbly in each case.   Based on Jay Dicharry’s criteria, I am not ready for minimalist shoes–to say nothing of barefoot running!  But I run barefoot with no problem.

BTW…on each foot, there is a big gap separating my big toe from the other four.  On my left foot, there is almost room for an EXTRA toe to fit between the big toe and the next one; my right foot there is more than enough room for an extra toe there.  (To visualize this, look at your hand.  See all the extra space between the thumb and the pointer finger? MUCH more space than you have between any other adjacent fingers.  My feet are like that: four toes close together, a big gap, and then the big toe.)

I think this splayed foot is very helpful for my barefoot running.  I also suspect, but cannot prove, that it is a RESULT of several years of barefoot running…as my feet are now much larger than they were before I began barefootin’.   (Almost size 15 now, compared to the size 13 they used to be.)

In any case, I’m glad I never saw Jay Dicharry’s criteria before I took up barefoot running.  I would still be wearing big shoes, and getting injured.