Reassessing Footwear: The Science Behind Minimalist (Barefoot) Shoes
- Timothy Agnew
- 8 hours ago
- 7 min read
Wearing minimalist shoes could help you avoid injuries and strengthen your feet and ankles.
It was good for the skin to touch the earth, and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth…the soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing.–Chief Luther Standing Bear
For the past decade, I’ve followed research on minimalist or barefoot footwear. As a long-time runner who often competed in half marathons, five and ten-kilometer races, and as a former kinesiologist, I still find minimalist footwear fascinating. If you’re considering trying minimalist shoes, this article is a good place to start.
Going Barefoot
After seeing many patients with running-related injuries in my former clinic, I questioned whether shoes were contributing to these injuries. And I wondered if I should try going “barefoot” to find out. Barefoot shoes were a thing, and I noticed FIVEFINGERS and other minimalist shoes at races — and even at the grocery store. So, ten years ago I made the switch—today, every pair of shoes I own is minimalist.
The minimalist craze was not without faults. In 2014, Vibram, the maker of FIVEFINGERS shoes, agreed to a $3.75 million class-action settlement for false advertising, including that the glove-like shoes strengthened foot muscles and helped reduce injuries, without scientific evidence.1 It’s a reminder of how gonzo marketing involving minimalist shoes outpaced the evidence, even as proven biomechanical research emerged.
Types of Minimalist Shoes
Since I started wearing barefoot (minimalist) shoes, more types have entered the market. What began as no-cushion, glove-like fits developed into distinct types, some with padding, wider toe boxes, and more rubber in the sole. Here are the main types.
Barefoot Shoes: The true ‘barefoot’ style mimics barefoot movement and fits like a glove. The ultra-thin sole has no traditional cushion, so you feel every part of the ground.
Zero Drop/minimalist: A heel-to-toe drop of zero millimeters, so it’s a ‘flat’ shoe that sits at the same height from heel to toe. This type of shoe can still have thick padding and even some rubber cushioning.
In contrast to minimalist shoes, regular (shod) cushion shoes have a substantial foam-rubber base. The first shoe that launched it all was the Onitsuka Tiger, produced in Japan in 1964.2 I began running in those shoes when I was six—then Nike arrived. Between 1971 and 1981, the running trend sparked a dramatic surge in marathon runners, bringing cushioned, niche footwear to the mass market.
Minimalist shoes make your ankle and foot muscles do the work for support during impact forces — and there lies the debacle. Changing from cushioned support to reliance on muscles and tendons is why switching is so difficult.
The real science that explains what minimalist shoes do involves the distinct mechanics of foot strike with each shoe.
The Conundrum of Foot Strike
Shod wearers are heel strikers, or rear-foot strikers (RFS), and minimalist shoes create a forefoot strike (FFS).
Daniel Lieberman, professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, published this study in Nature in 2010 (yes, old, but still the “bible” of barefoot studies).3 Featured on National Public Radio (NPR), Lieberman “found that runners in shoes usually landed heel-first. Barefoot runners landed farther forward, either on the ball of their foot or somewhere in the middle of the foot, and then the heel came down — much less collisional force.”
The reason, according to Lieberman (who runs marathons himself), is that it hurts to strike heel-first without shoes. Designers (and marketers) produced running shoes to lessen the impact of that “brutal” heel strike. That idea drives today’s multi-billion-dollar running shoe industry.
In the Nature study, the discussions on impact and foot strike mirrored other studies: if you run in cushion shoes, you heel-strike, and that strike changes how our bodies absorb force. Yet, while Lieberman’s Nature study focused on biomechanics and evolutionary history, the scientific community translated it as an implied blanket prescription for all injuries, and the minimalist shoe industry oversimplified his research because it helped sell shoes.
“Increased joint torques at the hip, knee, and ankle were observed with running shoes compared with running barefoot. An average 54% increase in the hip internal rotation torque, a 36% increase in knee flexion torque, and a 38% increase in knee varus torque were measured when running in running shoes compared with barefoot.”4
False Studies
The New York Times has been a consistent provocateur on this topic since it first discussed Lieberman’s study back in 2010,3 and it was quick to pounce on two recent studies.
One study took 36 shod runners and abruptly made a fraction of them run in minimalist shoes, then compared MRI scans to the shod half, and found the minimalist group had evidence of bone injury in the foot.5
My issue with this study is the lack of instinctual research. As any shod runner who has transitioned to minimalist shoes will inform you, that transition is delicate and must be constantly fine-tuned. You cannot ask lifetime shod runners to suddenly slip on minimalist shoes and say “run!”
Kinesiologists must teach FFS transitioning because it differs completely from a heel strike. It’s more prudent to interview transitioned runners, understand the process of biomechanics in making that change, and then teach it to the study group so the actual study is more accurate.
A 2024 Oregon State University study (published in Sports Health) highlighted this very point.6 It had youth runners run in barefoot shoes and concluded that vertical loading forces nearly doubled compared to shod shoes—forces linked to stress fractures or plantar fasciitis. The caveat? None of the kids modeled the biomechanics of a forefoot strike the way adult barefoot runners commonly do because that transition must be taught, not assumed.
“Differences between RFS and FFS running make sense from an evolutionary perspective. If endurance running was an important behaviour before the invention of modern shoes, then natural selection is expected to have operated to lower the risk of injury and discomfort when barefoot or in minimalist footwear.”
Lieberman studied runners (and walkers) in Kenya who never wore shoes. The runners had thicker, calloused feet compared to shoe-wearers, and the calluses did not affect gait. The Kenyan runners’ feet simply adapted to harsh ground by thickening tendons and skin, and the same thing occurs when we switch to minimalist shoes.
“We live in this weird world where calluses are bad, like you have a problem with your shoe, and you go to a podiatrist, and they remove them,” Lieberman said. “But until recently it was abnormal not to have calluses. We’ve lost touch with our bodies in some respects and this is a good example of that. When we tell our results to barefoot people, they say, ‘Tell me something I don’t already know.’”
Can Minimalist Shoes Liberate Your Feet?
Barefoot FFS biomechanics does increase foot and ankle strength and helps proprioception and balance. A 2025 systematic review found that barefoot and minimalist strength-training programs increase intrinsic and extrinsic foot muscle hypertrophy (size), stabilize arch function, toe flexor strength, and neuromuscular control.7 Another broadly cited 2021 Scientific Reports study found that foot strength improved approximately 57% after six months of daily minimalist footwear activity.8 A 2024 study similarly found that switching to minimalist school shoes improved foot muscle size and arch integrity in primary-school-age children.9
Decades of shod shoes make your feet weak, and body type and condition affect foot biomechanics and impact forces. Someone with a history of foot issues like bunions will need more time acclimating to the minimalist style.
How to Make the Switch
If you want to try minimalist shoes, ease into them gradually and follow these tips:
Try to go barefoot more often, whether around the house or whenever you can take off your shoes.
Strengthen your ankle muscles by performing toe lifts while holding a wall. Do 3x10 sets. Then do the same thing with your knees bent (this targets the soleus muscle).
Begin wearing minimalist shoes a few days per week and gradually build to every day.
It takes time for the feet (and body) to adjust to non-supportive shoes. Eventually, you’ll build up your arches and the small intrinsic muscles in your feet, and eventually, you’ll never want to go back. Minimalist shoes are suitable for non-athletic wear as well. Dress and casual shoes are available and are now cheaper than ever.
Wearing minimalist shoes (or being barefoot for most of the day) is truly liberating. A sensory element exists when I run or walk now that I did not experience when I wore shoes. I feel the ground, every bump, pebble, leaf. And there is something bordering on spiritual in this kinesthetic element; moving is an experience now. Physically, my body feels different, both while running and after (in 2024, I hiked to Ciudad Perdida (the Lost City) in Colombia in minimalist hiking boots).
The human body is incredibly adaptive, yet sometimes we must guide it and teach it new things. So begin.
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