Wearing minimal shoes could help your feet and ankles. Yet there are caveats in doing so.
“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 minimal, or barefoot, footwear. As a long-time runner who often competed in five and ten-kilometer races, and as a former kinesiologist, the minimal footwear craze is still fascinating.
Yet my interest has expanded to wearing minimal shoes in activities like walking and hiking.
I believe minimal shoes hold remarkable possibilities in everyday use— with some caution.
Going Barefoot
After seeing many running-related injuries in my former clinic, I began to question if shoes may be 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 minimal shoes at races — and even at the grocery store. They were everywhere.
I wanted to be the guinea pig in my own study, and if it were all true, perhaps I could help improve my running and help others.
Minimal shoes are designed to fit like a glove and mimic barefoot movement. They contain only a thin strip of rubber as a sole.
Regular “shod” cushion shoes have a substantial foam base ( the first shoe that launched it all was the Onitsuka Tiger, produced in Japan in 1964. Then Nike arrived).
Shoes without cushions make your ankle and foot muscles do the work — and there lies the rub. Changing from comfort to pounding is what makes switching so difficult. It’s also important to note the difference in foot strike with both shoes.
Shod wearers are heel strikers, or rear foot strikers (RFT), and minimal shoes create a forefoot strike (FFS).
Let me explain.
The Conundrum of Foot Strike
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).
Featured on 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 it hurts to strike heel-first without shoes (I can verify this, trust me). That is what running shoes were designed to do; lessen the impact of that brutal heel strike.
In the Nature study, the discussions on impact and foot strike mirrored what had already been confirmed in other studies; run in cushion shoes and you will heel strike and that force is a powerful jolt to the body.
To be clear, the Nature study is about the differences in foot strike and does not rule out running one way or the other. The argument today is that Lieberman wanted to convince us that minimal shoes are the answer to everything. It’s not the case. But….
“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.” -Kerrigan DC, Franz JR, Keenan GS, Dicharry J, Della Croce U, Wilder RP. The effect of running shoes on lower extremity joint torques.
False Studies
The New York Times has been a consistent provocateur on this topic since it first discussed Daniel Lieberman’s study in 2010, and it was quick to pounce on two recent studies that made me scratch my head.
One such study took 36 shod runners and suddenly made half of them run in minimalist shoes, then compared MRI scans to the shod half, and found the minimalist half had evidence of bone injury in the foot. Really?
My issue with this study is the lack of instinct 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 minimal shoes and say “run!”
Transitioning must be taught because the forefoot strike is completely different than a heel strike.
It’s more prudent to interview runners who made the transition, understand the process of bio-mechanics in making that change, and then teach it to the study group so the actual study is more accurate.
Yet, despite the haters, one of the most incredible and thought-provoking statements Lieberman makes in the Nature study is this:
“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 minimal footwear.”
The Myth of Calluses
Lieberman studied runners (and walkers) in Kenya who never wore shoes. He revealed that they had thicker, calloused feet compared to shoe-wearers and that the calluses (often vexed as a miserable boo-boo for American runners) 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 minimal 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.”
Now it’s not hard to FFS in minimal shoes — as Lieberman said, it’s natural because it hurts to RFS.
Run barefoot and you will naturally FFS.
Yet as I began to run on pavement, I found myself overcompensating the FFS. (I only discovered this after a one-mile run that crippled me the next day. My gastrocnemius (calf) muscles were so tender I could barely walk.) On my next run, I closed my eyes as I ran (good advice from another barefoot runner) and realized what I was doing.
I was trying to stay in a plantarflexed (foot up) position as I ran, overcompensating the FFS. Once I let my body tell me how to run, and where to place my forefoot, everything changed.
And I mean everything.
In the past decade, I progressed to six to eight miles on pavement and all my casual and dress shoes are now minimal shoes. The best way to describe what I feel when I run now is liberated.
I feel light, my stride has shortened (a natural result of the FFS), and I often want to keep running because it feels so damn good. Yet there is also a sensory element when I run 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; running is an experience now. Physically, my body feels different, both while running and after.
I don’t hurt. My neuroma and tarsal issues are gone, and I have been injury-free for years.
And I confess. I now walk in the forest, barefoot, and this provides an incredible sense of the earth, but I’ll save that for another story.
Can Minimal Shoes Liberate Your Feet?
While I will never wear traditional shoes again, the big question is would I recommend you to do the same? Yes and no.
Anyone who knows me understands I loath braces, wraps, and inserts. And they understand I’d rather strengthen foot arches and ankles when treating something like plantar fasciitis (instead of taping and inserts). So I do believe that strengthening the foot musculature could help a lot of people (and for most I mean walking, not running).
Barefoot movement does increase foot and ankle strength and helps proprioception and balance, as many studies since 2010 show.
Should every shod runner switch to the barefoot style? While most runners have an incredible base of running years behind them, most people do not.
The same is true for walkers. Decades of shod shoes make your feet weak.
People who are overweight and have a history of foot issues like bunions will probably have a hard time acclimating to the no-shoes style. It does not mean they cannot achieve it.
Body type plays a large role in foot bio-mechanics and impact forces, so not everyone should run (there is nothing wrong with walking).
What remains clear to me is that everyone could- and really should try — walking in minimalist shoes to strengthen those muscles that cushion shoes help destroy. After all, how can Kenyans spend their entire lives shoeless yet never have injuries?
The human body is incredibly adaptive.
How to Make the Switch
If you want to try minimal shoes, ease into it gradually and follow these tips:
1. Try to go barefoot more often, whether around the house or whenever you can take off your shoes.
2. Strengthen your ankle muscles by performing toe lifts while holding a wall. Do 10x3 sets. Then do the same thing with your knees bent (this targets the soleus muscle).
3. Start wearing minimal shoes a few days weekly and gradually build to daily.
It takes time for the feet (and body) to adjust to no cushion. Eventually, you’ll build up your arches and the small intrinsic muscles in your feet (and eventually, you’ll never want to go back).
Minimal shoes are not limited to athletic wear. Dress and casual shoes are available and are now cheaper than ever.
At a recent Sports Medicine symposium I attended in Atlanta, barefoot running came up in a discussion lecture. The speaker was a well-known orthopedic surgeon from Emory Healthcare. The question was simple.
“What do you think of barefoot running?”
The simple answer?
“We need to do more research.”
While I agree with the doctor, I’m slipping my shoes on and running.
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