Barefoot shoes are a miracle, and I want everybody to know about them đ.
I hope we will soon look at ânormalâ shoes as the unhealthy and uncomfortable fashionable accessories that they are in my opinion, and I wish that barefoot shoes be sold as normal in all shops because this is what our feet, knees, hips, spine, muscular system, joints and ligaments need. And our souls, too â not only our soles đ.
I had always had problems with shoes. My feet would always be unhappy, and while I thought it was just my âstupidâ hypersensitivity, it turns out that my body was in fact right. (When isnât it, actually? We just donât like listening to it when it goes against our existing standards.) I used to size up as a teenager, high heels never worked for me, I have never in my life broken shoes in (they did break me in on occasion, thoughâŚ), and after I started running at the age of 45, in a few years I developed a bad plantar fasciitis and found myself unable to even walk to work, let alone run or dance, despite wearing custom made orthotics. It was a real crisis.
Yes, I had not reacted when it had started, I continued running as long as I could stand the pain, I did not listen to my body, I had all kinds of useless thoughts about the why-s and how-s, and I did not want to see doctors⌠Alas, in the end I was forced to.
But doctors didnât help, and neither did expensive private treatments. Chiropractors did, but only in the short run, and I was becoming desperate.
And then one day I read about barefoot shoes. It ticked immediately, it was a true aha-moment, and I soon became the happy owner of a pair of Merrell Vapor Glove 4 (thank you, Commepiedsnus barefoot shop in Paris).
It was unbelievable. I felt immediate relief, and jumped into the transition head to toes, although this is not adviseable to do. Now, looking back at it and knowing more, I suggest that if you are new to barefoot, transition carefully, and always listen to your bodyâs feedback. We are all different, our deformations and problems are different, and so are our solutions. A fast transition worked for me, but it may not be the same for you. Just listen â your body will know! My feet hurt less in barefoot shoes than in regular ones, so I wore my Merrells more and more, and anything else less and less. A bit later I also bought Xero Z-Trails, which also worked perfectly, even for easy hiking on slippery, dusty hill slopes. My feet found their balance again, by themselves, simply because there was no influence coming from the shoes. So much so that I stopped wearing orthotics, and in 4 monthsâ time my chronic heel-pain was gone. Even strong massage didnât hurt any more around my heels and ankles, where it used to be super painful even under a light touch.
If you donât know what makes a shoe âbarefootâ:
- a super flexible, zero drop (meaning without any raise in the heel), flat sole (no arch support, no toe spring)
- a wide toebox, allowing for maximum toe-splay (and optimally allowing you to wear toespacers to help you regain the natural splay of your toes)
- great ground feel, to provide the over 7.000 nerve endings in each foot the stimuli they need to function properly
- lightweight, lighter than you would ever dream shoes could be đ
- the best ones are super soft everywhere, to not influence your feet in any directions on any point, thus enabling your feet to adjust freely to their need
A great memory hook is WTFF (wide, thin, flat, flexible).
The first doubt that will probably come to your mind is the raised heel. Donât they teach us that flat shoes are bad for our spine? But just think of it: our feet evolved flat in the course of thousands of years. If we needed our heals raised, they would now be so. As simple as that. The entire build-up has been optimized for flat feet, and the moment you change it at the bottom, everything shifts away from its optimal position, and â because our bodies are super adaptive â we start compensating. Our knees, our hips, our pelvis, our spine, our back, our neck â all this should be aligned, but it is not, because the raised heels send our hips forward, and the compensation bends and twists everything above and below.
So why do doctors and shoemakers think within the box of raised heels? Because they are raised in a society where this is accepted as a norm, and most of them never remember to question the system. What we perceive as standard, we donât usually doubt. Itâs a given.
The next thing that may come to mind is the width of the toebox. Our visual standards have been fixed on narrow toeboxes, but have you ever placed your bare feet over your shoes from above? The two shapes are not the same, your toes spread wider than the shoe. And if you try to do a few pushups with your fingers pressed together, you will start asking questions about how comes we donât let our toes, carrying our entire body weight, splay as wide as only possible. Could the answer be: out of an unquestioned, old, non-scientific habit?
We tend to ridicule the ancient Chinese who deformed young girlsâ feet in too short shoes for the sake of beauty standards⌠but donât we actually do the same, only in a different way? Isnât there a prevailing preference for small feet in women? Donât the majority of women, who are forced into even narrower shoes then men and who are expected to add extra strain by wearing high heels develop painful bunions?
An example of Chinese shoes for bound feet:
When we try flat shoes and feel uncomfortable in them, it may be rooted in two main factors: 1. our toes are cramped into a too narrow toebox which messes up the stability of our feet, so we think it is the flat sole, while in fact it is the wrong toebox shape, and 2. we have adapted to the unnatural shoes we wear and our bodies are confused at first when this changes.
But letâs not forget the next question: that of the arch support. Isnât it necessary? My answer is, after having ditched my orthotics: if you have a pain that originates in certain muscles being too weak, do you fix it by totally stopping using those muscles?… Have you ever seen how a broken arm looks after the plaster has been removed? It shrinks from lack of exercise because the muscles are unused, and that happens in just a few weeks. So, what do you think happens when you neglect certain muscles for decades?
But, because experts are socialized in a system that takes the unproven standards of âregularâ footwear for granted, large-scale scientific studies have yet to be conducted once science starts asking the question âwhyâ in regard with all this.
What I can say (and I am not alone, there is a quickly growing barefoot community with thousands and thousands of people who have had similar experience) is that not only has my pain healed, but I have not worn my orthotics for the last 9 months!
A few weeks ago I bought Skinners, a sock-shoe with even more flexibility, and with its help I am now discovering how hard I still hit the ground when landing with each step. Usually, cushioned thick soles hide this shock from your sensors, but it still happens, and the hits run through your body, only you donât feel them and so you stay unaware. When barefoot, you walk in a different way, your steps are smaller, you donât land on the end of your heel, and your gait becomes softer. You of course canât walk around town barefooted for fear of injuries, and some weather conditions ask for protection. So, we need something functional and, because we like to look good, also fashionable â but without the compromises in the natural functioning of our bodies. And this is exactly what barefoot footwear gives you.
Once you start wearing them, you may soon realize that you need to re-learn walking and running in order to again engage sleeping muscles the job of which had been taken care of by other, compensating muscles, creating chronic imbalance in your entire system. I can tell you that I have automatically started using muscles that had been peacefully sleeping most of my life, just by having switched to barefoot shoes. Our bodies are so complex, so well-designed, so much cleverer, stronger and more capable than we usually think, and so immensely good at self-adjustment!
In a way, wearing barefoot shoes helps me reconnect with my body. I trust it more, I listen to it more, and I use it more to connect with the earth, which gives me a rich sense of belonging and reminds me constantly of how I am a part of nature. What a nourishment âmodernâ shoes deprive us of!
If you already wear barefoot shoes, I will keep coming up with systemized information that I collect on the go as well as detailed reviews of all the barefoot shoes I have tried (and I have tried many âşď¸). If you are still considering, I hope that this helps you cross the threshold, and I do hope that barefoot shoes will change your life to the better just like they did change mine. And if you are a newbie, I hope that you agree that there are quite a few critically important questions the mainstream shoe industry and healthcare owe us valid answers to.
Please feel free to comment, and I will react as soon as I can. As I am writing this blog out of enthusiasm in my spare time, I cannot promise prompt replies. Thank you for your kind understanding and interest!