Barefoot GAINZZZ

Has anyone tried "barefoot shoes"? I've been using them for five months now.

I came across these when I was researching an injury. I had twisted my pelvis, with one side rotated forward and lifted upwards above the other one, making that leg short, and making all kinds of PAINZZZ in my back.

In my searches for exercises for a twisted pelvis, barefoot shoes came up, and it was claimed that barefoot shoes corrected your gait, and I thought "maybe my gait is all stupid and gay and I need to do conversion therapy on it," so I bought some.

I didn't see John Wick 4 so let me review: Barefoot Shoes.

Barefoot shoes seek to correct what their designers say are the problems caused by modern shoes.

For example, if you walk barefoot, the muscles of your feet are very active and engaged as they change the shape of your foot to grip the ground you're on and adapt to the uneven surface. But if you always wear shoes with hard soles, or very padded foam rubber soles, your feet are always walking on a flat surface, and the muscles of your feet atrophy and lose their ability to shape themselves to grab the ground.

This, they claim, is what leads to fallen or weak arches -- the muscles of the feet have lost their tone. They don't need to work like they were built to, so they don't.

Another claim -- which I think is conceded even by people who don't recommend barefoot shoes -- is that a heavily padded heel changes the natural human gait. If your heel is very padded, then you'll just walk on your heels, swinging one leg forward, tilting forward, landing on the heel, then swinging the other leg forward, etc. The padded heel lets you do this without hurting your heel and sending a shock through your leg.

The natural human gait is designed for the foot to hit the ground not with the heel but the mid-foot, or shading into the fore-foot if on rough ground. Hitting with the midfoot makes the foot act as a sort of shock absorber as it lands, not all at once as with heel-strike walking, but a little at at time.

Also, toes are not meant to just sit as a slab in five part and move as a unit. They're supposed to move independently, again to grip the ground and navigate uneven surfaces. Modern shoes put toes on a flat sole, and then packed together in a tight toe-box at the front of the shoe -- instead of letting them splaying out in a more monkey-like way.

So barefoot shoes, or minimal shoes, seek to correct those three claimed problems. They have a very minimal sole, sometimes as thin as 5 mm, so your foot is basically almost naked to the ground.

They have a "zero drop," which is way of saying the heel is not built up so that the sole has a chunky wedge-like shape. Zero drop means the heel is no more elevated from the ground than the toes; there's "zero drop" from where the heel is held to where the toes are held.

Finally they have a wide toe box (and sometimes even separate compartments for each toe, which seems like overkill to me) to let your toes Really Explore the Studio Space.

The trouble with the shoes is, of course: They've got barely any padding. That's the whole point, yes, but still: They've barely got any padding.

One guy I listened to conceded yes, we used to walk differently barefoot, but that was on soft natural surfaces like the grassy earth. Now we can barely get to grassy areas. We walk and run on concrete. So we have to add the softness of the primitive earth's surface into the soles of our shoes.

And that's a point. One guy I listened to emphasized that the average person's feet are just not ready at the moment to start logging miles on concrete and asphalt, and that if someone rushes to barefoot shoes without giving the feet a chance to adapt and build up that atrophied musculature, there's a big risk of injury.

I jumped right into barefoot shoes and thankfully did not get injured. But my feet were feeling very tired and beat-up after a couple of months.

I'm now following the advice I read later: Cut your miles by 10%. Then only use barefoot shoes for about 20% of your miles for the first month, using normally-padded shoes for the other 80%. The next month, change the proportion to 40% and 60%. And then do 60% of your miles in the barefoot shoes, taking a break by doing the other 40% in regular shoes. Give the feet the time to recover and adapt.

Until you're finally at 100% barefoot.

I backed off doing 100% barefoot and now do 50% barefoot. I'm now switching between barefoot shoes and regular shoes every other run. I do my harder running with the fully-padded shoes.

Does any of this Trendy Bullshit have any validity?

I'm not sure. Here's what I've noticed:

I've had plantar's fasciitis which would flare up painfully every other month or so. Since I've been wearing barefoot shoes, I've actually haven't had any plantar's fasciitis pain. I have to point out, though, that I wear Easy Feet insoles with a high arch in them inside the barefoot shoes, making them slightly less barefoot.

Are my arches building back up? I don't know how to measure that, but, maybe?

Another point people make is that once you start wearing barefoot shoes a lot, your sensation in your feet starts becoming more acute, as your body starts analyzing nerve input from the feet.

This may be the placebo effect, but yes, I've definitely noticed that my feet now feel the ground much more than they used to. They used to be Meat Slabs that my legs moved; now they're more sensory.

You might now say: Hey dummy, I could not possibly care less about how sensitive to stimulus my feet are. If you thought this would convince me, you are stupider than you look and you look pretty dumb already.

And, well: Fair point. I never once in my life thought, "Boy, I sure do wish I had greater capacity for sensation in my feet." But I'm pointing it out, just because it's something that the advocates of barefoot shoes promised, and I think it's actually true.

But that might just be the power of suggestion. The good news, even if it's just the power of suggestion, no one cares if their feet are sensitive to stimulus or not so it doesn't matter. It literally does not matter and no one cares.

As far as my twisted pelvis: Well, no one ever said barefoot shoes would fix that, and they weren't lying when they didn't say that. I don't think barefoot shoes has fixed my pelvis. I think the problem is that I have an incredibly sedentary job which makes my hip and buttock muscles very weak and then when I go out and exert myself my pelvis is free to get up to all sorts of foolishness, and it does. I haven't twisted my pelvis bad since the injury, but then, I'm going to a chiropractor periodically to get it pulled back into the proper alignment.

To actually fix that, I think I just have to do deadlifts and all sorts of stretching and basic daily calesthenics that I do from time-to-time but just can't stay consistent about.

Drawbacks: There is no getting around the fact that you are essentially barefoot, and you will feel that when you're on concrete. I personally flinch from running hard on concrete. I just don't think my feet are padded enough to take a real pounding. I occasionally sprint on asphalt, which has more give, but in general, I've slowed down in running just because I'm not sure my almost-29 joints can take it. Maybe I can and it would all be fine if I just did it, but I have a mental block stopping me from doing that. I don't want to FAFO.

Also, your walk/run times will definitely be worse. By 10% or more. Heel-strike running or walking may not be natural, but it's a fast gait. You don't run that way in barefoot shoes; you are more on the balls of your feet. So your times will get slower. I'm not sure this matters, because exercise is still exercise even when done with a handicap, but I thought you should know.

If you want to try this Pointless Gimmick: I picked up a super-cheap pair from Amazon for $39, a brand called Oranginer. I walked and ran with them for about two months. I saw a YouTuber recommend Within shoes as the best of all the cheap options -- in fact, this was his second favorite shoe -- so I picked up a pair of those. They're $43 on Amazon. I got the Within Minimalist (or Barefoot) Trail-Runners. I've used those for three months.

They're both good. And obviously these are not very expensive, so it's a fairly cheap experiment to run.

Because they have almost no sole as it is, you can expect a pair to run out in six months to a year of heavy use. There's no way around this; rubber ablates with use, and there's just not a lot of rubber on these shoes to lose before you get a hole.

Neither of my pairs ran out, but I haven't used either for six months.

So, would I recommend them? I kinda would. Not because I can swear they've definitely improve anything (though I do think maybe my arches are stronger now), but because... I mean, an experiment for $43 is a cheap experiment. Just don't go hog-wild in your first few weeks. I do enjoy running up trails and hills and being able to feel the ground and treeroots. Maybe that's just placebo effect, but if a placebo effect makes you enjoy something a bit more, it's a positive placebo effect.

Anyone else have any experience with this sort of thing? Are they worth it? Have your flat feet grown to show off mighty arches?

Or have you tried any other Trendy Dumb Things?

And what are yo' GAINNZZZZ? Any PLANZZZ your making, or SEXXXXY SHELVZZZ you're putting up?

Speaking of that: I really have to move my wall support for my bedroom up on the wall. Not by much; just by like six inches. I want more space under the TV, for a piece of furniture.

It's such a pain in the ass, though, to take it off the wall and just drill new holes six inches above the old ones. I just keep putting it off.

I probably never will. It's currently "Fine."

"Fine" is the enemy of "Actually good." I will probably just continue living with "Fine," and hating myself for it.

posted by Ace at 04:08 PM

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