Am currently reading this book. Just wondering what people here think of barefoot running shoes. I know my husband is a fan. Personally when I got some barefoot shoes (before my running days) a few years back , my feet started getting the most excruciating cramps ever! At first I didn’t understand why , then I worked out it was the shoes! (After a trip to the chiropodist!) So that was the end of barefoot shoes for me.
The book makes out trainers are worse than anything 🧐
The problem isn’t so much the running shoe... it’s more the shoes we wear daily. I read an article by a bio mechanical specialist Dr... and I’ve looked at footfall at junior parkrun. Every kid there lands their feet perfectly, according to the way we are told we should run... there are no heel strikes. This stops in non runners somewhere around year 7 at school due to our daily shoes having at least a small heel. Running shoes compensate for that and allow us to heel strike with less pain. So the chiropodist is both right and wrong.
I work from home and don’t wear shoes in the house... I have done this for years, and even when I went out to work I was barefooted in the house. I think this has helped me get on with minimalist running shoes. A lot of top African athletes never wore shoes and learned to run barefoot... and that’s cited as a reason for us to run barefooted, but we don’t have their history... or more specifically their feet!
Injury rates haven’t changed in runners since the introduction of the running shoe, but comfort has improved. Most proponents of minimalist shoes say to choose the shoe on comfort... which also implies that they’re not for everyone.
Nike admit that there’s no medical report/research ever done to show that their traditional shoes lessen injuries, but their “free” range did have such reports. Other minimalist shoes have higher injury rates than regular ones.
I think this underlines the right shoes for you are the right shoes... and coming over to minimalist needs doing gradually, if at all.
I’ve just started that too but I have yo really concentrate hard to avoid my mind drifting off!
I over pronate so I think I need the structure of stability shoes.
I've heard it can take up to a year to get used to running "barefoot". You have to take it gradually.
Strangely it's the same with horses if they've always been shod - can take months for them to become comfortable being ridden "barefoot"!!
You’d think Nike would spend money on researching how running shoes affect performance... 🧐 Sounds like your feet are very strong then UNM ! 👍🏻
Barefoot running 
So I braved the scary running shop
barefoot running - any tips?
30 min consolidation run
