I’m not going to say that getting out of running shoes and into a barefoot shoe or, better, a barefoot-inspired sandal, is going to give you amazing benefits. It may not allow you to slam dunk a basketball and throw the shot put 75 feet and make you more money and help you get a husband or wife. I’m not going to make claims about specific benefits you’re going to get, because there frankly just isn’t the science to back those claims. That doesn’t mean they aren’t true. It just means that we don’t have good science to back that up so that we can’t legally make some of these claims.
You will hear people making claims all the time and you want to look at them with a grain of salt. The thing that you want to do is to just think logically. Think about this simple question: Is your foot moving naturally or not? Is your foot being supported to move naturally or is the support that you’re getting preventing it from moving naturally?
If you look at a big shoe like a traditional running shoe, it’s elevating your heel, it’s stiff as a brick, it prevents you from feeling anything in the ground. Does that seem like that will be good for you? If you put your arm in a cast and you keep it there, is that good for you or does your arm come out weaker over time? After that you either need to strengthen it or, if you don’t take the time to strengthen it again, another cast. Even many “barefoot” shoes are really flexible across the top just at the forefoot. It’s lightweight, it has less of a heel, but it’s still the same basic idea – stiff along the midfoot and that shape doesn’t even fit my foot.
There are benefits that people claim you will get – getting rid of plantar fasciitis, getting rid of flatfeet, helping with high arches, getting rid of knee pain or back pain or hip pain or neck pain, all these things. If you think about them, if you use your muscles, ligaments and tendons and body correctly, it would make sense that these things can happen. We can’t promise that they will happen and we don’t want to until there’s science to back it up. What we say until then is just think about this logically. If it makes sense to you, give it a try. See what happens when you feel the freedom, feel the fun and feel the world of using your body naturally – natural fit, natural function, natural feel.
