Running barefoot - How it can improve your form and prevent injuries

Could ditching your modern running shoes be the secret to injury-free running? while research on this specific topic has not reached an unanimous conclusion to support this statement, the "natural running" movement is in full force, and has the support of running enthusiasts, and medical experts alike. 

According to the American Podriatic Medical Association (APMA), running in  barefoot or minimalist shoes fosters a more efficient running pattern, as well as healthier foot mechanics while striding" 

This is due to barefoot strides usually being shorter, more compact, and alining better with your lower torso than cushioned strides. In other words, each of your strides is more aligned with your body's center of gravity, causing your knees and joints to better absorb the impact of each step. 

Furthermore, there is evidence that "barefoot" running actually helps improve flat feet. As previously explained in our blog, barefoot shoes improve feet muscle development, this collateral muscle growth improves stability, specially flat arch stability. 

Another issue that runners often encounter is Plantar Fasciitis, also known as heel pain, and the APMA research suggest that minimalist shoes might hold part of the solution to this problem. Again, as running with cushioned soles has repeatedly been proven to weaken your feet overtime, ditching the cushion and leaving your natural feet mechanics to thrive and develop muscle can lead to relieved symptoms of pain and heel load. 

As we keep exploring the extensive body of research that encompasses barefoot shoes, we learn more and more about the perfect mechanics of our feet, and how the 4 million years of evolution that lead to it's modern structure should be left to do it's thing rather than trying to shove them in unnatural modern casings. However, we encourage you to dig in deeper to the topic of feet health, and how the modern shoe industry might be leading us down the wrong path!

Thank you always for reading, and here are the pieces of research we analyzed in this particular post: 

Cleveland Clinic Research 

American Podriatic Medical Association