My Foot Journey
originally posted 9/24/2020
I recently listened to a wonderful podcast all about the evolution and subsequent devolution of our feet. In the episode, Dr. Peter Attia interviews Dr. Irene Davis, a researcher and expert in all things feet and running mechanics. I’m also on my third (or fourth) reading of Sapiens, which I can’t recommend enough. It’s a deep dive into the origin of humans. All of this of course, coincided with the birth of my son. This got me thinking about his development, and specifically, what kinds of footwear we’ll put him in as he’s growing up. Shoes have barely been around for most of human history when you stop and realize that we’ve been walking around on two feet for almost two million years.
The podcast recommends minimalist footwear, more time barefoot, and staying away from maximally cushioned running shoes. Today, however, I want to share with you my foot journey and how I curated my healthy, resilient feet and why I’m not always so fast to recommend a minimalist shoe for everyone.
It all started in 2010.
I was in college and I was spending the summer interning and training hard for the upcoming hockey season at a strength and conditioning gym.
One day, someone brought us in a copy of Born to Run. If you’re not familiar, McDougall’s book is a wonderful exploration of running mechanics and history of human beings using running to survive.
I was anti-running at the time. I was bad at it, it always hurt and I found it incredibly boring. I did however appreciate the ancestral perspective of the book. Of how humans needed to run in order to track down game to eat. Something Harari talks about in Sapiens as well. Back then of course, there were no Nikes, no Hokas, no shoes at all. Just bare feet on earth. That made sense to me. I found it fascinating at how adaptable we were.
Throughout the book McDougall makes reference to a Vibram Five Finger shoe.
Training barefoot was not a new idea to us at the gym. For years we had been doing our deadlifts in socks and squatting exclusively in Converse Chuck Taylor’s. We didn’t do it for health reasons though. We did it for performance. We knew that if our heel was on the ground, instead of raised up by a sneaker, we would transfer force better, and therefore lift more weight.
Now, let me back up just a bit.
While we were spending time training in the gym barefoot, my feet certainly were not in good condition. I had spent most of the past 18 or so years jamming my feet into hockey skates. My little toe had disappeared under my foot, and my three other toes had wedged themselves together. Like most other hockey players, I had developed bone spurs on my heels, aptly named Bauer bumps after a brand of skates.
As I read McDougall’s case against modern footwear, I couldn’t help but feel singled out. His argument made sense to me. I needed to get myself a pair of these five finger shoes.
If you’re not familiar, the Vibram Five Finger shoes are exactly what they sound like. A glove for your feet, if you will. Comprised mostly of neoprene, each toe has it’s own individual sleeve, forcing them to spread out. On the bottom is only a thin slice of rubber there to protect you from hot surfaces, but if you stepped on a small jagged rock, you would really feel it.
After I found a pair, I did something unintentionally intelligent. I only wore them while coaching, probably just a few hours a day. My toes hurt and my arches were sore but I was committed to doing the natural human thing. I only wore them while coaching because they’re silly looking and smell bad.
After a while I started deadlifting in them and then before I knew it I was doing all my training in them.
Fast forward to that winter and I couldn’t stand putting them on they smelled so bad. It was just my luck that New Balance came out with the first shoe in their minimus line at the time. A new concept, this shoe was designed for strength and conditioning, had a wide toe box to let your toes spread, had no arch support, and had only a few millimeters difference between the heel and the toe of the shoe, something known as drop, which I had learned about in Born to Run.
Since these looked like normal shoes, I wore them much more often than the five fingers. To my luck, my feet were ready to spend more time in this style of shoe since I had spent the summer building my tolerance.
Over the years, my toes continued to spread out, my bone spurs have completely disappeared and I try to exclusively wear minimalist shoes, which were barely a thing back when my journey started.
Nowadays, footwear is swinging the other way.
It’s common to see maximally cushioned, high arch, high heeled shoes, and I think we’re missing the boat. Born to Run is to blame for this too. See, after the book, thousands of other people were inspired like me and went out to get themselves some five finger shoes. Runners everywhere ditched their traditional shoes and went right back to training with a less protective, much less forgiving shoe and all of a sudden, minimalist shoes had a bad reputation because so many of these people got injured.
As the shoe’s popularity was grew, Vibram did something stupid. They said their shoes will prevent injuries. They didn’t recommended starting slow, building your tolerance and not trying to do too much too soon. Remember when I said I did something unintentionally intelligent? That was starting slow, only wearing the shoes for 12-15 hours a week at first. I didn’t do any running in them and also worked on stretching, rolling and improving mobility in my feet and ankles.
This led to a somewhat-famous lawsuit, which in my opinion is why maximalist shoes have now become so popular.
People wanted to throw these Five Finger shoes on and expected their running technique to transform into a fluid natural stride like the Tarahumara Indians in Born to Run. It’s not that simple though. Just like it took my feet years and years to start looking more like hockey skates than feet, it takes years of dedication to bring them back to a more natural state.
The reason I’m not too fast to recommend a minimalist style shoe nowadays is because I worry people will expect too much from them too soon. An ideal way to dip your toes in the water is to wear them just at the gym. They’re better to train in. Period. You’ll be more stable, have better balance and wearing them for 3-4 hours a week will slowly let you build up a tolerance to more barefoot time. If you’re a runner, it may take even longer since you’re not going to want to start over. I think running in a shoe your comfortable in while spending some time with shoes off when not running is a good start.
When you’re home, I recommend making sure you get some time with nothing on your feet and you’ve probably seen a lot of people walking around the gym in just their socks, another great way to start rebuilding your feet.
The key point is that your feet were designed to be barefoot. Humans walked around with nothing down there for far longer than Nikes have been around. We’re really good at adapting, which is why it might take you a full year or two until you start feeling more comfortable in a more barefoot style shoe. Expecting too much from your feet is what gets people into trouble and, as I mentioned above, led to the pendulum swing of ultra cushioned shoes that do the exact opposite of what we need.
Today, I still spend as much time in a minimalist shoe as possible. In the podcast, Dr. Irene Davis defines a minimalist shoe and something you can fold up and put in your pocket and has zero difference between the height of the heel and the height of the toe. I realize there’s utility in other shoes and don’t spend all my time in a zero drop shoes. My trail/mountain running shoes have a bit of a lift (4mm) and I even have a cushy pair for days on the trail when I’m feeling beat up. I also wear high heeled olympic lifting shoes when practicing my cleans and snatches..
In summary, your feet are important and jamming them into dress shoes, high heels and traditional sneakers will slowly deform your feet and transform them into something different. Remember, don’t drop your current footwear and go total minimalist yet. Start slow, a few hours a week is enough to build your strength and tolerance. If you play the long game with this I promise it’ll be worth it.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
