I bought a pair of barefoot shoes recently. If you haven't heard about this type of shoe, it's kind of a loosely-defined category, but generally means:
- It's wider than a typical shoe. Your feet should not be constrained by the "walls" of the shoe.
- The materials are thin and flexible. It should not be very rigid or provide much support.
- The sole should be flat, with no elevated heel.
Barefoot shoes have gained an almost religious following. I'm not a full convert, but I have enjoyed wearing mine at the gym -- for the most part.
I don't really need many features in a shoe; I do a pretty basic strength training workout. Like, the kind of workout that many people wear Converse for. And for that, they're great. Actually, really great. The sole is very thin and flat, which feels good for squats. And when doing things like lunges, I feel like they have forced me to improve my balance and stability, since the shoe itself is not helping you at all in that department.
I've also started running recently, after not doing that for many years. I have also enjoyed wearing these while running, but with the caveat that I'm running on a soft, rubber surface track. I think if I was running on pavement, I couldn't wear these. By design, they have very little cushion, and I think that would be painful if I wasn't running on a soft surface. In fact, even just walking down the street with them was a little jarring the first day, although I've gotten used to it now (and might have softened my stride a little, too).
The pair I bought are the Xero Dillon Canvas. I don't buy into all of the health benefits that the barefoot crowd often claims you get from this type of footwear, but I have definitely liked them for the gym. I'd buy them for the same reason that you'd buy a pair of Converse: they're thin and flat, but these are even thinner and flatter. I also like that they're easy to carry around. They take up very little space in the gym bag.
Aesthetically, at first they look strange because of their wider toe box, but that's just because they're wider than what you're used to seeing on your feet. That feeling soon wore off, and I think they look like just plain old sneakers now, especially when viewed from the side. I doubt other people would even notice anything different about them.
Specific to the pair I bought: I got the white ones, and the canvas material gets dirty very easily. But I found that they're easy to clean with soap and water. (See a before/after photo here.)
Has anyone else tried a pair of barefoot shoes before? What did you think?
Picked up Merrell Road Gloves about fifteen years ago because they fit well and were 40% off. Wore them for a while, then ditched them after about six months.
Fast forward about two years and I read an article about the cave man marathon guy who runs marathons barefoot.
That article laid out the benefits of toe splay and strengthening your feet instead of relying on cushioning.
I dug the old Merrells out and tried them again, this time intentionally focusing on toe splay and trying not to just heel strike every step.
Within a month of walking my dogs like that twice a day my feet and calves were much stronger.
I have a different problem now. I've worn through two pair of road gloves now and they don't make then any more.
I've tried a couple of other zero drop shoes but none provided the same support and comfort of those Merrells.
It seems now that companies have discovered the community of barefoot shoe aficionados and are using full advantage, producing either cardboard garbage shoes or molded rubber garbage shoes. There are still some good options but I have been burned too many times ordering online and within a week running into issues. The Xero "100% waterproof hiking shoe" was particularly disappointing, as it was not waterproof, no good for hiking, and basically garbage that I now use for light yard work.
So, yes, I definitely would agree that if you have a good pair of supportive barefoot shoes there are helpful benefits to using them, but finding the right shoe is a challenge.
Just out of curiosity and as a non-barefoot-shoe-user: what support do you miss? I thought the whole point was to be as little supported as possible without being fully barefoot
Little bit late to this thread, but when I was into barefoot-like zero drop shoes I rotated between three shoes with three very different characteristics:
Vibram Five Fingers (no padding, no support): These toe shoes had a very flexible sole (and upper), with basically no padding in the sole. If you took the empty shoes and propped them up with their heels on the ground, with toes facing the sky, you would be able to crush the shoes from above with very little resistance. Similarly, if you wore them and stood on your toes, the shoe itself would provide no assistance for bracing your foot against that vertical pressure. They had minimal padding in the sole, so any hard impact from the sole would transfer to your foot itself.
Merrell Road Gloves (no padding, stiffer sole): These had a stiff but thin, unpadded sole. If you stood them up on their heels and tried to crush them from the toes you'd meet more resistance because the sole would slightly resist being deformed. Like the VFFs, there was no padding though, so all impact from the soles would be transferred to the foot. These were my preferred shoes for training runs, and I used them for deadlifts in the gym, too.
Nike Free 3.0, at least the first version back in like 2009 or 2010 (some padding, flexible sole): These had a padded but flexible sole. In that toe crush test I described, the sole would provide very little resistance to being deformed from toe to heel. But, it did have some padding, so the actual impact of runs could absorb some shock. Each generation of this show moved away from the actual barefoot feel, though, so this description wouldn't apply to later versions, or whatever it is Nike is doing these days.
Once I learned that the original Nike Free 3.0 was discontinued and the later versions don't feel the same, I saved my original pair only for race days, and ran like 3 half marathons and a few 5ks in them. Eventually they wore out, though, and I pretty much stopped running real distances for a bunch of other reasons unrelated to the availability of my favorite shoes.
There seems to be a lot more nuance about barefoot shoes than I realised!
Sorry to hear that your favourite pair has been discontinued/changed too much. Similarly I also rarely wear my favourite pair of sandals because they are perfect but no longer produced
The Merrell had a formed sole that gave juuust a tiny bit of a curve under the arch. That's it, nothing crazy, but since it was my first barefoot shoe I just got used to it
Thanks for the clarification! I can see that that makes it hard to find a new good shoe