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Does anyone else habitually go unshod for health reasons?
This is something I picked up a few years ago, but basically, my logic is that:
- It's what evolution designed us for (shoes only go back about 40,000 years)
- Objects on the ground aren't a threat if you watch where you're going, unless you're someplace you'd probably rather not walk even in shoes
- Hookworm is actually species specific, and human hookworm isn't an actual threat unless you're in a third world country (or Alabama, apparently)
- It's the thickest skin on your body (especially if it's given the chance to "properly" develop), so general dirt is a non-issue
- It's actually probably more hygienic considering you probably clean your feet much more frequently than your shoes (which are warm, moist and dark)
- As an extra, the health department (any health department) actually doesn't care what customers do - feel free to verify this yourself
You kind of have to retrain yourself, as far as both gait (forefoot strike instead of heel strike) and gaze ("scan" ahead every few seconds), but you absolutely can acclimate to it, so thoughts of "I could never!" are probably wrong.
When I was a kid I walked barefoot EVERYWHERE. It was kind of a point of pride (in that weird "I don't wear a jacket when it's cold" kind of way.) But I also just genuinely didn't like the feeling of shoes on my feet. I developed such insane calluses that I could easily walk on sharp gravel without much discomfort, and pinecones were no challenge at all. One of my vivid childhood memories is walking down the road to visit a friend in summer and him taking his shoes off and burning his feet quite badly on the asphalt. I legitimately couldn't even feel that it was burning hot.
Of course nowadays I rarely go out without shoes and my feet have become big wussies. I kinda miss the old days though haha
That being said the area where I lived was very rural. No chance of needles, and not much broken glass or construction debris around, and I would never go out into public without shoes, that's just pretty gross to walk around a store without shoes on, even if it's just a social pressure thing.
My ex-military feet have done exactly the same.
Used to be able to put SERIOUS distance in and still do it the next day. I walk 25KM these days and I'm falling apart for a week.
I'm not sure where you're getting that 40,000 number from; seems off to me. Regardless, the obvious counterpoint is that we no longer live in the world our bodies evolved to thrive in. Most people are not hunter-gatherers walking all day in plains. Most people are walking on hardwood, concrete, or asphalt all day. This is devastatingly bad for bare feet.
I think a great middle ground are no-drop minimalist shoes like Lem's. They promote the natural foot articulation of being barefooted but offer much-needed protection in the modern world. These are basically all I wear. I have their Nine-to-Fives for the office, their Boulder Boots for outside, and their Primal 2 for hiking/other outdoor activities not on asphalt.
It was definitely a tough transition going from highly-supportive New Balances to Lem's, but my feet (and whole body) are better for it. I'd never go back to "modern" shoes. I think minimalist shoes are really the best of both worlds.
Second paragraph.
Again, with proper gait, it's actually not. Shoes dramatically reduce the sensory feedback your feet get about the ground they're standing on, which could very logically result in problems with, just for example, weight distribution (favoring one side over the other).
As someone who wears Lem's myself at work, no, not quite. Any sole is still going to nudge the fulcrum away from where it would be naturally, thus preventing true adherence to the natural gait. They're much better than "standard" shoes, yes, but they're still not as good for you as going without altogether (provided you watch where you're going).
Thank you for the shoe recommendation! I've been looking for some shoes to wear inside the house (immersive daydreamer, I pace a lot), and Lems looks like a good option. Especially since it has wide options.
I keep a pair of Lem's Drifters in my car for "house shoes" when I go over to people's houses cause I really don't like wearing just socks in other people's houses. Work great for that.
I do get your reasoning, but from hiking around here (SW England): objects on the ground are a threat in some places where I'd cheerfully wear shoes. Example -- footpaths through the foundations of demolished military buildings near here. There's grass growing over all sorts of sharps just off-footpath. And hidden potholes/rabbit-holes in the longer grass, some of which again have wire etc in them. You can look all you like, but a few will still sneak up on you. Or steep footpaths where there are broken flint pieces just under the surface -- loads of those around here. That said there are some places like the tops of huge chalk hills that invite going barefoot -- moss, grass and a just a good vibe for it. I never miss the chance to kick the shoes off up there :)
Not I. I literally have hookworms intentionally for medical reasons but grimy feet just ick me out the way wearing boots in bed or sand in socks would.
Is it working? I hope so!
In general, I am skeptical of anything based on what evolution “designed us” to do. Most of us naturally have something we use to augment the natural, such as glasses, vaccines, sunscreen etc. Personally I appreciate not having died in childbirth.
I like going barefoot in the garden, until I step on a rock or bee hidden in the grass. Yeah, I’d get callused eventually, but why put myself through that just to be natural?
This is definitely a healthy skepticism to have. People use “it’s natural” or “we evolved for it” to justify and peddle all sorts of inane or harmful nonsense. And doing something only because humans used to do that thing is for sure fallacious.
Shoes, though… shoes are kind of interesting. There’s no question that there’s some value in protecting the bottom of your foot from sharp things, but:
There are some surprising tradeoffs here! Your body thinks that sensing the ground through the soles of your feet is so important that it will dramatically increase the sensitivity of nerve endings in your feet if there’s something (say, a thick rubber sole) in the way, trying to sense “through” the obstruction. This is why I can walk over medium gravel barefoot, while most folks who regularly wear modern shoes wouldn’t dream of it.
Modern shoes do a lot more than protect the sole of your foot! Just to list a few:
a) They totally change the way your foot “lands” when you’re walking. This is partly because of a lack of feedback (you can’t feel the painful jolt when you land on your heel if you have shoe sole to cushion you), and partly because of the way they hold your foot in place, rather than letting it flex and adjust.
b) Speaking of which, they hold your foot in place! In very many ways, the “support” provided by shoes hinders muscle growth in your feet and lower legs, actually making you more susceptible to injury in the long term, as well as making you increasingly reliant on shoes for that support. The first thing any newly unshod runner notices is how unbelievably sore their calves and ankles are after even a half-mile run.
c) They squish your damn toes! This is just an extension of holding your feet in place, but most modern shoes (even some that claim to have “large toeboxes”) really smoosh your toebox, forcing your poor toes to actually grow in the wrong shape. This is literally what bunions are! Comparing the foot shapes of shod and unshod folks is honestly jarring. And the change isn’t just aesthetic; reduced toeboxes result in poorer balance and reduced foot and lower leg strength, which contributes to serious health risks later in life!
This is so true. I ran cross country, but always in shoes, and would heel strike each step. I switched from super cushioned running shoes to the barefoot Vibram shoes and landing on my toes. I did an easy half mile run to a friend's house and talked for a minute. When I was ready to run back home my calves locked up and I needed my friend to drive me home! I had the worst DOMS in my calves for 2 weeks and could barely walk.
I have a pair of vibram fivefingers that I run with when I get into my rare exercising moods. Recently started up again after probably a couple years of no running at all, and after a 1 mile run I could barely walk for a couple days and was still waddling around for another day or two after that because my calves hurt so much.
I saw a really interesting Youtube short a while back. Some guy was explaining that almost every shoe you'll find in a major retailer is going to be the classic oval-shaped shoe, but that's not at all how our feet are shaped. I've been looking into "foot-shaped shoes," because I have a bit of a wide foot and anything without the "W" in the size squished my poor clompers.
I'm thinking about pulling the trigger on getting some athletic or hiking shoes from this website, but I'll be looking around some more.
Ok this is just too curious not to ask, what purpose do hookworms serve for medical reasons?
Autoimmune disorders (like Crohn's) may use parasites for helminthic therapy.
Coeliac disease, too. I was given a bandaid squirted with 40-44 microscopic larvae as part of a clinical trial and unless I get in the habit of pooping on the ground and walking on it, that's all I'll ever have (at least for a few more years until they naturally die off).
Clinical trial as per my other comment.
Hookworms naturally have a mild immunosuppressant ability to keep the body from rejecting them. The theory is that after evolving with that for tens of thousands of years we basically dewormed the world in two generations and that's where the rise of allergy-ridden children has come from.
Since no ethics board is going to approve intentionally putting parasites in children, we're unlikely to ever prove that theory but it does have mild clinically measurable effects on adults with certain symptoms so when the trial was over basically all the participants choose to keep them (hookworms can't complete their reproductive cycle within the gut so we will only ever have less than the 40ish we were initially infected with). In a few years they'll die off naturally or I can go to any chemist and have them gone within 48 hours.
Very interesting! I love the studies being done with parasites and symbiotes, its fascinating
You have hookworm on purpose?
Oh! This is really interesting. Thanks for sharing (and for answering others' questions downthread).
I used to be okay walking around town barefoot. Then I got a dog. After having my own dog and seeing how many dogs there are in my neighborhood I realized that every inch of these sidewalks must be absolutely saturated in pee. Then I stopped.
I go barefoot, as most Canadians do, indoors, but I've come out of a puddle with a shard of glass embedded in my shoe while hiking a trail so I'm not gonna go bare anytime soon.
Evolution doesn't design anything, it just a collection of random changes. At best these changes can improve your chances of reproducing before you die and at worst aren't a big enough detriment to prevent you from reproducing before you die. We evolved to be bipedal, it takes less energy and allows us to stalk four legged prey until they are literally too exhausted to run anymore, but don't forget our feet started off a fins meant for swimming and forcing them into foot configuration doesn't necessarily mean they are 100% optimized for this purpose, it's just that it works well enough that our ancestors got resources to successfully procreate.
I couldn't agree more with you. A lot of folks feel that evolution is almost magical in that it seeks the optimal solution, but as you say, evolution doesn't optimize for quality of life, it optimizes for survival. And you have to reason—our intelligence was also a product of evolution. If most of us are intelligent enough to use tools that protect our fleshy foot nubs, there might be something to that.
Of course, I'm totally fine with the fact that some folks (OP?) want all ten toes exposed 24/7. Wiggle those babies with pride. Ehh, it's just not me, y'know?
I hate shoes. Hate them. I wear them, even around the house (ever step in a hairball in the middle of the night?) but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
As a kid, teen, and even young adult? Barefoot as much as possible. Even in summer (crossing a black asphalt street barefoot in August is an acquired taste.) As such, my heels are armored like rhinoceros hide.
I find the idea of shoes in the house just a totally alien, unthinkable concept. Why would you wear them indoors and is it a cultural thing?
I'm from the UK. Most houses I enter I'm expected to take my shoes off as you enter. Exceptions for quick visits on hard surface floors. I generally let traders walk around my (hard surface) ground floor in their shoes too.
Unless we're talking about slippers of course.
Or what about on furniture? Or in bed?? When I see that in movies it feels like nails on a chalkboard haha
I grew up in a semi-rural place that was very shoes-in-the-house agnostic. I have been living in Asia for 12 or so years, and now the idea is bizarre to me. However, when I visit home I always enjoy being able to go in and out of the house barefoot.
Well, I should note that the shoes I wear indoors are slip-on sneakers that never go outdoors. They're essentially ruggedized slippers. That said, in the US shoes indoors are fairly common, even though shoeless houses are a growing trend.
Agreed. I’m Canadian and the idea of wearing shoes in your house is so strange to me.
It's an interesting argument, CIRC if you go without shoes your toes spread back out again like nature intended.
Alas, I grew up on a farm and got punctured by thistles a LOT a kid, so it's a hard pass for me. I don't even like walking on grass barefoot. Also, plenty of rusty nails to be very careful about (tetanus shots are no joke).
I loathe walking on driveways as stones are horridly uncomfortable. Syringes at beaches, that's also a big watch-out. Oh, ever been around box thorn bushes? Also, a no. Ooh, sticky pub floors from spilt beer. Heck some areas of some cities have pretty icky sidewalks with people urinating in public (usually from meth/drug users or near pubs)
Ill stick to icky shoes.
I guess this could be a bit of a regional question too.
Considering you're referring to "pubs", I'm guessing you're in the UK. I'm in Florida; we dont have thistles, but we do have sandspurs. I've noticed these only grow in dry areas; either sand, or sandy dirt that isn't getting enough water. Admittedly, I spend a lot of time on concrete, where I can clearly see anything injurious before I step on it.
What the fuck? What kind of hellhole are UK beaches? In my experience neither Clearwater nor Daytona are anywhere near that bad. Haven't been to Miami though.
So... I can see an "ick" factor at work here that I don't think is rational, especially with the beer (it's just sticky...). Urine is grosser, sure, but... While I acknowledge that "urine is sterile" is a myth, as long as you don't have an open wound, nothing in it should be an actual threat (just a reason to wipe your feet before you enter someplace you care about).
Bougainvilleas? Watch your step, and those things can punch through thin soled shoes.
So yeah, I do think this is somewhat regional (syringes on beaches... unbelievable).
Around the house or right outside, sure I'll go barefoot. Anywhere else is a definite no from me for a variety of safety and comfort reasons.
I used to have a girlfriend in high school who did this though, she'd be barefoot every season except winter. She had some STRONG feet, and I admired her spirit and conviction, but it's not easy on the feet.
I used to like doing this more when I was younger, until I cut through the underside of my feet a few times and they got messed up in ways that took a few months to get better.
RIP
For the past few years I have been exclusively wearing "barefoot" style shoes with thin, flexible soles. At this point, I can't imagine ever wearing ordinary shoes again. It has improved my orthopedic health tremendously. When I was growing up, we would wear shoes to school and in stores (or if we were skating), but were pretty much barefoot the rest of the time. Where I live now, walking barefoot around town is a highly awkward and sometimes rude thing to do, yet barefoot hiking and walking barefoot on gravel or cobble are widely considered to have great health benefits. Most parks have a barefoot walking area/course of some kind. As far as dangers go, I get scraped pretty good during summer from treading over jagged rocks along rivers and creeks. Or even just being oafish on smooth riverbank cobble. Like you said, take your time and you are fine most of the time. It takes getting used to. Not only the being barefoot, but also strengthening your muscles and tendons and adapting your gait. This is especially true for running.
Heck yeah, my people!! I haven’t worn much more than some Xero Shoes Clouds or Z Trails in years. My feet despise “shoe-shaped” shoes at this point!
I ran the Philly half marathon totally barefoot a few months ago and had a great time. I even trained unshod in Brooklyn and Manhattan for my first half marathon! Probably five times in the last five years I’ve managed to get small rock or piece of glass in my foot, but with all of the callousing, it’s usually just a minute or two of bloodless tweezering to remove it. I’ve never stepped on a hypodermic needle… seems like a thing that would be challenging to do by accident, honestly (I do look where I’m stepping!)
Most of the tweezing I've had to do has been from sandspurs. Glass has only been a thing two or three times, but I've had it draw a little blood. That was easily solved with a little alcohol.
Honestly I'm not sure how you could seriously injure yourself without a lack of due care.
I have a relevant anecdote!
When the pandemic first hit, my wife and I were able to escape the greater metropolitan area in which we live to my family's lake cottage up in Michigan, where after getting some decent wifi sorted, we could both work remotely. The immediate area is pretty rustic and unpaved, and I spent most of my time barefoot, walking dirt paths and wooden decks. It felt great.
However, about a month and a half in, I started getting itchy on the center of the soles of my feet, right in the arch, in a rough kind of line. It was worse on one foot than the other, but neither was good, and the itching progressed to the point where it started interfering with my sleep from time to time. I started developing blisters there, several of which seemed to have tiiiiiny black dots on or in them. Antihistamines and steroid creams did nothing; neither did the anti-parasite pills I eventually got a prescription for.
Eventually we got a 2nd opinion and the doc basically shugged and said "I have no idea what's going on here, but maybe try some wart remover?" And by God, it worked; dried the blisters out and sloughed them off and they were gone in under a week along with the associated little black dots and any itching.
I never did figure out what happened, but my guess is that somehow I stepped on a hairy caterpillar -- of which there are no shortage in the area -- and basically had an ongoing low-level allergic reaction to getting a small number of the hair-like spines stuck in my feet. Suffice to say, though, that I am much more restrained about walking around in my bare feet when I go up to the lake cottage.
I grew up in Eastern Europe. Spent my summer breaks in my grandparents village. Dirt roads and all that. We walked barefoot everywhere: in the backyard, on the roads, in the fields. My grandparents did too, to the point where the soles of their feet were thick as leather. Once my grandma walked around with a thorn in her sole and she didn't feel it was there. We never walked barefoot in the city though. Hot summer pavement burns like a motherfucker.
I live in Canada now and I would never walk barefoot in public places, or allow my kids to. There's a risk of stepping on a needle at any time. My 3rd world home country was safer from this point of view.
Yes and no. I love the general idea of being barefoot. I grew up in a small town, hours away from the nearest city. Barefoot was the norm around the farming community. Obviously required in stores and whatnot, but at homes, we'd take off our shoes and run in and outside all day. Now that I've grown up, moved to a more urban area, it's not feasible to be barefoot when I leave my home. The sidewalks here are nasty.
However, I am a big fan of "barefoot" shoes. I wear vibram fivefingers (the toe shoes) for all of my running, hiking, kayaking, and backpacking. It's not completely barefoot, but far more minimalist that most footwear. They're like gloves to protect my feet. They take getting used to - I've been wearing them for more than a decade and, though it no longer hurts, I do feel every rock beneath my feet. And there is no arch support at all. And if I remember correctly, they lost a lawsuit when they were a big fad because people were switching to them and hurting themselves. So if you're interested, and you currently wear shoes everywhere, you need to start slow and build up strength in your feet and any muscles you use differently than when you wear a normal shoe.
Good shout on the adjustment period. A weird addendum maybe: as a teen, I started wearing barefoot shoes after having such bad ankle tendonitis that I needed medical attention. After six months or so of wearing the prescribed footwear with an elastic brace, I decided to start wearing the brace with a pair of vibram fivefingers. Awkward looking? Yes. Hard to put on? Absolutely. However, I'm sure that doing so sped up my acclimation.
That kind of brace makes leaving a healthy foot posture uncomfortable enough that your muscles have to at least try to support the arch. So, if anyone's interested in barefoot shoes but knows they have especially weak feet or ankles, that'd be my recommendation.
I stay barefoot around the house most of the time, just to let my feet get plenty of air, to avoid athlete's foot (which is miserable, if you've never had it). It's also cooler. I don't go out much like this, because the bottoms of my feet are still a bit tender. My grandfather never went outside barefoot, and had very tender feet. He used to joke that "stepping on a sharp shadow" was painful to him. 😂️
Not habitually, but I've been wearing minimalist and extreme minimalist footwear for 7 or 8 years now. Exclusively. I even hike portions of the AT in xero shoes sandals.
Yeah. I cannot wear normal shoes now outside of work because it feels weird to have a heel.
Altra, Topo Athletic, and Merrell Trail glove are what I usually wear.
This is such an alien idea to me that I honestly forgot that “shod” is a word and was convinced that there was some sort of spelling error in your title.
As a child I would often go out barefoot, but I stepped on glass one time too many. People are dicks and will smash their beer bottles anywhere for no apparent reason. And since those glass pieces look just like any other pebble after they’ve been shuffled around enough, I could only assume glass was everywhere.
Besides that, my father was an asshole and never wanted to wait for me to put on shoes for anything, so he basically expected me to be wearing them at all times.
I'm sold in principle, but for practical reasons, I mostly wear boots. Chiefly, the social signalling power of wearing nice but practical shoes while otherwise dressed down, and broken glass/needles in my city. Therefore, when I don't need to be presentable (think exercise or walking the dog, groceries), I usually wear a pair of minimalist wide-toe sandals. ~5-8mm thick soles, depending on the pair, and tight enough straps to sprint in. There may be some slight reduction in orthopedics compared to the ideal of barefoot, but I find it hard to believe that an 8 oz piece of leather or 5 mm of high density neoprene is doing more harm than good.
Yes and no. I fell into it, but feel the benefits and have won a few converts to minimalist footwear in my family. I go unshod because I think wearing shoes in my home when I'm not going in/out do do shoe-required activities is dumb, and have been that way most of my life, which may be why my feet are wider than average.
I bought my first pair of Xero Shoes because Injust wanted a simple sandal. I hadn't worn minimalist shoes because they were just as hard to find as anything else in my size. Then Xero Shoes did shoes, and brand loyalty compelled me to try them.
I worked in restaurants and could only wear New Balance 623 V6s as anything else destroyed my feet and ankles because I was large and overweight, and a restaurant-safe mininalist shoe didn't exist yet (there's a slip-resistant Prio now). In the rest of my life I transitioned to barefoot shoes, mostly Prios, and evem have a pair of Birchbury dress shoes for my new career, which are the most comfortable dress shoe I own.
That said I'm in Xero sandals as much as possible (a DIY pair of Genesis or their San Marcos). I'll even hike in them given the chance. I did the Mist Trail in Yosemite in a pair I still have, and people tripped out, but I was able to take my sandals off, run around on the dry granite at the top of the falls, and switch to Prios for the walk down.
I live in a city, I'm not going anywhere barefoot. Concrete, pebbles, broken glass and plastic, the occasional syringe, not to mention human spit and piss as well as dog shit and piss. I'm not putting my bare feet anywhere near any of that. I don't even like wearing sandals and I actually hate flip-flops. My feet go in socks the moment I wake up and they don't leave till shower time.
As for out in nature, I'll go barefoot at a nice beach otherwise nah.
I wear flip flops outdoors and in unfamiliar places like stores, but I avoid wearing closed-toed shoes.
For what it's worth, I have genetically flat feet, so I'm not worried about arches (and shoes with arch support hurt to wear).
I am mostly barefoot in life, even while working, and because I truly hate anything on my feet I wear open toe and heel thong type sandals if I have to go out to a store etc, unless it is icy or snowing. My skin has just thickened up over the years, and even Michigan cold winters aren't much of an issue.
I live in a major city that is pretty dirty so I'd never go barefoot around town, but I truly hate shoes. I only have two pairs, and really only wear the sandals most of the year. My feet have gotten considerably wider across the toes over the decades as a result, and they do seem to splay and grip in an unusual way.
Yes but only a couple blocks at most, it feels good and it's probably good for my feet
I have a friend who is barefoot and he does well enough, but he can’t keep up with me on the trail.
At least in NC there is no state requirement for shirt or shoes inside any public places, I suspect that is a racial/class thing done by certain establishment to keep out “undesirables. “
All the time. I used to run in Nike and such minimalists shoes. Then I switched to low-profile running shoes like Shammas and they are killer. I have been running about 10K every other day on my running sandals without issues, pain, or recovery. My arches and feet are healthier. Even when I am not running, I am walking around my home barefoot.
What about the arch of your foot? Does it fall walking flat foot all the time?
My (admittedly unprofessional) understanding is that denying your feet arch support allows the natural musculature to develop strength and correct fallen arches.
It's... the opposite, actually! It makes me so sad to see this question (it's not specific to you, so many people think this way!). There are several different causes of "fallen arches" or "flat feet" (including congenital biomechanical issues), but arch support does not prevent or help with fallen arches, it just addresses the symptoms by doing the work that your tendons should be doing on their own.
Walking barefoot (especially since childhood) means no arch support, but it also means no shoes restricting the activation of the muscles in your lower legs and feet. This should lessen the likelihood of fallen arches, because you're strengthening the parts of your legs and feet that are responsible for maintaining your arches in the first place.
That's not to say that going barefoot will resolve existing arch issues (I have no idea if this is true or not, though it is the case that there are arch exercises that have been shown to improve arch mechanics). And for folks who have already developed arch issues, dropping arch support will likely cause discomfort or pain, since your body has developed around the expectation of that support. But it certainly won't do any harm to the actual mechanical structure of your foot!
Apparently both I and my mother have "naturally" high arches (though at this point, I'm not sure what "natural" or "genetic predisposition" even is for the human foot). They certainly haven't fallen since I've abandoned traditional footwear.
I wear boots (wide ones) at work for safety/professional reasons, but if I'm off work I'm barefoot (indoors) or in Vibram Fivefingers (outdoors). Yes, they look silly. But I no longer need orthotic shoe inserts and I don't have bunion pain anymore, even in my boots. I put a few miles on the toe shoes most weeks, and though my feet are a bit sore after and I have to watch for gravel, I think it's worth it to have feet that feel better at work.
Shoes made from leather were much more breathable than the plastic ones we buy cheap today. They'd absorb your sweat, dry off, and be ready for use later or the next day. Humans developed footwear for reasonable, evolutionary, and intelligent reasons. We live longer because of our advances in health and science.
I'd never go unshod into a public place. There's too much risky stuff out there. You shouldn't either.