Well + Good Asks Podiatrists Why They Love Xero Shoes’ Prio
Category: Barefoot Running Tips
NEW research – Shoes can make you weak and injured
It’s time for another episode of “stupid research.”
Not that the research itself is stupid.
But that those of us who understand the value and benefits of natural movement, and how most “normal” shoes get in the way of letting your feet do what’s natural, are stunned that people need research to prove something obvious:
Using your body naturally is better than restricting it.
In this episode, Harvard’s Dr. Daniel Lieberman, whose research showing about how barefoot runners put less force through their joints than runners in shoes kicked off the barefoot running boom in 2009, just published a new study about footwear.
And the results are not good for “normal” shoes.
In this study published in Nature and described on the Harvard website and Lieberman and others examined the effect of “toe spring.”
Toe spring is the upward curve in a shoe, from the ball of the foot to the tip, that’s built into modern athletic shoes and many dress shoes as well.
Shoe designers add toe spring to stiff-soled shoes to accommodate the fact that the sole prevents your toes from bending towards your knee as your foot is about to push off the ground.
So, what did they discover?
In short:
By limiting the amount of movement in the foot, the foot gets weaker:
“It stands to reason that if the foot muscles have to do less work, then they’re probably going to have less endurance given that many thousands of times a day you push off on your toes,” said Lieberman, the Edwin M. Lerner II Professor of Biological Science and senior author on the paper. The work on toe springs is described in Scientific Reports.
The researchers say this potential weakness could make people more susceptible to medical conditions like plantar fasciitis — a common, hard to repair, and painful inflammation of the thick, web-like band of tissue that connects the heel bone to the toes.
And this limitation could lead to injuries and medical problems:
The researchers say this potential weakness could make people more susceptible to medical conditions like plantar fasciitis — a common, hard to repair, and painful inflammation of the thick, web-like band of tissue that connects the heel bone to the toes.
“One of the biggest problems in the world today of people’s feet is plantar fasciitis,” Lieberman said. “We think that what happens is that people are relying on their plantar fascia to do what muscles normally do. When you get weak muscles and the plantar fascia has to do more work, it’s not really evolved for that and so it gets inflamed.”
Kelly C’s Super Cool DIY Sandal Tying Style
We believe anyone can have the superpower of making their own shoes. Our DIY Kit allows you to cut your footbed and lace away as you wish. However, some of our customers, like Kelly Culp, take it a step further and create extraordinary lace styles like this one, to share with the Xero Shoes world.Â
With these instructions and 10 simple steps, now you can create this stylish masterpiece too, that is simple and takes no time at all but will you make people stop and ask, where did you get those sandals!?
*Note: This design takes 3 sets of laces, so get wild with your own personal color scheme!
Step One: Punch your holesÂ
Once you get your kit in the mail, step on the outsole and mark where your toe hole needs to be for YOU. Then do a double hole punch to pull 2 sets of your laces through.
Place three hole punches on either side of your foot as seen in this image. Kelly added an additional hole punch just in front of the arch (seen on the left side of the outsole.)
Step Two: Braid your laces (above)
Step Three: Create adjustable loops
Take your third set of laces and pull in adjustable loops, the 3 hole punches on the inside of the outsole.Â
Step Four: Fold Laces over
Fold your laces as seen below so that you can pull the braided laces through in the next step.
Step Five: Pull Braided laces through loops
The loops on the bottom will allow you to adjust the fit when finished.
Step Six: Repeat steps 3-5 on the other side of your outsole
Step Seven: Arch Loops and Size Adjustments
Repeat the process once more, creating loops on both sides of the arch of the foot and pull the braid through. Make final adjustments to your loops so that your feet can slip in comfortably.
This is what your sandal should now look like from the top. Feeling those superpowers yet?
Good, let’s finish these beauties up.Â
Step Eight: Trim bottom of the laces to about 1/4 of an inch (left).
Step Nine: Melt the ends with a lighter/candle and flatten with the backside of the pliers.
Step Ten: This is it! Your last step! Just use a square knot technique to create a slide closure (below, Left). Your final knot should look like the below, right image.
If your knot looks like this, cheers, you’ve just successfully tied off a square knot and completed Kelly C.’s tying design.
Tag us on Instagram if you try this lacing style. And if you come up with cool, new tying ideas, be sure to put them on our Tying Page
5 Tips for Healthy Feet
by Danny Dreyer, Founder of ChiRunning/ChiWalking, www.chirunning.com
It amazes me that we, as human beings, pay so little attention to the daily health of our feet. But, what amazes me even more is how little attention runners and walkers put into having healthy feet. It’s not like they’re a body part that gets seldom used. In fact, I would say that they are one of the most important parts of our body… right up there with the heart, lungs and brain.
Because they are literally, “where the rubber meets the road” our feet are one of the most common places where running and walking injuries happen. They are the farthest from our core and contain some of the smallest muscles in our ambulatory system. And, for these reasons they are some of the most overused muscles, and over-impacted bones and joints, in the human body.
So, when I talk about taking care of your feet, the best way to take care of those tootsies is to use them as little as possible… and everybody’s goal should be to never require more from all those tiny little parts than they are designed to provide.
What does that look like?
Here are 5 ways to gain that enlightened state of “Happy Feet,” as Steve Martin would say:
- Do everything in your power to learn how to reduce or eliminate pushing off with your toes. This means always running with your center (Dantien) falling slightly ahead of your feet and lifting feet and ankles to keep up with your forward fall. If you do this instead of pushing yourself forward with your feet and toes, you’ll be using gravity for propulsion… that’s what it’s there for. Picking up your feet instead of pushing off helps prevent (and cures) plantar fasciitis, achilles tendonitis, calf pulls and bone spurs… not a bad trade-off.
- Be sure you’re rolling over all five of your metatarsal heads with every stride. During a “toe-off” you are momentarily supporting your entire body weight, mostly with your big toe. This is a major cause of metatarsal stress fractures, an overuse injury. Practice pointing your feet forward (not splaying) and you’ll distribute body- weight support to all five toes instead of just your big toe. Your feet will love you.
- Wear shoes that allow your feet to be feet… not feet living in some version of a prison cell. The toe box should be flexible and wide enough to not squeeze your toes together… I’m talkin’ roomy! Soles should have drop of 0mm-12mm and no more. They should be cushioned enough to fit your needs and breathable for those hot days. Never lace your shoes too tight or you’ll restrict the natural movement of your feet and ankles. Having poorly fitting shoes can not only hurt your feet, it can create the rest of your body’s movement to be unnatural and compromised.
- Go shoeless whenever you can. There’s nothing better for your feet than the freedom to roam unhindered. It stimulates many of the meridians running through your body and promotes good circulation and healthy energy flow to various organs in your body. Studies have shown that barefoot people smile more… just kidding.
- Work on the alignment of your feet and toes. A lot of us have misaligned feet and toes from spending too many years in constricted footwear. If your big toe bends in towards your other toes, it’s a deformity created by pointed- toe shoes. Your toes should be able to spread easily and radiate out from your heel in straight lines, like a fan. Check out the feet of these Amazonian Indians who’ve never worn shoes!
This is just the short list of ways to make your feet happy.
There are a lot more things you can do in terms of proactive foot care:
- Give yourself foot massages
- Soak them in an Epsom salt bath
- Roll them on a golf ball or tennis ball
- Do leg drains by laying on your back with your feet propped up on a wall
- Getting your toenails done
… and last but not least, walk barefoot in sand or across a grassy lawn, just for the pure pleasure of it.
A Rubber Band is the Secret to Better Running?
Could a new form of foot binding be the secret to better running?
I don’t mean wrapping up your feet in the infamous style of ancient China, but something developed by some mechanical engineers at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
In short, they attached some rubber tubing between runners shoes and found that they ran more efficiently.
Every stride, you slow your body down and speed it back up again,” losing energy that could otherwise be conserved or put into running faster, said Elliot Hawkes, who was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford when the research was conducted. “90 percent of the energy you put into running is wasted, in a sense.
The solution to this, according to the researchers?
Tie the legs together with a rubber band. Adding that band between a runner’s legs could help slow both legs when they are far apart, then give them a little kick as they came back together–saving energy at both ends.
While they didn’t publish images of runners who weren’t using the rubber tubing, here’s what they showed for runners who used what they call an “exotendon”:
What was the effect?
An improvement in VO2 Max (what many people think of as running efficiency) by an average of 6.4%
Sounds amazing right?
But before you go out and buy an exotendon, let’s take a look at what’s REALLY going on here.
Can you see what the rubber band does?
Start by looking at the middle image in the top row, above.
You can see that the runner is about to land on their heel, with the foot relatively far in front of their body. This is a typical “overstriding and heel strike” pattern.
When you run like this, every time your foot hits the ground that far in front of you, you’re basically putting on the brakes. And when you land on your heel like that, research shows that you’re sending force into your joints rather than using your muscles, ligaments and tendons naturally — as built-in springs and shock absorbers.
Now look at the far right image in the top row.
The runners foot doesn’t actually land as far in front, or as much on the heel, as it would if it weren’t being pulled back by the rubber band.
You can see in the bottom row that the runners form has changed and isn’t overstriding as much, and is landing in a more mid-foot pattern.
Hopefully, I just saved you some money or time. No need to buy or build your own exotendon.
What the exotendon is doing is giving the runner a cue to run in the way that most people do when they get out of padded, elevated-heel, motion-controlled shoes!
Want the same effect?
Simply take the time to adapt to “natural running,” by landing with your foot closer to your center of gravity instead of far out in front of you, and land, ideally, on your forefoot (no need to STAY on your forefoot only, let your foot do what’s natural and use the springs built into it… your heel can drop to the ground if it feels right to do so).
BTW, while many barefoot runners say that either a midfoot or forefoot landing is what you want to do, research from Harvard’s Irene Davis shows that impact forces are lower with a forefoot landing than a midfoot one. So if you’re a mid-footer now, you may want to experiment with “moving up” to the forefoot.
Another thing that the rubber band did for runners: their cadence went up. That is, the number of times their feet hit the ground in a minute increased (without running faster). Obviously, you can do that on your own, too.
The researchers say that the exotendon only works when running on flat surfaces. Needless to say, you can use natural movement anywhere, any time, under all conditions.
To be fair, I’m actually NOT badmouthing the exotendon. In fact, it could be a great training aid to help people feel what a better movement pattern is like and make the switch.
But it’s important to know what’s really going on, what the real purpose of the device is. That could actually make it MORE effective, and wean you from it more quickly.
Frankly, I’m in favor of whatever it takes to help you Live Life Feet First.
Keep this one last thing in mind though — if you thought you go weird looks when you tried running barefoot, or even in Xero Shoes, just wait until you hear the comments when you strap a rubber band to your feet and hit the roads!
The content of this post does not constitute and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health provider with any questions or concerns you may have about your health or a medical condition.
Do not “transition slowly” to barefoot running
The more time you spend around barefoot running and minimalist running — the more articles you read in magazines and newspapers, the more interviews you hear with doctors or runners, the more stories you see on the news, the more websites you see about it, the more research you hear about it — the more often you’ll hear one particular admonition.
Actually, if the piece is supportive of running barefoot, you’ll hear it as a recommendation. If the piece is anti-barefoot, then it’ll be a warning.
And that bit of instruction/caution is:
Transition to barefoot running SLOWLY. If you make the transition too quickly, you’ll get hurt.
Admittedly, even on this site I say something that could sound similar about how to start running barefoot.
But to focus on how quickly or slowly you make the transition is to miss the point. Running barefoot safely and enjoyably isn’t about whether it takes you a day, a week, or a year to do so. It’s about HOW you make the transition, not HOW LONG it takes to make it.
It’s about form and function, not about seconds on the clock.
In other words, the keys to running barefoot are following a few rules: Continue reading Do not “transition slowly” to barefoot running
Why Barefoot Running?
While barefoot running isn’t new, it’s popularity has been going through the roof since Christopher McDougall’s book, Born To Run, became popular in 2009.
Ironically, Born To Run isn’t really about barefoot running. It’s about the Tarahumara Indians in the Copper Canyon of Mexico and how they’re able to run pain-free and injury free for hundreds of miles, well into their 70s. It’s about the first ever ultramarathon held in the Copper Canyon. It’s about the fascinating characters around this race. And it’s about Chris’s exploration of safer, more enjoyable running.
By the way, if you haven’t read the book, you must. It’s a great, exciting read, whether you’re a runner or not. And, admittedly, I make fun of the fact that barefoot runners treat this book like the bible in my video, Sh*t Barefoot Runners Say and the follow-up, Sh*t Runners Say To Barefoot Runners.
It happens that around the time the book was becoming popular, one of the people featured in the book published a study about barefoot running. That person is Dr. Daniel Lieberman from Harvard University and, in a nutshell, what Daniel showed was:
- Runners in shoes tend to land on their heels, essentially using the padding built into the shoes
- Landing in this manner sends a massive jolt of force (called an impact transient force spike) through the ankles, knees, hips, and into the spine
Then…
- Runners who run barefoot tend to land on their forefoot or midfoot, with the landing point nearer to the body’s center of mass (not out in front of the body, like shod runners)
- Barefoot runners use the natural shock-absorbing, spring-like mechanism of the muscles, ligaments and tendons within and around the foot, the ankle, the knee, and the hip.
- Barefoot runners do not create the impact transient force spike through their joints
In short, running shoes could be the cause of the very injuries for which they’re sold as cures!
Take off your shoes and you’re less likely to land in a biomechanically compromised manner.
This seems to explain why people who run barefoot often report the elimination of injuries (that were caused by bad form that they no longer use) and, more importantly, that running is more fun!
Now it’s not all as simple as this.
The shoe companies, realizing that barefoot was becoming a big deal, began selling “barefoot shoes”… most of which are no more barefoot than a pair of stilts.
Even the Vibram Fivefingers, which look like bare feet, aren’t necessarily as barefoot as they appear.
The key to successful barefoot running seems to be the ability to use the nerves in your feet, to Feel The World. Basically, if you try to run barefoot the same way you do when you’re in shoes, IT HURTS!
Figure out how to do what doesn’t hurt and you’ll be running in a way that’s more fun and less likely to cause injuries.
Now, I know it’s not as simple as that, and I’m the first to admit that the science supporting barefoot running isn’t in yet. But, then again, there’s no science that shows that running shoes are helpful.
Think about this: people lived for millions of years without shoes, or without anything more than a pair of sandals like Xero Shoes or a pair of moccasins. Runners ran successfully up until the 1970s with shoes that had no padding, no pronation control, no orthotics, and no high-tech materials.
The three parts of our body that have the most nerve endings are our hands, our mouths and our feet. There’s only one of those that we regularly cover and make numb to the world… does that seem right?
Put a limb in a cast and it comes out of the cast a month later atrophied and weaker. When you bind your feet in shoes that don’t let your foot flex or feel the earth, isn’t that similar to putting it in a cast (or as barefoot runners like to say, a “foot coffin”)?
There’s a lot more on this site about what the benefits of barefoot running — and walking, and hiking, and dancing, and playing — may be. If you have any questions, ask them here, or on our Forum. Or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Pinterest.
Join the conversation. Join the conversion. Feel The World!
4 Exercises to Strengthen Your Ankles and Feet
I’ve always been a fan of shoes as a fashion statement, but when looking cool or sexy becomes the priority over feeling good than we have a problem. It is no secret nowadays that the health of our body directly effects how we feel emotionally and how we think. The last 10 years of my life have been dedicated to helping others feel good in their body and mind, and when it comes to feeling good I always start with the feet.
Many of us know how to stretch and strengthen muscles like the abs, chest, shoulders, thighs and buttocks, but what about the ankles and feet? How many gym exercises do you know of that work on foot health? And yet the feet are the foundation of our posture.
There are a few main articulations (joint movements) of the ankles and toes that can seriously improve the over all well being of your body if done fairly regularly. Further down I will go over a few exercises that can be done daily to improve your over all well-being starting from the ground up.
When I teach yoga, especially my hips-focused workshops, I spend at least 20% of the time on feet/ankles, because the health of feet directly effect all of the muscles and joints above, especially the knees, hips and low back. I always find it comical that the solution in the world of modern medicine is to shove something in your shoes that lifts your arches for you or find shoes that articulate the ankle for you as you walk. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and place where quick solutions are great and important, but they are not always the long term fix.
Here is an analogy of what the short term solutions are like for your body. Let’s pretend that our body is a lazy employee at work, and our doctor is the manager. The manager has two options in front of her/him—teach us how to be productive and inspire us to take action, or simply do the work for us. You might be thinking: Fire the employee! Unfortunately that’s not an option in the case of your body—there is no surgery or replacement for lack of muscle engagement. So the manager has only two options: if he/she chooses to do the work for the employee than the work gets done but the employee learns nothing and will continue to do nothing in the future. The other option? The manager puts in the extra time and energy now to strengthen the skills of the employee and help them develop habits that support their growth. If we are the employee (our body) in this case, we would all appreciate that. As the manager (our mind) we would all like to choose the second option, but when it comes down to it, we don’t usually make the time to support our over all well being.
If you are reading this, you probably don’t fall into the category of “lazy human being”, and you are certainly looking for solutions and answers and are willing to do the work. This is why you have chosen to wear Xero Shoes, isn’t it? You care about the well being of your feet! So let’s get into building strength.
The four main actions at the ankle:
Dorsiflexion: what we commonly refer to as flexing the feet. Stand on two feet and bend your knees, lean forward till your knees move forward, you’ll see the skin at the front of your ankle wrinkles, this action is called dorsiflexion of the ankle joint.
Plantarflexion: the exact opposite of dorsiflexion, commonly known as pointing your foot, like a ballet dancer would.
Inversion: If you sit down with your legs out in front and turn the soles of your feet toward each other like you are making “prayer” feet, this is called inverting your ankle. Note, you may sit up on blankets or a couple of pillows if your hamstrings are on the tighter side.
Eversion: this is the opposite of inversion and usually most challenging. Standing up again, press the big toes down and pull the outside edges of your feet up. You will see that wrinkles form in the outer ankle, and you will feel the muscles along your outer shin engage.
Exercises to strengthen the muscles of these actions:
1. Seated Plantar Flexion: Sitting down with legs out in front plantarflex and relax the ankles repeatedly with knees straight. The muscles you’re trying to activate are your calves. Keep the feet everted (inner ankles squeezing together the whole time, ankle bones and inside edge of the feet trying to stay together). At first you can take a yoga strap and loop it around your ankles to help with the range of motion and make it easier on you. Always try without the strap as well to build the appropriate strength.
BONUS! Inversion and Eversion: The best exercise to do daily are the ABC’s with your feet. Do this before getting out of bed to wake up all the muscles of your feet and ankles!
2. Seated DorsiFlexion: This action is the opposite of the first exercise. Sit down with your legs in front and pull the tops of your feet back and release several times until you feel heat building in the top of the shins (these muscles are called your tibialus anterior muscles).
3. Calf Raises: The one pop culture ankle strengthener! Standing upright plantarflex your ankles till your heals lift up. Try not to let your ankles roll outward while doing these. The primary muscles you’ll be strengthening are called the gastrocnemius muscles. To keep the ankles from rolling outward you’ll be using the muscles of the outer shines to stabilize the ankle.
4. Inversion and Eversion: The best exercise to do daily are the ABC’s with your feet. Do this before getting out of bed to wake up all the muscles of your feet and ankles.
BONUS! The toes: there are four main articulations of the toes but to keep you from being overwhelmed simply focus on the one action called abduction, which is spreading your toes. Get yourself a toe spreader or separate your toes with your fingers for range of motion at first but then learn to do the action with the strength of your muscles. It might feel totally foreign at first but over time and repetition you will be able to do it! You can then add toe spreading into all the above ankle articulations.
Keep building that strength to make barefoot running even more enjoyable!
Until next time,
Matt Giordano, aka @TheYogiMatt
The content of this post does not constitute and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health provider with any questions or concerns you may have about your health or a medical condition.
Lydiard Training Plan for Runners
Arthur Lydiard was one of the most accomplished running coaches of all time and his training methods revolutionized the sport.
The Lydiard Foundation is carrying on Arthur’s teachings, led by Lorraine Moller, a 4-time Olympian and Olympic bronze medalist in the marathon, and Nobby Hashizume.
If you’re looking for a distance running training program, the Lydiard method will serve you quite well. And thanks to Lorraine and Nobby, you can grab the Lydiard First Steps course right here.
Then find out more about Lydiard training at www.xeroshoes.com/likes/lydiard.
Become a better runner with this free video course
Are you a runner? Or do you want to be?
If so, I have something special for you.
Meet Danny Dreyer, the author of the best-selling books Chi Running, Chi Walking, and Chi Marathon.
Danny has helped millions of people learn to run better, more efficiently, and more enjoyably.
Danny is also a big fan of Xero Shoes. He loves his sandals, but he says he LIVES in our shoes.
Danny has a 3-part video series for Xero Shoes friends and fans: “The 3 biggest mistakes that runners make, and how to fix them.”
Watch the video, below, for a taste of the series, or just go to https://ctdev.guruslabs.com//chi/ to sign up and get it for free.
You’ll hear more about that in the video series, so sign up at https://ctdev.guruslabs.com//chi/ to find out more.
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If you somehow manage to wear through the outsole on your Xero Shoes, we will replace them for a nominal shipping & handling fee.