How to get started with barefoot shoes

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You probably wore stuffed shoes for most of your life. Don’t expect to throw them and do the same miles – whether it runs or runs – in barefoot shoes. To a certain extent, you need to learn again how to run and walk. It will make a conscious effort on your part, and it can be very difficult. You don’t just learn, you are too uncertainty Some complicated habits. The key is to go slowly. Many, many, absurdly slow.

How to approach your barefoot shoes depends on what you want to do. I happened to get started, which worked out nicely because I had to take it slowly (I sucked). If you are currently an ultra-marathoner and want to try barefoot shoes, you will find it difficult to hold back. If you are somewhere between the poles, it will still be difficult not to overdo it. Focus the discipline you usually use for distance in not Win a distance.

If you do not know where to start, check out Graham Tuttle’s YouTube channel, especially his foot reinforcement exercises. This will help you develop the foot and single strengths you have when you get out of years of stuffed shoes, and help reduce muscle pain if you are running with barefoot running. Tuttle also offers some paid programs aimed at giving you a more personal guide (I haven’t tried any of these things yet). Another YouTube channel that I found useful is the Movnat channel, which is not barefoot-specific, but has very good advice on barefoot sprinkled by the content. And if you haven’t read Christopher McDougall, both Born to run and Natural born heroes are fun barefoot-related lectures. Indeed, Born to run Certainly it did more to run barefoot than anything else, as the stuffed shoe was born in the early 1970s.

It is also worth saying that barefoot shoes are not a zero-sum game. For more than a year I wore barefoot shoes, ordinary shoes for other tasks and sandals the rest of the time. It’s not all or nothing. If you run on a barefoot and then clap on your favorite, it’s fine. It is equally important to know that everyone is different. It took me six months to switch completely to barefoot shoes. But it’s just me. It can take you two months or two years. Go at your own pace and don’t worry about the experiences of others.