The Barefoot Revolution Part 4
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Running barefoot on rolling fields of grass, vibrant green and soft from a recent rain, is like running on velvet, who doesn’t want to run on velvet? No one, that’s who.
-unnamed notorious barefooter
The Barefoot Revolution: Part 4
With yet another successful week under my belt, there are a few lessons that I feel I should share. The goal of this post is to group all the advice, lessons, and tips that I have shared and learned since going barefoot, and put it all in one place.
So, my advice will start with how I feel one should start going barefoot, whether running, or walking.
*Just do it. Start right now by taking off your shoes and socks and walking around the office or your house barefoot. When you can, run errands, go for walks, and if you feel like it, going on hikes barefoot will also help the transition.
*Listen to your sole(s). Judge how far to push yourself each day by the soles of your feet. When they get tender and raw, stop, that’s it for the day. You may need to bring along another type of footwear on any walks, runs, or hikes until you are confident you can tolerate all the time it will take to complete these outings barefoot.
*No More Athletic Shoes!! Unless you want to modify your shoes by cutting off the heels, try to use non-supportive footwear any time you need to wear something on those feet. There are dress shoes that have flat soles with no heel lift for the office, and there are many versions of athletic looking shoes that also give you minimal support and no heel lift. Wear sandals when you can, but if you have to wear flip-flops, go for the least cushioned varieties. Learn to make your own huaraches.
*Learn what to wear for those times when you cant go barefoot. Whether huaraches, moccasins, racing flats, Vibram Five Fingers, a racing flat, or a water sock; sometimes going barefoot just isn’t possible. Right now in much of the country it is getting colder and running barefoot in the snow will not be a feasible option. This winter I will be running in a pair of water socks that I got off the Internet for $10.
Ok, so now you know what to do, but how do you do it? Well, here are a few tips for a smooth transition that I have learned so far:
*For runners, run only as far as your soles tell you to run, and NO MORE! If you start to move towards barefoot in the colder months, move down from supportive footwear slowly. If you run in Brooks’ Beast shoe, you may want to step down to something like their Adrenaline before you go to a racing flat.
*Learn to run with proper form. Barefoot runners don’t land on their heels. They cant, it hurts too much. In fact, landing heel first was something that was only possible with the invention of the modern running shoe. Learn to run barefoot by starting to land on your mid-foot and forefoot. Land with your foot directly underneath your body, and with significant knee bend. Learning to run this way will cause a bit more work for your quads, Achilles, calves and feet, but they will adjust quickly.
*Do Not Push Through Pain. Leave this mentality for races. In transitioning and training, this mentality will lead to certain injury. Notably in your feet, Achilles tendons and calves. Almost across the board, beginning barefooters suffer very tight calves and Achilles. Stretch these prodigiously and massage as often as possible. Don’t run if they are painfully tight. Similarly, your feet will feel the adjustments next. The tops of your feet, shin muscles, arches, and plantar fascia will all feel tight and sore as these muscles and ligaments and tendons all start to work as they should.
*Forget sticking to a training plan. Just set guidelines for your training. Shoot for a certain distance or time to run each day, but don’t push it just to finish those last couple minutes if it means pushing through tightness or discomfort. That discomfort will just be there stronger the next day. Better to call it quits for the day and walk home to run again tomorrow, than try to be macho and sideline yourself with a pulled muscle or sprained foot.
*Run on the hard stuff first. There is no better judge of proper form than concrete. Learning to run or walk on the least forgiving surface will ensure that your mechanics are solid, meaning you will suffer less injuries later because of these perfected mechanics. Also, in the beginning its easier to avoid debris on concrete than on a trail. After a while, it wont matter, you can just run over it all.
The number one lesson I have to give people though is this:
*RELAX.
When you find it to be tough going, or when your feet start to feel sensitive or feel abraded, when you feel yourself tightening up, Relax. Don’t tense up more then needed. Don’t forget to land with short quick strides, knee bent, on your forefoot, and back straight. Relax your shoulders, relax your feet. The best runners in the world, from Usain Bolt to Haile Geberselassie all look smooth and relaxed, no matter what the pace. Tightening up will not only make your run uncomfortable and tire you out sooner, but it will cause unnecessary pain. A tense barefoot runner is more likely to land with too much impact force. They are more likely to pull a muscle. More than anything though, landing on seeds, gravel, twigs, even glass will be painful and demoralizing. Landing relaxed allows you to smoothly float over these obstacles. Focus on putting your foot down and picking it up with not kick-back. Land softly and lightly. Kiss the ground with your foot.
Well, that about sums it up for this week. Next week I will address all aspects of proper bio-mechanics in a totally barefoot running stride. That topic alone will be quite intensive and was beyond the scope of just one article. I have laid out here and now though some basic guidelines to follow in order to grow stronger and healthier feet. As the first things to hit the ground, it is only fitting that they should be just as strong and healthy as the rest of your body.
And dont worry, your feet will not get rough or callused. They will get tougher and the skin will thicken, yes. However, running on concrete is great for buffing out any rough spots and leaving only smooth soft skin. The one common misconception is ugly feet, but your feet will become more muscular, defined, the soles will toughen, become remarkable softer, and plus, they will be tanned. In the end, barefoot running makes for beautiful feet!
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October 13th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Hi, another great read. I am running with my shoes on and yet I can imagine doing this type of running eventually. I walk all over my home and outside barefoot so my feet are tough. I am taking your advice and shooting for a certain distance each day. In this part of the country— winter is here. At night it can be 38 degrees.
You are so motivating and an interesting writer.
October 14th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Hey thanks Debbie,
Way to go barefoot when you can! Winter has also arrived at this part of the country too, so it seems. I have had to move to sandals for my runs and it looks like being able to go barefoot will have to wait for warmer weather:(
Thanks as always for your comments! Take your running one day at a time and you will soon be running further than you ever thought you could!
Blake
November 9th, 2009 at 11:57 am
You mean the barefoot re-revolution? It’s all been done already, we knew that, those of us who were around in the 1960s and 1970s. Many young people were going barefoot everywhere then, it was a fad, and today’s young people don’t even seem to know this ever took place. It’s as is our whole culture and society collectively chose to forget that it ever happened. And now a small number of today’s young people have to re-discover, re-learn everything about going barefoot.
November 9th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Hello Shoes are boring,
Yes, it is true that back during the all of the social upheaval in the 60s and 70s there were people walking and running without shoes. Many of todays young people forget this or just chose to not care because so many people use the term “hippie” as derogatory. To many of today’s youth anyone from that time that had anything to say about getting and becoming more natural was just some crazy hippie. We realize we are not saying anything new, but we are trying to rebrand the movement so that some of these prejudices are done away with and that hopefully more people will benefit from being barefoot. Also, the modern running shoe didnt become popular until the 70’s. So even though being barefoot back then might have been popular with fringe athletes, many people associate running shoes with the 70’s.
You make a good point though that running barefoot is not some new fad, people have been bucking the idea of shoes for decades, and most likely even before then there were the notorious barefooters running about amongst all of the shod population!
Thanks for your comments!
Blake
November 10th, 2009 at 3:30 am
Shoes Are Boring,
Is a re-revolution even possible?
Thank you for your interesting and thought-provoking comment, but I have to disagree with you.
If people decided to do away with cars, you could call it a Walking Revolution. Of course people used to not have the option to use a car, but relatively speaking, this would be a new trend worth calling a revoluton.
In the 70s, running barefoot was a re-revolution as well, as our ancestors ran barefoot many, many years before.
December 11th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Yes, Blake, that is part of the problem, that many people use the term ‘hippie’ as derogatory. Rebranding is a must. The main reason we have all those signs saying “shirts and shoes required”, “no shirts, no shoes, no service”, and originally back then simply “no bare feet” was to keep hippies out without actually admitting that directly. Those signs first appeared during the late 1960s, and as a further deterrent, some people began adding the false “by order of the health department” to the bottoms of these signs. This way they could claim its a “law”, when it never was and still is not, so they could not be accused of direct discrimination. And it stuck. And today most people believe it’s illegal to go barefoot into certain places. But the truth is, that during the early 1970s, all the hippie fashions and anti-fashions hit the mainstream, so ‘regular’ young people looked just like what a hippie looked like 3 or 4 years earlier. There were well off barefoot young women in new york city shopping in expensive stores, they had nothing to do with being hippies. But all this really confused the older generation of store owners, and once the distinctions became that blurred among young people of the day, enforcement of such anti-barefoot rules often stopped, as store and mall owners got tired of spending all day kicking people out.
And Chris, yes, you are right, it would be just a revolution. I just made up the word ‘re-revolution’ as a semi-sarcastic comment sort of referring to the concept of ‘those who do not remember their history are condemned to repeat it’. If today’s young people do not know that going barefoot was once common, they also don’t know it can be done. They just assume it’s impossible. And if they are taught that there was a wide range of types of people going barefoot during various parts of the 20th century, not just “hicks” or later “hippies”, maybe they will be more likely to give it a try. Though what I remember as a teenager during the 1970s, it was really a girl thing. Teenage girls and women in their 20s were the most commonly seen barefoot person out in public. For a few years there, it was so common that something like half the girls out there in any town in the US were going barefoot mostly everywhere on nice summer days. And man, could they walk on anything without getting hurt. And before you can learn to RUN barefoot you have to gradually learn to WALK barefoot. It just takes a little time to get used to it.
December 15th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Shoes-
this is all sad, and true. Though I did not live in that generation, having grown up in the late 80’s and 90’s, it is a shame that such stigmas have stuck around since then. From people whom I talk to about being barefoot, many of them where I live, which is in Indiana, are fond of the idea of going barefoot like they did when they were children. Here about half of the people are from Rural areas, and half are very much urban college student types. The one thing that I have been successful with is getting people motivated to run barefoot at the local cross-country field here. Purdue University is one of only 2 schools in the Big Ten to have a dedicated grass CX field, and the CX team itself trains barefoot on it.
However, outside of worries about sharp objects, the hippie comment comes up more often than anything. Perhaps in a few more decades when the remembrance of that movement is not part of the recent memory of those who lived through it, this harmful connection of hippies to naked dirty idiots will die out, and their more noble ideas will be remembered instead. I suppose only time will be able to tell.
Great comments, keep them coming. We have been a little slack on our article posting during this Holiday season, but there are a few more in the works. Your ideas and concepts on this issue are spot on with our own, so thank you for sharing them!
Blake