The major problems with modern footwear

Robert Burns
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The major problems with modern footwear

Post by Robert Burns » Thu Apr 07, 2022 6:05 pm

Have you ever wondered why kids so often hate putting on their shoes? My theory is that they don't hate footwear in general so much as they hate the specific kind that they are always being made to wear: specifically, they hate tight, narrow shoes with thick rubber soles, and in America and you won't find much else at a standard shoe store in any shoe size, at least not without a good bit of searching. I'd bet that it would be much less of a struggle to get the shoes on them if they were some softer leather moccasins, or even some modern-style "barefoot" shoes with harder soles that nevertheless would still allow them to feel the ground beneath their feet and to spread their toes. I can say from my own experience that, since I made the switch, all my old shoes do feel very tight and clumsy. Walking around in them now feels like trying to play the piano while wearing thick gloves. I just didn't notice before because I never went barefoot and never thought twice about it.

The key features of minimalist or "barefoot" shoes are:
  • They are zero-drop (meaning the soles are flat, so there is no drop from heel to toe and no arch support)
  • They have a wider toe box (this means your toes can flare out in the shoe, and sometimes this makes them look a bit like clown shoes)
  • The soles are generally a lot thinner and much more pliable than those of typical shoes, and as such they don't provide quite as much protection (the point of that is that you can still feel the ground beneath your feet and maintain a lot of intricate mobility)
If this sounds weird, consider the fact that no other animal except humans even wear any kind of footwear, and also consider the fact that, up until recently in history, this type of shoe was much more common and even the norm, as was going totally barefoot. What's truly weird is us thinking that our feet can't do the job they were designed for. Nature's intricate design has been tested for countless millennia by our ancestors who spent all day running and hiking through rough terrain with no more than a bit of leather strapped to their feet, and somehow they didn't all die out from sprained ankles and flat feet and sharp objects on the ground. Man's modern design was influenced mostly by stylistic whims and capitalism, and foot health was always an afterthought.

For example, the thicker heels you see on most boots and shoes today mostly originated in the US from cowboy boots, which of course were designed for horseback riding, not walking or running. A lot of people thought the design looked cool (and probably liked the idea of seeming a bit taller), and the rest is history.

Sadly, these modern shoes mess up our foot development considerably. They smash the toes together, which are supposed to flare out and help a lot with balance. The thick clunky soles make it impossible to get any detailed sensory feedback from the ground, so all those nerve endings in the foot go to waste and you clumsily stomp around, putting excessive strain on your joints from the force and increasing the likelihood of rolling your ankle from a misstep. Related to this is that they cause a lot of people to land on their heels while running, which is very bad for reasons that are easier to show with a picture (see below). They also prevent our feet from developing the toughened (not necessarily callused) soles they are supposed to have, which, believe it or not, actually do provide some significant protection against thorns and little sharp rocks. All arch support does is encourage flat-feet by giving the foot muscles no reason to maintain that arch on their own.

Overall, in these harmful shoes your feet become weak and ever more dependent on them, and you can probably see how all this would in turn be a factor in other issues like posture and back and neck pain. Your whole foundation is thrown off, so the whole stack of bones and connective tissue has to compensate for this imbalance with a lot of tightness where it shouldn't be. It's a bad situation that almost all of us are in without even realizing it.

But the good news is that it is reversible to a significant extent, though the transition could be difficult depending on how bad it is. It's certainly not easy to undo decades of improper treatment of the feet, and it's important to say that because someone could take these difficulties to mean that the problem is the new shoes and not the old ones. For those who have children or who will have children, please do your research and get your children wearing proper footwear so they don't ever have to deal with this problem.

Image
Improper running caused by thick-soled shoes (harmful to joints and wastes energy) vs proper running (which is generally instinctive when totally barefoot as heel striking barefoot usually hurts); notice how the angle of the shin to the ground in the first one sends the force of the strike backwards horizontally into the knee and hip which harms the joints and slows the runner down; contrast that with how the runner with proper technique on the right is falling slightly forward when landing, thus utilizing gravity to keep forward momentum and save energy

Image

If you want to learn more this is a pretty solid presentation:

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White Man 1
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Re: The major problems with modern footwear

Post by White Man 1 » Thu Apr 07, 2022 9:05 pm

Interesting. I've always been a little peculiar about my feet, footwear, and socks. I typically wear Carolina logger work boots that have a thick sole and large heel that is good for hiking and getting around job sites because the have superb ankle support. As a kid I typically went barefoot or wore jump boots. Socks are usually a booger for me, and I've had to throw away a lot of pairs until finding ones that don't constrict my feet, have enough cushion, and last longer than a year.

Robert Burns
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Re: The major problems with modern footwear

Post by Robert Burns » Thu Apr 07, 2022 9:57 pm

White Man 1 wrote:
Thu Apr 07, 2022 9:05 pm
Interesting. I've always been a little peculiar about my feet, footwear, and socks. I typically wear Carolina logger work boots that have a thick sole and large heel that is good for hiking and getting around job sites because the have superb ankle support. As a kid I typically went barefoot or wore jump boots. Socks are usually a booger for me, and I've had to throw away a lot of pairs until finding ones that don't constrict my feet, have enough cushion, and last longer than a year.
Ah, this is a good point and something I forgot to mention, so thanks for the reminder. Of course certain things do require special footwear, namely heavy duty and hazardous work like construction. I certainly do not advocate wearing barefoot shoes or no shoes at all on job sites or in industrial settings, and most of them wouldn't allow it anyway. That simply won't do. Here I'm mostly talking about day-to-day shoes, hiking shoes, and running shoes.

However, I still would maintain that it's ultimately better to wear safety boots with a wider toe box and a flat (but still thick and puncture resistant) sole, assuming that they fit properly. You definitely don't want to be sliding around inside your boots. Heavy duty socks would help with that, and should probably be worn in that context anyway.

Unfortunately not many models of boots fit these requirements, but I did find one pair: Birkenstock QS700s. They're a bit hard to get in the states, but I got lucky with eBay having only one listing that happened to be precisely my size. All you have to do is take out the insert and the soles are perfectly flat.

Of course, safety is always the priority, so it's always going to be better to wear less-than-ideal boots that get the job done.

Robert Burns
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Re: The major problems with modern footwear

Post by Robert Burns » Fri Apr 08, 2022 2:54 pm

Another thing I wanted to add: to aid in the process of reversing the effects of toe compression, ideally you should wear five-finger toe socks (Vwell's are reasonably priced on Amazon) or just regular socks that don't squeeze your toes too much, but in conjunction with that, you can also use toe spreaders. According to my research, the best-designed set by far is Correct Toes, although I have yet to order them for myself. They are a little pricey at $65, but they were designed by a podiatrist to be precisely accurate in encouraging the right anatomical shifts in the toes, they have great reviews all around, and they are customizable, so you get what you pay for. No other product seems to compare.

What is great about them is that they are designed to be worn during normal activities and even while running or hiking (with or without socks and shoes) without being uncomfortable, and unless you're beating the hell out of them they should last for as long as you need them. I'm going to get them for myself soon, and with any luck, after some months or years of wearing my new shoes and the toe spreaders, my feet will more closely resemble those that were always habitually unshod.

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Grimork
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Re: The major problems with modern footwear

Post by Grimork » Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:45 pm

Question: Can't you just go barefoot more often? Y'know when you don't have to go in businesses and such?

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C.E. Whiteoak
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Re: The major problems with modern footwear

Post by C.E. Whiteoak » Sat Apr 09, 2022 1:25 am

One of the major problems with modern footwear (and a lot of other things as well) is that the majority of it seems to be made in communist China. :x

Robert Burns
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Re: The major problems with modern footwear

Post by Robert Burns » Sat Apr 09, 2022 1:57 am

Grimork wrote:
Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:45 pm
Question: Can't you just go barefoot more often? Y'know when you don't have to go in businesses and such?
I'm sure that going barefoot more often is always going to be better than doing it less often, but specifically you need to be going barefoot while using your feet. For example, if you're barefoot 90% of the time, but only for 50% of your actual time spent walking or running, that isn't great. I'm not a podiatrist or anything, but I assume it's still going to be harmful to wear conventional shoes on a regular basis even if it's only for like an hour a day. That would definitely slow down the process of reversing damage at the very least.

However, wearing minimalist/barefoot shoes is a totally different story because of their design, so that's why I recommend them, because I know it's pretty unreasonable to expect people, especially those accustomed to wearing conventional shoes, to go truly barefoot 99% of the time right away. Minimalist/barefoot shoes aren't actually that hard to find if you search the Internet. Also, sandals are a common exception to the rule of conventional shoes being bad, and even water shoes can work if you don't mind looking a bit odd wearing water shoes at the grocery store. If you need something other than sandals or water shoes there are still a decent amount of minimalist options online for the most common styles of shoes and boots (Lems is a popular brand with various styles but there are quite a few more). Heads up though: unlike sandals and water shoes, these are often pricey. It's a niche market, so that plays a role in the pricing I think, but ultimately I see it as an investment in my long-term health, and that makes it a lot more worth it to me. I also expect they will last me many years.

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Re: The major problems with modern footwear

Post by Richard_G_603 » Sun Apr 10, 2022 5:46 pm

A large part of this is ill fitting foootware IMO. I have a REALLY strange foot size, technically i am an 11 xx-xxx wide, meaning my shoe length is a size eleven, but the width of my foot is more akin to a size 13 or 14.(wide would be 11.5, x wide would be size 12 width) So I have to buy 11 x wides made out of leather and stretch them as best i can, because I cannot find my actualy shoe size avaible in a non-slip safety shoe for work. This has cause severe deformation of my pinky and ring toes over the year from them being crushed into shoes that are just too small.

But when I go into work boots I have far less issues because the thicker leather really lets me get the stretch I need without worrying about ripping the leather and I can actually get them to fit properly.

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Will Williams
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Re: The major problems with modern footwear

Post by Will Williams » Wed Apr 13, 2022 10:10 am

Richard_G_603 wrote:
Sun Apr 10, 2022 5:46 pm
A large part of this is ill fitting foootware IMO. I have a REALLY strange foot size, technically i am an 11 xx-xxx wide, meaning my shoe length is a size eleven, but the width of my foot is more akin to a size 13 or 14.(wide would be 11.5, x wide would be size 12 width) So I have to buy 11 x wides made out of leather and stretch them as best i can, because I cannot find my actualy shoe size avaible in a non-slip safety shoe for work. This has cause severe deformation of my pinky and ring toes over the year from them being crushed into shoes that are just too small.

But when I go into work boots I have far less issues because the thicker leather really lets me get the stretch I need without worrying about ripping the leather and I can actually get them to fit properly.

That sounds awful, Dan. Maybe you should just stop wearing rings on your toes.

I always had to buy extra wide shoes also, but not due to having wide feet, but high arches. Now, with neuropathy, the VA provides me with nice-fitting orthopedic footwear, even my workboats.
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Jim Mathias
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Re: The major problems with modern footwear

Post by Jim Mathias » Thu Apr 14, 2022 7:00 am

Milsurp or factory reject combat boots recently made (~5 years) work for me, but I spend a lot of time on jobsites where there's hazards underfoot. These things are greater than the old black leather boots that were military issue and needed a lot of break-in use, the newer boots are comfortable and supportive straight from the factory. They can be found in wide sizes, which my feet prefer.
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