Did God Mess up Your Feet?

When it comes to our health and personal freedom, the feet are an often overlooked part of this puzzle. Your feet are your foundation and if they are not strong, it will hold you back.
As a kid, I was in the Boy Scouts. Every year we got to do a “super activity”. Many groups I knew of went to an official scout camp every year. We never did that, but we just did our own thing. The tradition in our group was to do a 50 mile hike each year. The first time I did it, I was a scrawny, weak 12 year old and I had no idea what I was doing. Neither did my mom, and she was worried about me so she packed extra food in my pack. We really didn’t know much about backpacking food so she packed extra cans of food. Canned food is HEAVY! Those cans really weighed me down and I almost didn’t make it. Luckily, one of my leaders decided to check the weight of my pack.

Fast forward many years and I had become much stronger, I knew the route, and I had better gear, and I had learned a LOT more about backpacking. I had been out of the scouting program for a few years but was asked to help lead a 50 mile hike. It was actually the week before my wedding so we jokingly called it my bachelor's party. I was excited to go again, but when I thought of putting on my old hiking boots, I really didn’t want to. I had started wearing sandals more and more for hiking. I wore a pair of Chacos and I liked how they fit, but they were so heavy. Keep in mind that I was living in the high desert, and a lot of the hiking I did was a little further south in the red rocks of Southern Utah. We lived close to Zion National Park and would sometimes do canyons and other hikes where you were in and out of the water so sandals were the go-to.

I wanted to take my sandals with me on the hike but they just weighed so much! In a spur of the moment decision as we were getting out of the car and onto the trail, I ditched my boots and only took my sandals. Many of the older leaders scolded me for setting a bad example but I just had different tastes and different experience. I had learned how to really watch where I was stepping. It turned out that we had a lot of rain in those mountains that year… well, a lot for the dry climate that it is. There were streams and creeks that showed up in places where there hadn’t ever been before. It turns out that having wet socks and shoes constantly leads to blisters and by the end of the hike, the leaders who scolded me began to sing a different tune.

When I got home, I had hiked over 50 miles in just sandals, and I did fine. In fact, I enjoyed it. The only thing was that they were SO HEAVY! I kept my eyes open for sandals that would fit me well and were comfortable but were not so thick and heavy. Lighter sandals existed, but I didn’t like the fit. I kept searching. Then I started to think about making my own sandals. Why? That’s just the way I am. I googled, “DIY sandals” when I was on a lunch break at work. I looked through the results and one of the things that showed up was sandals made by the Tarahumara indians and also Vibram FiveFingers shoes that look more like gloves that you put on your feet. I was fascinated with them. I didn’t want them, but I was fascinated with the concept of having shoes that were pretty much like going barefoot. I dug in and started researching.

To make a long story short, I ended up starting a sandal company called Unshoes which I have recently sold. Over the years, I’ve done a lot of research about feet, how they work, and the pros and cons of wearing barefoot shoes, (or as I like to call them “minimal footwear”) and just going barefoot more often. Below are some reasons why it makes sense to go barefoot, or wear shoes that allow your feet to move more freely

Although I started with sandals, eventually we added some casual closed toe shoes as well.

Movement:

Did you know that your feet have 33 joints? That is a lot of joints for such a small portion of the body! The average shoe is designed to allow a slight amount of movement at the ball of the foot, and some movement at the ankle. That movement accounts for 5 joints at the base of each toe, and the ankle joint. Math was never my strong point, but I can tell that the numbers do not match here. Normal shoes allow 6 of your 33 joints to move leaving 27 joints basically immobilized. It is true that many of the foot joints do not have a very wide range of movement like the knee or elbow, but they do move.

One aspect of foot movement that people often don’t think about is horizontal movement of toes. Conventional footwear designs are almost always too narrow. The human foot, if developed without being bound by narrow footwear tends to be much more wide and the toes splayed out. It looks really funny to us because it isn’t what we’re used to. There is a reason that toes splay out naturally. They create a more stable foundation for the rest of our body. I’ll touch on that more later.

Function:

There is something called proprioception. Basically, it’s just a fancy word that means that your body sends feedback to your brain and the brain reacts or adjusts accordingly. Usually, this happens on a subconscious level. Have you noticed that feet are quite sensitive? They are one of the most ticklish areas of the body but even if you don’t have ticklish feet, you likely can feel every little pebble when you go outside barefoot. This isn’t God’s way of trying to get you to put on shoes. This is a feedback signal that is designed to help you sense the world in (or on) which you live. The interesting thing is that as you go barefoot more, your skin doesn’t get calloused as much as it just grows thicker. It is almost like a soft leather. It takes time for this to happen but when it does, you get less pain but you are still more aware of what is underfoot. You develop a way of reacting to uneven or unstable terrain much faster. Sometimes I react to a slip and catch myself before I’m even aware of what happened.

Strength:

One reaction I get from people when they ask about our shoes is that they love the idea, but that they need more support. Usually, they’re talking about arch support. People will tell me that they have fallen arches or that their feet ache if they don’t have arch support. They look at it as if that is a fixed part of the body, like being born without an arm or something. The thing is, that the arch of the foot is made up of soft tissues including tendons, but mostly constructed of and held up by muscles. So that is like wearing a cast on your arm every time you leave the house because you have weak biceps. How is that going to help? They are only going to get weaker if you put a cast on your arm right? How many of you have broken a bone, gotten a cast and noticed that when you get it removed, you have atrophied? Well, why is your arch any different? Spoiler alert: It isn’t.

Now if you’ve been wearing arch support for many years and have become reliant on it, I’d recommend that you don’t go cold turkey and start going barefoot a lot. There is a transition time needed. Take it easy, and gradually work your way back to foot independence.

As your feet strengthen, they will hurt. It’s OK. Listen to the pain. Is it like how your legs feel after a long day of hiking or running? Or is it telling you that something is wrong? But eventually they’ll get much stronger and you might be surprised at how it affects the rest of you. Another business I started was a parkour and aerial silk gym. As I taught kids the mechanics of parkour I began to realize just how much power comes from the toes. The stronger feet you have the jump, land, balance, or even throw a punch for that matter! Your feet really are the foundation of your whole body. Having strong feet gives you stability and better mobility! Who doesn’t want that?

Alignment:

Most shoes also have raised heels. I won’t get into the complex reasons why that started, but like arch support it is a self perpetuating problem. Shoes with a raised heel tend to shorten the calf muscle. The body is an extremely adaptable machine and if you aren’t using something, it shifts resources to other places. If your calf muscle is being shortened all the time, the body adapts. Then what happens when you go barefoot? It stretches things. Everything is connected so it isn’t just about a calf muscle but it pulls on the tendon that connects your calf to the rest of the foot. It generates pain and inflammation. This is called plantar fasciitis.

It doesn’t stop there. It also forces your hips forward and you have to arch your back and tilt your head forward to compensate. Imagine a plumb line hanging from the base of your skull. It’s natural for your spine to curve but if it is arched back all the time, then the loads of your upper body are going to be pulling on your spine in ways that stress it. Again, everything is connected. This overcompensation of your misalignment puts stresses on parts of the body that aren’t meant to take it on, and it removes stresses from parts of the body that are designed to take it. No bueno. Raised heels of any kind cause problems in the body.

Design:

Lastly, the thing that really convinced me was the design of the body. I believe in God and the human body is a mind blowing, amazing machine that I cannot image came to be without intelligent design. Do you think that a God who can create so many systems that work together perfectly just have a brain fart when it comes to our feet? I don’t. Yes, there are sometimes things like birth defects or accidents that cause disability but in general, if you think about it, the majority of the human race believes that their feet are flawed and cannot function without narrow, stiff, supportive foot coffins. Errr, I mean shoes.

Ok, so maybe you don’t believe in God. You believe that humans evolved or millions of billions of years. Fair enough, but the question remains the same. How did so many perfect systems that work together flawlessly come to evolve, and the feet just kind of got left behind? It doesn’t make any sense.

Now, I have to say that as I transition into a more wild landscape and live a homesteading lifestyle, there are times where we need more protective footwear. I have yet to find a good boot that really suits my needs. So, I just make due without but I plan to either make my own or save up to try some barefoot boots. But right now it’s about 10 degrees fahrenheit and I want warm boots. I have found a pair that gives my toes room and that is probably the most important thing for me. They do have a raised heel. So, I try to just limit my time in them and only use them if my feet are in danger of getting wet, snowy, or overly cold. Then, I try to stretch my calves and spend more time inside barefoot. My recommendation is to not stress over it, but to give your feet as much freedom as you possibly can, even when it is sometimes a bit uncomfortable. Growth is usually uncomfortable.