The benefits of bare foot training

I have been exploring bare foot training for the past 12 months. Like other training variations, it starts with the initial research and then I proceed to test it out on my own training and treat myself as a guinea pig. After I begin to see the benefits I integrate it into my own clients.

Bare foot training is sometimes seen on Instagram and when you research the coaches there’s usually a divide. Some are completely pro bare foot and don’t train any other way and others simply don’t apply it.

I find myself in the middle ground, I don’t think its vital for everyone to be training bare foot nor do I think it’s necessary. But, there are a handful of my clients who do integrate bare foot training and the results have been great.

The foot is often a body part that is looked over when studying movement, I will be the first to admit when I started assessing individuals I didn’t take the foot into account. Comprising of many joints, muscles and bones, the foot has huge influence on movement.

We know the human body is connected, almost like a chain. If there are any limitations within the body it will cause problems up or down stream.

We never think about training our feet, because our feet should naturally move without limitation. Like most things unfortunately, society moves in such a way that life evidently becomes more sedentary, with that, comes foot dysfunction.

If we take a look into gait, which is the sequence of walking. In two steps we want to see, dorsiflexion, plantar flexion, inversion, eversion, adduction and abduction. We want to see all these motions happen within pronation and supination.

You might be reading this in confusion to which I say, don’t worry. All of this happens within every step we take during the day and it should happen naturally. We shouldn’t have to think about it.

Pronation and supination allows all the bigger muscles in the legs and glutes to lengthen and contract optimally which means no pain and a healthy body. Sometimes though, this doesn’t happen optimally and an individual can be stuck in pronation or supination which causes problems up stream. Pronation sometimes is described as “duck feet” and supination is sometimes described as “high arch”.

How does this transfer to the gym?

Our feet are our only contact point with the ground. Although workout shoes are getting better, with smaller and firmer soles, a lot of them still adopt an overly padded sole. When exercising this bridge from the foot to the floor is unnecessary noise and confuses our body and nervous system. Imagine writing a hand written note with oven gloves, your mind isn’t used to space between your skin from your hands and the pen. You’ll find it much harder to write clean and tidy sentences. Same goes for your foot and larger muscles when wearing big, soft soles.

Once we begin to load movement patters with heavier weight this only heightens the issue. Working out bare foot allows bare contact with the ground and eliminates the uneven surface allowing the foot to express the necessary movement.

Unfortunately bare foot training still isn’t the norm, with some gyms even not allowing it due to hygiene reasons, which is understandable. This leaves people uncomfortable to train bare foot and this is also very understandable as even I wouldn’t walk around a commercial gym bare foot.

My advice to you would be to slowly integrate it into exercises. For instance, when I deadlift I do it wearing socks and then when I move to other exercises I put my shoes back on. This means I complete 4-5 sets close to bare foot which is better than nothing. I then begin to slowly build it around other exercise meaning the total volume of bare foot training increases from nothing to 10-15 sets per week. Again, it doesn’t need to be an all or nothing approach, some is better than none.

I do believe bare foot training will gain huge popularity within the coming years as the research is very strong and the benefits to certain individuals has been night and day.

My advice to you would be just to see how it feels, the initial curiosity is what led me to research it further and I haven’t looked back since. Try a couple sets and you can make your own mind up!