Popular Shoe Design Features That Are Actually Bad For Your Feet

The marketing hype of the running and athletic shoe industry has brainwashed fitness enthusiasts to believe that shoe “technology” can protect your feet from injury and improve performance. Shockingly, there has never been a single research study ever published to suggest that running shoes lessen injury risk (this from the great Science of Running blog of Steve Magness.) The British Journal of Sports Medicine contends that shoe marketing represents a “public health hazard,” because it often offers the misleading message that shoes have protective benefits or performance benefits that simply aren’t validated. Here are some attributes of modern shoes that are actually harmful to foot functionality:

Elevated heel: Most modern shoes are higher off the ground in the heel than in the midfoot or the toes by 10-30 millimeters; it’s called “vertical drop.” This promotes poor posture (loading weight on the balls instead of the heels), weakens and shortens the Achilles tendon, and prompts all manner of compensations throughout the lower extremities. 

Excessive cushioning: A heavily cushioned sole promotes inefficient walking and running technique and actually worsens the impact trauma of each stride significantly—the exact opposite of the prevailing marketing claims! Even when you take a leisurely jog, you generate an impact force of 3-4 times body weight on each stride. Cushy shoes enable a highly inefficient and jarring heel-first landing. This causes impact forces to be inappropriately dissipated through the shins, knees, thighs, hips, pelvis, and lower back.  The cushioning ruins your proprioception, desensitizing you to these harmful forces. 

Encased and squeezed midfoot and toes: All regular shoes inhibit the functionality of the midfoot and toes by encasing them in a single chamber that is typically far too narrow. Did you know the main reason for a narrow toe-box design: it’s purely for fashion! Historians relate that the streamlined toe box seen in both women’s and men’s dress shoes dates back centuries to the times when peasants wore makeshift work shoes with a wide front, while aristocrats sported stylishly-crafted shoes with pointed toes. The narrow front area of today’s athletic shoes is contemplated to provide “stability” for the foot by pinching the toes together (witness soccer and football cleats, track & field spikes, and rock-climbing shoes.) The truth is that it can have the opposite effect by inhibiting toe splay and toe articulation that provide natural stability.

When the metatarsals are pressed together and the toes encased, they are prevented from achieving their dynamic range of motion. In particular, the toes and metatarsals cannot expand sideways to absorb impact properly, and the big toe cannot independently and fully dorsiflex to activate the glutes during the running stride. Instead, toe box restriction causes a loss of kinetic energy and a harmful dispersion of impact trauma into the lower extremities. What’s more, the incredibly high incidence of foot maladies such as blisters, corns, bunions, osteomas, hammer toes, plantar warts, dermatitis, fungus, ingrown toenails, athlete’s foot, and debilitating arthritis and tendonosis are highly influenced by forcing your feet to squeeze into tight compartments. 

Toe spring: Most running shoes have a distinct upward curvature of the sole (typically around 15 degrees), starting around the midfoot heading toward the toes, a feature known as “toe spring” or “rocker geometry”. A toe spring is apparent when a shoe rests on the ground and the toe box is slightly elevated off the ground. Toe spring is also believed to improve performance for fast runners by pre-loading the toes into a dorsiflexed, energy-coiled position. For example, the carbon plates in the energy return “super shoes” have a pronounced toe-spring, and running performance lab research suggests that this is one of the prominent reasons for the shoes improving performance (further research is needed to confirm this.)

It might be hard to accept that your feet also take a beating in comfortable running shoes, but the same principles apply. Pre-loading your toes into a coiled position with toe spring shoes probably provides a significant performance benefit, but it prevents the toes from working through their typical range of motion during the walking or running stride. This is believed to cause atrophy to important muscles and connective tissue in the foot. What’s more, a toe spring design may actually transfer an excessive and inappropriate burden of impact absorption and propulsion to the highly vulnerable plantar fascia. Other researchers speculate that a toe spring will also disperse impact force away from the foot to overburden the knees and hips. 

Excessive arch support: Reinforced arches and rigid orthotics can eventually deactivate and weaken your arches with every protected step that you take. The extremely common condition of plantar fasciitis is driven by overstressing weak arches, Achilles tendons, and calf muscles with routine repetitive activity such as standing, walking, and running. Plantar fasciitis is exacerbated by the loss of circulation throughout the plantar fascia region when the big toe is wedged in with the second toe.

The typical plantar fasciitis treatment protocol of rest and more arch support is often unsuccessful over the long-term, because it results in further atrophy of the relevant tendons and muscles, and does not address the root cause. As soon as exercise is resumed after a plantar fasciitis-induced layoff, the painful condition typically returns—often worse than before the rest period because of atrophy. Shoes are almost always the biggest issue in plantar fasciitis. This includes making abrupt switches to minimalist shoes without proper acclimation. 

Obviously, Peluva’s five-toe barefoot-style shoes help you strengthen your feet, regain lost foot functionality, and actually reshape your feet after years of compression. However, you must proceed with caution by gradually transitioning to a more barefoot-inspired lifestyle. Go barefoot around the house and in other safe areas, wear your Peluvas in daily life for low-impact activities like walking and gym workouts, and gradually transition to more ambitious usage. Download our free 88-page eBook, The Definitive Guide To A Barefoot And Minimalist Shoe Lifestyle at the home page of Peluva.com.