Go Barefoot to Get Stronger
by Harry Clay


In one of his greatest In Living Color skits, Jim Carrey
spoofed
palsied poet Christy Brown, the hero of My Left Foot. Brown
became an Irish ass-kicking machine in "My Left Foot of
Fury," wielding nunchuks and brass knuckles on the bare foot
of his one working limb.
What does that have to do with building strength and
size?
Nothing. I just think it's a funny bit. But it does bring
up an important lesson about human physiology: Our feet have the
potential to do almost everything we do with our hands.
"There are people who are born without arms who have to use
their feet," says Martin Rooney, a former orthopedic physical
therapist and now strength coach at the Parisi Speed School in New
Jersey. "They can play the guitar with their feet. They can
put in contact lenses. But we can't even pick up a pencil with
our toes. We have all lost that ability. So, when we ask ourselves
for a higher level of performance, how can we expect it to be
there?"


Shoes Make You a Lesser Man
Through years of wearing shoes, our feet lose their tactile
capacity, which is bad enough. But they also fail to develop to
their proper size and shape. Tendons and ligaments shorten, muscles
weaken, and the risk for foot and ankle injuries increases.
If it sounds like the ancient Chinese tradition of binding the
feet, it kinda is. "It's identical, but to a lesser
degree," Rooney says. "Shoes crush the foot into abnormal
positions and you don't get the movement the foot is designed
for."
And while that might be a puppy upper to the foot fetishists
among us, it's a doggie downer when it affects your results in
the gym.
Because your feet are the only point of contact between your
body and the floor on most lifts, your lifting success depends, in
part, on their proprioception — the sense of where they are
in space. The more precisely they work to grip the floor, the
better they'll help you activate the muscles farther up the
movement chain.
Rooney believes that if you free your feet up, allowing them to
move and react to the surface beneath them, your lifts will show
commensurate improvement. "Just like strengthening the rotator
cuff can improve your bench press, strengthening the lower limbs is
going to let you run faster, jump higher, and lift more
weight," he says. "Your numbers will go up."


Bare feet, big weights.


The Liberation of Your Soles
The first step is easy: take your shoes off. Walk around as much
as you can without them. This, of course, is a highly situational
strategy. Unless you're a lifeguard, you probably can't
go barefoot at work. So you should make up for that by spending as
much leisure time as possible unbound by leather and shoelaces.
Next, you want to begin the transition to barefoot training, or
the closest equivalent your gym will allow.
The following is a basic model for how you can progress from
being a shoe guy to going native, as provided by Jon Hinds, former
strength coach for the Los Angeles Clippers and founder of Monkey
Bar Gym in Madison, Wisconsin, where shoes aren't allowed. Those who spend most of the day in tight or bulky shoes
will probably want to follow the model more carefully than the guys
who're used to going hours at a time in bare feet or
sandals.
If you do lots of Olympic lifts, or other types of fast or
explosive training, you want to be especially careful with this
transition. You risk lower-leg injuries like plantar fasciitis
(inflammation of the connective tissues on the bottom of your feet)
or shin splints if you go to barefoot training before your feet are
ready.

Step 1: Chucks
Serious gym rats already know that Converse Chuck Taylors are
great for powerlifts and other basic exercises. The sole is thin
and there's hardly any arch support, ensuring that your foot
makes close contact with the floor and learns to stabilize itself.
The trick is to buy a pair that's one size too big, Hinds
says. That's because most of us instinctively choose shoes
that are tight and restrictive, which defeats the purpose.
(Converse encourages this "restrictive" mindset on its
website by telling men to buy Chuck Taylors that are a half-size
smaller than their other shoes.)
"It's like me wrapping some duct tape around your hand
before you do a handstand, taping your thumb in," Hinds
explains. "You have no ability to activate the arches of your
hand because your thumb is in and all your weight is going to
collapse on your hand."
Wearing oversized Chucks will feel weird at first, like a day in
the life of Sideshow Bob. You won't want to do anything that
requires running, jumping, or agility. But a funny thing starts to
happen when you give your feet some room to spread out. After a few
weeks, they'll literally spread out.


They only feel weird for a while.
"I used to wear a size 12, and now I wear a size 14,"
Hinds says. "I allowed my feet to spread to the actual size
they're supposed to be."
If you object to Chucks for any reason — fashion,
function, faith — you can try your luck with the Nike Free.
It's good for the same reasons.

Step 2: Sanuks
After a month or two of training in oversized Chucks, you can
try switching to a pair of Sanuk Vagabonds,
slip-on shoes with what the manufacturer calls "barefoot
untechnology." The selling point is an unrestrictive upper on
a sole normally used for sandals. They're comfortable, and
offer even less arch support than Chuck Taylors. Make sure you buy
them in your new shoe size.


Sanuk Vagabonds: one step closer to nothing at
all.





Step 3: Vibrams
With a month or so in Sanuks, you're ready to train
barefoot, if that's an option for you. If it's not, the
closest equivalent to shoeless jonesing is Vibram FiveFinger shoes, which have thin soles
and individual toe pockets. You can do any kind of cardio,
explosive training, or heavy lifting in Vibrams.
Bear in mind that the change from any shoes to Vibrams or bare
feet is so extreme that your feet will likely be sore the next day
just from walking around. If you're doing cardio, you may need
to cut back on your training a bit until you adapt.


FiveFingers help your feet, not necessarily your judgment in
choosing exercises.


Barefoot Lifting
If you generally walk around in loose shoes or thin-soled
sandals anyway, you can do pretty much every standard strength
exercise shoeless with little or no delay, though you might want to
keep the kicks on for heavy squat workouts. "It's not
comfortable stepping out of the rack barefoot with 400 or 500
pounds on your back," Rooney says.
We'll take his word for it.
For those who do Olympic lifts, Hinds suggests performing one or
two of your lighter workouts barefoot every week, and then using
shoes for heavy days until you adapt.
Deadlifting should feel natural right away, as you'll gain
a mechanical advantage from being closer to the floor and
shortening the range of motion.
Lunges and step-ups, on the other hand, may take some adjustment
as you find your balance. Front squats will probably be the most
awkward of all. "When you're barefoot, it magnifies your
incorrect alignment issues more," Hinds says.


Breaking In
All of which sounds great ... except to those of us who work
out in commercial gyms, where shoes are required and nobody wants
to be the first person to train in stare-inducing Vibrams. Even
Sanuks will draw unwanted attention to your feet when virtually
everyone else in the facility is wearing cross-trainers.
Fortunately, there's an easy way to get into unshod
training without drawing any stares or breaking any rules: Warm up
barefoot in an unoccupied yoga studio or aerobics room. Even five
minutes will improve proprioception and reduce injury risk, Rooney
says.
He suggests including these in your warm-up
routine:

Forward skips
Side shuffles
Carioca
Backward running
Rope jumping
After you're finished warming up, put on your Chucks and
hit the weights.


Will the Dogs Bark?
Rooney says he's never had a client who complained that
barefoot training caused foot pain or led to injury, and he trains
several MMA fighters who compete sans footwear. "What I will
hear them say is 'Man, my calves and my hips feel stuff
differently now.' "
Hinds doesn't permit any shoes other than Vibrams in his
gym, and his clients do box jumps, depth jumps, and every other
high-impact exercise you can think of barefoot.
Weak arches? Not a deal breaker, Hinds says. Get into it slowly,
giving your feet time to adjust, and you should be fine. If you
currently wear arch supports, use them when absolutely necessary
(running workouts, workdays in which you'll spend a lot of
time on your feet), but try to go barefoot around the house. Switch
to bigger shoes with less arch support for gym
workouts.
Another counterintuitive tip for those with arch enemies: work
on your flexibility. Hinds recommends Eischens yoga because of its emphasis on strengthening your weakest
links.


Wrapping It Up, and Addressing the Imelda Problem
Just to be clear, we aren't saying you have to go out and
buy all these shoes. Chucks are cheap — you can find them
online for less than $30 — but the others add up. Nike Frees
and Sanuk Vagabonds are closer to $50 online. We haven't seen
any terrific discounts on Vibrams, which, like the Nikes, carry a
full retail price around $85.
A lot of you are already training in Chucks, and as the article
suggests, you can skip the intermediate steps if you're ready
to train barefoot.
If you do buy one or more of them, they won't be useless
after you move on to another type of footwear. You'll still
have comfortable shoes you can wear outside the weight room.
The benefits of making the transition to barefoot training, or
the closest equivalent, are considerable. "I'd be so bold
as to say that barefoot training prevents ankle sprains and ACL
injuries," Rooney says. "When the foot becomes more
reactive, injuries disappear."
And if you're not interested in that aspect of barefoot
training, you should at least be interested in maximizing your
lifts.



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