Footwear vs. function: who wins?
Imagine wearing body armour all day that restricted your movement. How would your body feel when you finally took it off? Total relief, I’d imagine. Sadly, on a lower level, that’s what traditional shoes can do to your feet. But unlike being able to take off a suit of armour, the effects aren’t temporary. They compound over time.
I’ve been walking more than usual for National Walking Month during May, racking up my miles in support of my chosen cause. On these walks, one topic keeps coming up: feet. Someone will mention an issue they’re navigating, ask about the best footwear for walking, or question why I’m wearing my barefoot-style boots. It’s a fair question.
Our feet are small but mighty foundations. They carry our entire body weight and work (alongside a supportive team of muscles and tissues up the chain) to help us move through the world. Each foot contains 26 bones, 33 joints, and over 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments, making up around a quarter of all the bones in the body. They’re designed to move in all directions and adapt to an astonishing range of surfaces.
But like any part of the body, if we stop giving them variety and movement, they start to lose strength and mobility. And when that happens, we tend to blame age, or bad luck, rather than thinking about how we’ve been treating them over time.
Foot problems are common, but not inevitable
When I post about foot care on social media, the response is always strong. Why? Because foot issues are so common and they can seriously impact how we move through daily life, often chipping away at both mobility and confidence.
If most of us spent our lives barefoot, I’m convinced we wouldn’t see the same levels of foot pain. Instead, we can end up wearing shoes most of the time, and more often than not, the ones we choose are actively shaping our feet in ways that reduce their function and comfort, or even worse over time.
Being barefoot more often is a choice. It’s not for everyone. There are valid exceptions, especially for those with diabetes or certain conditions. But many of the barriers I hear, like cold floors or not liking the feeling, are just habits. There are always ways to build in alternatives if you want to start ‘rewilding’ your feet, to take them back to how they functioned in childhood, before rigid school shoes and thick-soled trainers got involved.
Walking helps your feet - if your shoes let it
Walking is one of the best exercises for your feet. It gets the joints moving, strengthens the muscles, and provides varied input to the brain through the thousands of nerve endings on the soles. That sensory feedback supports your balance. Add in weight-bearing for bone health and improved circulation, and you’ve got a full-body win.
But you only get the full benefit if your shoes allow your feet to move.
When the toe box of a shoe tapers inward, which most traditional shoes do, even hiking boots, the toes can’t spread out as they’re designed to. That restricts muscle use, limits joint motion, and can even push the toes into unnatural shapes under load. Over time, that can impact muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints and more.
The same goes for shoes with stiff soles. If your foot can’t bend at the big toe as you push off, or naturally pronate and supinate (roll slightly inwards and outwards as you walk), the rest of your body has to compensate. A rigid, ankle-supporting boot might seem helpful, but often just passes the load to your knee, hip, or lower spine.
And don’t forget heel height. Even a small difference from heel to toe shifts your body forward. Your system has to work harder to keep you upright against gravity. If you’ve worn high heels, you’ll know the feeling; tight calves, aching backs. Even modern trainers are often higher at the heel and this has effects over time, even if they feel comfy at first.
Then there’s the flip-flop issue: with no back strap, your toes grip constantly to keep them on. That gripping interferes with the natural walking pattern and can cause tension throughout the foot and up the chain.
Don’t blame the barefoot shoes, blame the transition
Once you know what to look for in footwear, you’re in a better position to make informed choices. That doesn’t mean rushing out to buy barefoot shoes. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t, at least not without a gradual plan.
Too many people switch straight from rigid, padded shoes to minimal ones and expect their body to adapt instantly. When discomfort arises, they blame the new shoes, rather than the years of underuse their feet are trying to recover from.
It’s like expecting to run a marathon when you’ve only ever walked to the corner shop. Your feet just aren’t ready and they need time to gradually relearn, short stints at a time.
Even after nearly eight years of wearing barefoot shoes, I’m still learning. On a recent activity holiday, I bruised both fourth toes, possibly because of how my anatomy interacts with long walks and certain shoe shapes. And that’s the thing: we’re all different. What works for one person might not work for another. But if you have foot issues, investigating barefoot - whether that’s time without shoes or carefully transitioning to barefoot shoes, might be an option that can make a lot of difference.
What now?
Your feet are doing a lot of work for you. They deserve more freedom to move naturally and more variety of movement. Whether that means choosing a wider toe box, going barefoot at home, or just noticing how your shoes affect the way you move - small shifts can add up to big change.
👣 Want to dive deeper? Listen to my conversation with natural podiatrist Andy Bryant on Episode 18 of the *Make Movement Matter* podcast: “Natural Foot Function for Foot & Whole Body Health.” [Click the title to listen.]
