Essential Points:

• Shoes Have Evolved but Altered Foot Function: While shoes have been around for over 40,000 years, modern footwear has strayed far from its original purpose of simply protecting the foot, often causing deformities and limiting foot mobility.

• Foot Rigidity and Muscle Weakness: The modern shoe design forces the foot into unnatural shapes and supports, which can weaken foot muscles over time, hindering natural foot function and reducing balance and stability.

• The Importance of Barefoot Movement: To restore optimal foot function, barefoot exposure and targeted exercises are key for building strength, improving motor control, and enhancing balance, especially for those with issues like “weak ankles.”

Today’s article is a continuation of our discussion on the optimal foot, how shoes have degraded the natural capacity of the foot, and how to re-obtain this functionality. If you missed out on last week’s article check it out here.

A Brief History of Shoes

It is undeniable that shoes have been a staple in modern human history in some form or another for a long time. In fact, according to two researchers at the Washington University of St. Louis, shoes have likely been around in some form for 40,000 years. You can read their research article here. Currently, the oldest preserved shoes found are around 9,300 years old and were made of rope in a sandal like fashion. The oldest modern-like shoe ever found is made of leather and dates back about 5,500 years. Both ancient shoes are seen below.

Presumably, these shoes were not made for fashion in their early days of use, but rather overall function. Life was much different even just 10,000 years ago. The feet had to endure a constant barrage of rough ground and potentially dangerous natural objects that could cause injury, or at minimum slow a person down. Even if the people of this time had strong and callused feet, adding a nice layer of non-restrictive protection could improve a person’s natural abilities. Thus, the invention of shoes and the beginning of our current story.

As any technology, it is bound to be changed and improved over the years for multiple end goals. Shoes have been used for protection, performance enhancement, and even as status symbols. In fact, high heel shoes were first worn by men as a show of status starting in the 1600s. King Louis the XIV of France was a short man standing at just 5’ 4” and popularized wearing high heels so that he could better establish his dominance over others and quite literally reign over them. I imagine it would be odd to see men wearing high heels in most places today.

Even the common accepted idea of having a right and left shoe is relatively new in the history books. The first time left and right shoes were made popular was during the mid-1800s in Philadelphia as production methods became more technologically advanced and comfort became a growing priority. Fast forward a bit further to just 1892, at the end of the 19th century, when modern day sneakers were made. Technology allowed rubber soles to be attached with canvas uppers and lead to these shoes being so quiet they earned the name “sneakers” because you could quite literally sneak up on others.

Modern day running shoes, invented by Adolf Dassler, came about in the 1920s a mere 100 years ago. The Dassler brothers would go on to found Adidas and Puma which carry their legacies on today. As recreational running and performance enhancement became more popularized over this 100-year period, so did the addition and subsequent “improvements” in heel cushioning technology to disperse more impact and allow longer strides or bigger jumps. Although many would say these “improvements” fundamentally changed our natural running mechanics. Whether this was for better or worse, I’ll let you decide.

Between 2004-2005 the pendulum began to swing the other way as minimalist shoes began to emerge including the Nike Free and Vibram Five Fingers. These shoes used modern technology to better mimic the minimalist functionality of ancient shoes favoring almost no padding. Finally, fifteen short years later we catch up with our modern-day shoe world where you can find a shoe for practically any activity you desire in practically any design. But with these choices comes the dilemma of what is a shoes purpose, and what shoes are the best for an individual?

The history of shoes is a truly fascinating 40,000-year journey. A few short paragraphs do it no justice and in fact each of those paragraphs could quite easily be turned into a novel of their own. I highly encourage you to dive down this rabbit hole however you see fit.  As I said previously, shoes were invented primarily to protect our feet from the outside elements. Sadly, we did not realize that for all the good shoes have done to protect our feet from the outside world, their modern form was never inherently designed to protect our feet from the shoe itself. Humans have been a part of a 40,000-year long shoe experiment with much success, but unfortunately quite a few side effects as well.

How Shoes Affect Our Feet

Reviewing what we discussed in The Foot: The Foundation of Balance, the foot was designed to MOVE, MOLD, STABILIZE. This series of actions allows our base of support to find stability and thus a safe equilibrium up the bodily chain. Such equilibrium gives us an appropriately strong base to live our daily life from.  The best way to perform these three actions is to allow the foot to make direct contact with the ground unimpeded. This direct contact allows full sensory feedback through the sole of the foot and unrestricted use of the joints and muscles. Consequently, the foot is primed and ready to work at full capacity.

Unfortunately, the world is a very dangerous place for our feet. Sharp objects, animals, and dangerous substances abound that we would never willingly be around barefoot. For that reason, we traded in our full sensory barefoot experience for a more protected, albeit desensitized, experience. All-in-all, this was a good choice on human-kinds’ part but has led to new problems. As shoes have morphed into a shape of their own, now only vaguely resembling a foot, we are quite literally changing the shape and thus function of our feet.

Now, I am going to state some generalities here but stick with me. Since most of us were two years old we have been wearing shoes. Our parents would tell us not to forget our shoes when we wanted to run outside and play. Reluctantly we would put the shoes on, but over the years this reluctance turned into acceptance and even desire. As we got older, shoes became a necessity, something we rarely would leave the safety of our home without. Even if we wanted to walk outside barefoot, how many culturally acceptable places are there to do this anymore?

Going barefoot in most public places is highly frowned upon. “No shoes, No service” has become an oddly common place sign on business fronts. Consequently, shoes are a haven for our feet, and a culturally acceptable foot garment. Most of us wear shoes of all kinds at minimum ten hours per day without a second thought. But because wearing shoes has become second nature, socially expected, and safe, we essentially have forgotten the natural functionality of the foot and the benefits of going barefoot. Yet at the same time, I am sure many people cannot wait to kick their shoes off after a long day and feel how great a moment without shoes truly is.

On face value, it is true; shoes can improve our life and allow us to hike mountains or work in the construction yard without fear of injury. I am not arguing against the utility of shoes. I am arguing that modern shoes have destroyed the functional capacity of our feet, and thus our natural inherent stability and balance. They were never designed to give protection while simultaneously allowing our feet to function normally, at least in their modern form. I want you to think about my next statement carefully.

Most modern shoes are just soft and ill-fitting casts that we as a culture have normalized wearing.

Casts, in a traditional sense, are meant to protect, immobilize, and facilitate healing or fusing of bodily areas. Casts essentially use the SAID (specific adaptation to imposed demands) principle in reverse forcing our body to adapt to a lack of demand for movement and become rigid and immobile. Like it or not, that is exactly what most shoes do. Perfect for the foot that does not need mobility, but rather stability, right? Wrong, because if our foot becomes wholly immobile, we lose all adaptive ability and thus create an inability to mold and obtain the most stable position for the task at hand.

So how do shoes affect our foot and consequently limit functional capability? Shoes do this in two main ways:

1) Create abnormal rigidity and deformation through unnatural shape and stiffness

2) Facilitate weakening of foot musculature through artificial supports 

Shoes Create Foot Rigidity and Deformation

The modern shoe is a far cry from the almost 5,500-year-old leather shoe above. That shoe was simply a leather wrapping that was shaped by the foot it covered. Modern shoes do the exact opposite, our foot molds to the design of the shoe itself. Rarely do we go to the shoe store and see foot shaped shoes. In fact, I want you to try an experiment right now. Take your shoe and simply pull out the insert. Now put your foot on top of the insert and let your toes splay out naturally. Does your foot stay within the bounds of the insert? Or does your foot spill over slightly?

I did this experiment with my work shoes below. Even though I love these shoes for many reasons, the fit of them is not one. As we can see my toes splay out just slightly past the boundaries of the insert. To make my foot fit, I must physically hold my toes together just like the shoe would. Over time, my foot becomes adapted to this position and my foot will fit better in the shoe, but this comes at a great cost to my foot’s overall function.

Since the toes eventually become accustom and rigid in this position, the shoes do end up fitting better over time, but my foot ends up in this unnatural shape as a cost. As we can see, my toes are jammed against each other and my toes are all pointed inward creating a diamond like shape to the apex of my longest toe. The proximity of the toes leads to rubbing and calluses. My big toe is forced inwards which can lead to a bunion if I allow this shaping to occur over the long term. If you look closely you can even see my big toe start to override and overlap my second toe just slightly, further decreasing the width of my foot and thus shrinking my base of support. The toes are essentially being shaped into a singular unit rather than five individual acting phalanges.

Although the toes are the easiest to illustrate how a shoe can squish and deform a foot, similar situations are occurring along the length of the foot at the metatarsals and tarsal bones. Pathology such as Morton’s Neuroma are more likely to occur as the foot physically loses space for other structures causing impingement and compression on nerves, blood vessels, and muscles. Additionally, because the foot takes on this condensed shape for long durations it begins to lock down, and lose its natural mobility between the individual joints. The use it or lose it principle begins to apply and we are left with a relatively skinnier and less adaptable foot. Not a good situation for optimal balance or stability.

Shoes Facilitate Weakening of the Foot

Along with abnormal shaping of the foot, shoes tend to give us much more support than we need. From high top shoes for ankle support, and inserts of varying types giving us arch support, our muscles can go on vacation. Why should our muscles work if the shoe is handling all the stresses? As a physical therapist, I recognize the utility of extra foot support when used wisely and as an aid during injury, but too many lay people and even clinicians have made these supports normalized over the long term. Such supports are best used as short-term fixes as we tackle the root of the problem. Our foot, when used properly, can support itself. After all, the foot was supporting itself long before shoes entered the scene. 

Over the years in both my personal and professional life, I have heard many athletes say they have “weak ankles”. What they usually mean is that they have recurring ankle sprains or frequently roll their ankles during their athletic endeavors. Whenever I encounter an athlete like this, I often see that they are wearing high top shoes, or ankle braces for extra support. Now, I full-heartedly support this attempt at stabilizing an injury risk structure, but it is only a band-aid. Wearing a high-top shoe is like taking a medication for disease. Yes, it deals with the current situation and quite possibly prevents more injury, but it does not actually solve the real core issue. The high-top acts as an external stabilizer for our ankle but does not prevent the multitude of reasons for true ankle instability. In fact, such external stabilization allows the ankle stabilizing muscles to work less and thus instigates the issue even further. To truly fix those “weak ankles”, we must allow the ankle stabilizers to work on their own to build strength, motor control, and capacity. The more functional capacity those stabilizing muscles have, the more resilient and “roll-proof” the ankle can be. High-tops are almost never a viable long-term solution, nor is any other sort of ankle brace. The true solution is a graded exercise program and barefoot exposure for improved muscular support.

Arch supports work in quite the same way. Why would our arch muscles support the foot when a nice man-made arch support is doing all the work? Our body was made to conserve energy anyway it can. Consequently, these muscles also go on a vacation and become weaker and less inherently supportive without a shoe. Weaker arch muscles mean a less resilient arch, and higher chance of injury. For many, it is much easier to go buy a more supportive shoe insert, than physically train the arch to be stronger for long term injury prevention. It is the definition of a vicious circle, and unfortunately the medical field is partly to blame for this scenario’s continued occurrence and promotion.

Lastly, due to the abnormal rigidity and alignment of the foot while in shoes, we lose the ability to individually control the toes. The muscles of the foot lose their efficient connection to the brain, which allows us to move our big toe independent of our little toes. After all, why would the brain bother keeping these synaptic motor pathways alive and well when shoes do not allow individual toe movements to occur? It essentially becomes a waste of brain space and energy, therefore the brain prunes these synapses. As an experiment, attempt to move your big toe independent of your four little toes. Are you able to move the big toe up and down independently? Are you able to do the same with your 2nd-4th toes? I would be willing to bet my license that most readers cannot do this. Full disclosure, I am guilty of this lack of motor control too. It is something I actively try to improve when able.

Final Thoughts

Even though shoes have brought about much good in our modern world, they have also brought along a recipe for disaster in terms of long-term foot health. Somewhere along the way, our basic leather coverings turned into ill-fitting foot garments. Yes, they have done well in protecting our feet from the outside world, but in turn they have damaged and shaped our feet into dainty-dependent shadows of their true selves. During this article I discussed the two main ways I believe shoes have affected our feet negatively. In the third and final article of this foot series, I will discuss how we can re-obtain our foot’s optimal functionality and take a few literal steps closer to a more stable and healthy body.

Thank you for reading the article! I would love to hear your thoughts below in the comments. Do you agree shoes need a revamp? Do you agree that we have created a less than optimal environment for foot health? How do you think we should go about optimizing our patient/client’s feet through therapy?

If you want to get some awesome natural footwear that can help you reclaim your naturally strong foot check out Earth Runners, Lems Shoes, Xero Shoes or for a cheaper but still all around good shoe Whitins.

Happy falling!