You might think, “How much are my shoes affecting the posture of the other joints in my body?” Well, to be honest, we don’t know. We are all at least slightly different, and as a result, we will all react differently to the same shoe. Despite this, certain patterns are easier to predict...

It’s important to choose footwear that allows your feet to function optimally. They are at the forefront of your interactions with the world and dictate how the rest of our body orients itself. In short, functional footwear will increase your ability to perform your best and reduce wear and tear throughout the whole body.  On the other hand, dysfunctional footwear will slap you across the face with poor performance and leave you with a body full of aches and pains.

How did society get shoes so wrong? The human foot looks a certain way…so just make something like it and call it a day. It should have been simple, but people are going to people, making decisions that snowball until you get an absolute catastrophe.

Studies show that barefoot shoes allow for proper sensation and stabilization, greater recruitment and coordination for our musculature and joints, and even improved reaction times...

Foot features like shape, volume, and width can seriously impact what fits.

So if you've dabbled in barefoot shoes but didn't have success, don't give up! It likely was a fit issue, and there are ways of remedying that.

Why are you not already going barefoot? Is it because you’ve heard that you have flat feet and there’s nothing to be done about it? Have you been led to believe that modern footwear has been designed to best suit your needs by supporting your arch? Well, it has and does, but that isn’t the whole picture...