Barefoot walking and running.

When you were born you chilled out a lot, sleeping, feeding, sleeping, feeding etc...you get the picture?
















Then you decided to try and sit...well we know what comes next..the short story is, as soon as you began walking mum and dad put shoes on your feet,and since then you’ve been wearing ill fitting shoes.( As parents let your kids walk bare foot as much as possible and whenever possible).

Here's the thing, the latest ‘craze’ is barefoot running but you’ve encased your feet in shoes,boots,slippers etc  for eons in time so what do you think has happened to your feet?

Yep,they’ve adapted poorly to your ill fitting shoes you’ve been wearing since you where a kid.

Your arches are either too high or too low.

Your ankle joints are either pronated or supinated.

Your toes are too close together.

You’ve developed a buffering layer of fat on the heel bone--because of excessive heel strike.

You haven’t developed enough of a buffering layer of fat over the anterior arch because we don’t walk/run enough on the front foot.

The muscles of the foot have been used in an un-natural way because of the excessive heel strike action.


These same muscles have ‘forgotten’ to ‘save’ kinetic energy and then ‘release’ this kinetic energy on ‘toe off’ or pushing stage of the gait pattern.

Your posture ‘slouches’.

Your pelvis and upper cervical vertebrae will be out of alignment.Putting too much strain on these joints and their ligaments.

The chinese meridian points and gait reflexes that are on the foot are all out of synch because of all of the above.

The layer of shoe leather/rubber/plastic etc acts like a  ‘disconnector’ to the Earth( as does walking on pavements).

So what happens next?


Excuse the pun but we need to make changes,gradually,one step at a time.

Walk barefoot in the house as much as possible.

Walk on grass for 30 minutes at a time to start with. You’re local park is a great venue.

Walk on the beach for 30 minutes to start with and gradually build it up till you can walk comfortable for 60 minutes.

These three simple exercises will slowly and gradually build up the muscles of the foot and lower leg and return you stride pattern to something like natural....it also feels great and enlivening.

The skin on the soles of your feet will thicken as will the natural buffering layer of fat.

The gait reflexes and chinese meridian points will start to normalize and return to their natural state.

Your posture will show healthy signs of improvement.

Whether you want to start bare foot running or not, being on bare feet as much as possible is very healthy for you and very ‘grounding’ mentally/emotionally.Your posture will improve as will your levels of vitality and energy.

For those who want to continue to bare foot running there are a few steps to observe.

1) You will find yourself naturally running on the balls of your feet and it will be almost impossible to run on you heels like you’ve been doing for eons when you wore shoes.
Your running or gait action will noticeably change and may feel unusual to start with but strangely it will also feel ‘normal’. Even paleolithic or primordial. Trust this...its a great feeling and will get better as you return to your ‘roots’ of running naturally.

2) Run gently for 50m then walk for 100m. do this 10 times to start with.No more, but do less if you feel uncomfortable especially if you starting out on sand.

3) Be careful at this stage because you can ‘strain’ muscles that have never been used in this way before even though it is how they are supposed to be used. Wearing ill fitting shoes and poorly design training shoes have ‘retrained’ you walking/running patterns in a very negative way so to undo these harmful patterns change won't happen over night.

4) SLOW is the new FAST. Take you time to build up and feel free to rest between sessions and walk between ‘runs'.

This child is how we all need to be brought up.


That’s all for now. e- mail me for a consult or any further info.