The foot and toe biomechanical role is, in my opinion, under valued and invisible in the most common cases of pain, and injuries. Let me preface this post with I am not a podiatrist, an orthopedic, or a physical therapist. I’m just a lil ole personal trainer whose been doing and seeing some good, the bad and the super ugly for a lil bit.
If you take your shoes and socks off what do you see? Are your toes lined up together like chicken cutlets in a tub? Is the big toe is veering in towards the second toe? Can you wiggle your toes independently (one at a time, much like you can with your fingers)? Can you spread your toes far and wide from each other? If you can do the ladder two you’re in good shape. If your toes resemble the first two – you have some work to do for them feets!
The Meyer’s Line is a straight axis line that on a functional foot goes from the center through the big toe joint and through the center of the top of the big toe. When the big toe is angled toward the second toe its role in providing support, controlling pronation (the arch) and facilitating forward propulsion is greatly reduced and at risk for bunions.
The big toe is soooo important to human movement…it is what makes up bipedal!
The big toe steers the body, stabilizes you while standing, or bases you when you lift, and project you forward when walking and/or running. When the big toe is out of commission (atrophied or a bunion) a slew of problems can be created – and a lot of problems, although originated in the toes and feets, show up elsewhere (hammies, hips, knees, ankles). The body is one big kinetic chain, which means no body part functions in isolation.
Not all toes are created equal, at least not in terms of foot stabilization and forward propulsion. The big toes are the only toes that have their own set of control muscles and tendon insertions.
When we walk or run the toes begin to dorsiflex (tilt upward) this action turns the foot arch into a rigid lever and also creates possible energy, as the plantar fascia is being stretched. As the toes push off the ground they release the energy from the plantar fascia pushing you forward. We spread our toes wide making our feet a wider based surface, just like when you do push-ups and you spread your hands wide for a big base and larger control of stability, when we do stabilization movements (squat, deadlift, etc).
Too narrow of a shoe negatively affect the toe’s ability to be used for this movement. The whole point of us being Bipedal is our big toe! And these shoes cramp and put the toe to sleep and out of commission!
The more narrow the shoe, the less power the foot has inside the shoe because the muscles are doing less work.
OK, so a wider toe box and room for the toes to splay – got it. What about cushioning? Cushioning is going to depend on your sport and your foot’s current condition. If you are walking around on Hoka’s you cannot just take them off and go to a minimalist shoe. This would be like if you worked for years up to a max back squat of 300 pounds, and then took 5 years off and did nothing then one day walked back into the gym and loaded the bar with 300 pounds and attempted a back squat. You’d get hurt. Your muscles would not be able to support the weight – they atrophied and need to be strengthened appropriately. Same with the feetses. If you are walking around in squishy shoes your foot muscles are atrophied and need strengthened, and just like any muscle it takes time. How much time? Well just like all muscle development, everyone is different and varies.
If you are running distance you need the cushioning. Cushioning shoes can reduce peak ground contact force. Which minimizing stress absorption on a long run is key to maintaining energy.
For heavier athletes the more compressible foam essentially “bottoms out” reducing the cushion significantly and at this point creates an extremely unstable base/land for the foot (ankle twisting and pronation). The foot itself needs to be appropriately strengthened to properly absorb and distribute the load. For heavier runners a stiffer shoe, or a shoe with a lower cushion to help build foot strength and shorter runs is recommended….but I ain’t yo momma….so do as you please.
There is no evidence minimalist shoes reduces injury risk. Long-term injury rates are the exact same between minimal runners and maximalist shoe wearers. This is a very specific subject – everyone will follow some basic guidelines, but ultimately the best shoe for them won’t be the best shoe for the guy or gal beside them. Biomechanics and these wet biological bodies we slide around in for roughly 80 years are constantly changing and need constant accommodations. What is good for one, may not be good for all, what is good today, might not be good tomorrow.
OK…so what are the basics? What should be the minimum needs we look for in a shoe?
First, you need to decide what you want the shoe for? Running trails, running on the road, long distances, shorter distances, lifting weights, walking, etc. Let’s take a look at what you DON’T want in any shoe. We’ve already determined we don’t want a narrow toe box – and again this is going to be narrow to YOU. Everyone’s foot width is different and you will also find the longer you wear a shoe with a wider toe box the more your feet will spread. Spread is good!
The next thing you do not want in any shoe is toe spring, the “curved” design is the latest innovation. The toe part of most shoes, especially newer sneakers, bend slightly upward; this is called toe spring. It makes stepping more comfortable and easier. It also weakens the feets and opens you up to common and painful foot related problems. The more toe spring, the less work the foot is doing. If the foot does less work, it has less endurance, just like all muscles.
A common issue is plantar fasciitis. When the toes do less work the ligament does more work then it is necessarily designed to do. The plantar fascia was not evolved to do this much work, as a result the fascia becomes angry and irritated, and can take a very long time for the inflammation to cool off. Please note if you develop plantar fasciitis you will have to let the inflammation cool off before you can address what caused it, and some honest feets strengthening work. The best option for footwear when dealing with plantar fasciitis is a stiff, and padded shoe – think of fascia as skin, if you were to burn your thumb pretty bad you would not only want to wrap it with cushioning but also have a stiffer protective cover over it so the thumb wouldn’t absorb pressure if you accidentally hit it off of something. Same with the fascia in your foot – it needs some cushion and stiff protecting until the burning (inflammation) goes away. And just like an actual burn, the more severe the burn is, the longer it takes to heal. The difference with a burn on the skin is you can visibly see if it is healing or being reinjured. You cannot see ligaments.
How to fix plantar fasciitis permanently: have a good plan of attack for identifying WHY your plantar fascia got inflamed. Shoes, running/walking gait, weak toes/bunions – and address them head on…or face a repeat of the injury.
Toe spring isn’t all bad, there have been some potential benefits. There appears to be a reduction in certain biomarkers of damage and fatigue but its important to also note that the combination of cushion and curve encourages heel striking and an increase in stride length and decreases cadence, which is generally a negative for runners. You don’t want to heel strike, when you heel strike you are landing with your knee outstretched, in the most vulnerable position, absorbing impact, regardless of how cushy and squishy your shoes are, the PCL is getting hyper extended over and over again with force. I’m not saying if you have cushiony shoes with toe spring you will necessarily heel strike. I know a few runners who run with big squishy Hoka’s and their toes are pointed to the sky and they maintain great form- I will also add they are gifted runners and have run well for decades, they themselves are light weighted bodies, and they practice running a lot.
Us juicy, wet, biological creatures don’t ALL follow a particular pattern – there are some serious generalization and a lot of adaption when it comes to pain, injury prevention and fixing.
A little recap:
Squishy, narrow shoes and lifting are not a good combination. A good minimal shoe with a large toe box and a sole without cushion are best. Converses are horrible, Vans are terrible…although they look fleek (are we still using fleek?) they are very narrow and the sole is too rigid with little to movement.
A cushioned, big toe box shoe will likely provide the most benefit to distant runners.
A wide toe box with minimal squish is better for a larger, heavier runner and these runners should keep the ground and pound on their bodies to a minimum.
A wide toe box, minimal to no squish is good for cross training. Nike MetCons are popular, but although they do provide wider toe box they have a significant toe spring which creates an off balance in trying to create a strong foot base (toes splayed and gripping the floor)
I wear Xero shoes – and I don’t get paid to tell you that (I wish I did…anyone know how I get sponsors?) Now let me tell you my personal journey with Ange’s feetses – again all antidotal (my personal experience).
As a kid I was told my feet over pronated and I was sent for orthotics. These arch supports never fit in any shoes correctly and I essentially never was able to use them. The thought of “your feet are wrong” was born and I hung on to this thought most of my existence. My thought process was always my feet are “wrong”, never “I have the wrong shoes”.
When I joined the Marine Corps my shoe drama continued with boots. The fancy, narrow shined up and looked amazing Jungle Boots were the only boot I wanted to wear. These narrow boots looked ah-mah-ZING in uniform, all shined up, tight and commanding – but they crushed the top of my foot to such an extreme I’d lose feeling in my foot, which sounds fine…except you also have zero dexterity to actually…ya know walk. So I was mostly reduced to wearing the ugly, clunky, hot BCGs, they were fat and wide…convincing me once again that my feet sucked.
Fast forward a few years I am running for distance. I usually just pick up a pair of shoes that are on sale and I can tromp around the store a few times without them nagging or rubbing. Knee pain is born, and I am frequently rolling my ankle, sometimes scott-free and sometimes with a linger of pain. I chalk it up to weak ankles and “getting older knees” and don’t have the budget for the fancy shoes. I tape up my knees and truck on.
Unfortunately, I break my foot running from a rolled my ankle. As I heal up the only shoes I can wear comfortably are flip flops, fast forward 3 months and my foot is healed up enough to attempt work shoes (wearing high heels) and narrow sneakers and much to my chagrin these shoes squeeze and burn pressure points into my feet. I have little balance in the heels and am terrified I will roll my ankle again. Now looking back on this jaunt through memory lane I was a daft ass mother fuawker….narrow shoes hurt my feet and my response was not to find a wider, better fitting shoe but to adapt Cinderella’s step-sisters attitude and blame my big wide foot and keep jamming it into tiny ass shoes…..oooooffff. Youth is wasted on the young.
Fast forward a decade and I am having all sorts of hamstring issues and lots of nerve pain in my hips. I take video of myself deadlifting and see a shift in my lift. This shift was from tight glute muscles but it wasn’t the glute that was having issues, it was a constant biomechanical corruption from my feet. I massage the glute, do activation exercises, tens, bands, theragun. Nothing fixed the issue, but I did find some relief, but the cat came back the very next day….
Then I start trail racing and cannot hang on to my toenails for the life of me (lost all my toe nails at the Rachel Carson in 2017 and again at Trailfest 2021…cute huh?) Of course in this day and age all you have to do is say a word and your social media and google blasts you with ads, so I stumble upon an article about toes and minimal shoes.
I have tried minimal shoes in the past. Do you remember the fancy toe shoes, did you have a pair? I had mine around 2009….I ran a Tough Mudder in them, I was like a declawed cat on the side of slippery, muddy mountain. I kept losing my balance and actually gave myself whiplash, because my head kept snapping back so hard each time I unexpectedly fell….oooof ….have I mentioned the youth is wasted on the youth?
So I wasn’t particularly interested in heading down the path of minimal shoes, I mean I’ve read Born to Run and my first reaction to that book was…..we aren’t primal creatures anymore. We have evolved significantly, and even if our bodies have not….our environment SIGNIFICANTLY has. We don’t run and walk on grass and the Earth’s soil like we did in our cave days. We live in the land of the Concrete and Asphalt Dragon, our feets are not designed to take a hammering running on these surfaces, Caballo Blanco.
But taping my feet, arch supports and more cushioned shoes were not fixing my knee or glute issues. I came to the conclusion that my former self might not know everything about minimal shoes and I should research again. I started digging a little deeper then just “a guy wrote a book about his antidotal experience” and put minimal shoes on and hope for the best, to transitioning smartly to minimal shoes. I identified immobility issues in my big toe and some callouses on the tips of my toes from shoe squishing. I found an invention called toe spreaders, massaged my toes and feet, and actively spread them from each other, I was mindful about using my foot when I stabilize and pay attention to gait when running.
I have been wearing my minimal shoes for about 10 months now, however I will not wear them to run long distance on the road (and I’ll be honest those days are mostly over anyways), but I wear them for every activity now. I am happy to report I do not have any pain when I run, and I am able to lift with a better base (no shift from tight muscles over reacting from misuse of biomechanics in the feets).
I’ve had such success with these shoes I have to ask myself….why do people buy these squishy, curved shoes? And of course the answer is obvious. Because they are comfortable! And that’s what us humans do….seek comfort. Just like sitting on the couch versus standing. It’s comfy! You have to live somewhere between “comfort will kill you”, and I live in 2022 and find your happy medium for your wet, biological body to slide around. Happy sliding!
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