If you look at most shoes, especially conventional running shoes and sneakers, you’ll notice that they curve upward at the toe. This curve is called a toe spring.
Toe springs were added to make it easier to walk in a shoe with a stiff sole. But as a Harvard evolutionary biologist found out, making things on our feet isn’t necessarily a good thing.
In this study published in Nature, the researchers observed the foot muscles working less when wearing a toe spring. Over time, this results in weaker foot muscles, and may contribute to common and painful foot problems like plantar fasciitis as other parts of our foot start to compensate for the weakened muscles.
If you want strong, healthy feet, it’s better to opt for a flat, flexible shoes with no toe spring. This blog is full of healthy barefoot shoes that do not have a stiff toe spring (occasionally I’ll share a transitional barefoot shoe like in this post on the best barefoot shoes for beginners that do include a slight toe spring, but I’ll note it).
The term barefoot is referring to how the shoe lets us walk, like when we are barefoot. This means no crutch like a toe spring to help us walk. In a barefoot shoe, you’re going to have to rely on your own foot muscles. But, that mean’s you’re much more likely to have healthy, pain-free feet.
After some wear, even a completely flat barefoot shoe will start to curve up slightly due to the repeated bending occurring at the toes from walking. Some of my most barefoot shoes, like Wildlings or Vivobarefoot with very thin soles still a very slight curve to prevent the front from catching, and from the repeated bending from walking. The issue lies when the shoe overall is very stiff and the toe spring is both stiff and significant such that when standing flat, the toes are still pulled upward.
For further reading, see the article “Your Shoes were made for walking. And that may be the problem” in The Harvard Gazette.
For more frequently asked questions about barefoot shoes, see the FAQ page.
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[…] The sole is still flexible for the amount of cushion. These shoes do have a moderate toe spring to accommodate for the greater amount of cushion. A toe spring is the upward curve at the toes, and it is usually there to help combat the thickness and stiffness in a sole and make it easier to walk. You can read more about toe springs here. […]