How To Transition To Minimalist Shoes

Audio Transcript

Coach Jeff: Today, we have a great question from Laura. Laura asks, “Transitioning to zero-drop shoes. I’d like to hear your experiences about transitioning to zero-drop shoes and your opinions generally about how to transition, if it’s more natural, and if it’s beneficial.” Thanks Laura for the question. It’s actually a very good one and it’s a very in-depth one. I’m going to break this down into two parts. First I’m going to talk about whether transitioning to a zero-drop shoe is more natural and if it’s beneficial, what are the things to watch out for and then I’m going to talk about how to actually accomplish that, if that’s your goal.

When we talk about transitioning to zero-drop shoes, obviously the question gets around, is it actually a better way to run, is it more natural, et cetera. Yes, in general, using a minimalist type shoe is a more natural way to run and it’s likely going to help you run in a more efficient natural form for you. That doesn’t mean that everybody should be running in a minimalist shoe, there are some runners whose biomechanics would probably benefit from having a higher heeled shoe or might need that in order to help support them. Some runners may need the support and the cushioning that the shoe brings on, but in general most people could benefit from transitioning to a zero-drop or a minimalist bare-foot type shoe.

One thing that I want to put out there is that, it’s not a one size fits all or a very quick solution or a quick hack to improve your form, there’s a lot that goes into that. What I think happened with media is, it gets very easy to put out sensational headlines, “Improve your running right now by running barefoot or running in a minimalist shoe” for example. That it’s going to all of a sudden turn you into a fore foot striker or that it’s going to reduce impact forces or that it’s going to make you more efficient. All of these things are thrown out there, that transitioning to a bare foot shoe or minimalist shoe, that’s what it’s going to do, but that’s actually not what happens.

What should happen is that, your form as a product of moving to a more minimalist type shoe, will improve so that you can do certain types of things. For example, looking at minimalist shoes and forefoot versus heel striking, something we talked a little bit about in episode one with cadence. There is no foot strike that is best for everybody. You can heel strike and be a perfectly good, fast, injury free runner and if you want an example of that, Meb Keflezighi is probably one of the best. He is a bronze medalist; he’s won the Boston marathon, won the New York City Marathon, he heel strikes. You can see it very prominently with any video or still pictures of him running.

Now, what we don’t want, like we talked about in episode one about cadence, is we don’t want you striking with your foot directly out in front of your center of mass with a straight leg. Moving to a minimalist shoe, generally it’s going to make it so you don’t heel strike because in order to absorb some of the impact for shoe [tentedness 00:04:32], certainly get up on your toes a little bit more, strike a little bit more forefoot, but that does not prevent over striding. Taking your shoe out of a regular shoe and putting on a minimalist shoe, does not prevent you from over striding. If you are already over striding and then you put on a minimalist shoe with no padding, all that’s going to do is increase the impact forces. Because now instead of the shoe absorbing some of that impact, it’s going to be even more of your hip, or your knee, or your leg.

It’s not that putting on a minimalist shoe automatically prevents you from over striding. It’s one of those things that can make you feel more effectively, if you’re over striding because obviously that impact of course is going to be greater, but it doesn’t automatically prevent it. On the same line, it’s not something that makes you more efficient. What we need to do is actually, improve your running form through flexibility, strength mobility, that type of thing and then using a minimalist shoe can help you feel those types of changes. That’s the benefit of moving to a minimal shoe and obviously some of the things to watch out for.

I wanted to preface that when answering this question, that going to minimalist shoe is not a cure all; it is not a hack, it is not a one size fits all solution to improving your running form, to get more efficient, or to reduce injuries. What it can help you do is, it can help you feel when you’re running inefficiently and it can help you feel what your proper running from should be like. That said, if you want to move from a more minimalist shoe and move in that direction, there’s a couple of steps that you do need to take.

The first step is that you need to build a foundation. Most runners lack either the flexibility, the mobility, or the strength to run well in a bare foot and minimalist type shoe.

The first thing we need to do is, you need to set yourself up on a strength training plan and that’s going to attack specific areas that can get more stressed or that need to be improved in order to transition. Those areas are going to be flexibility in your toes, your feet, so your plantar fascia, the intrinsic foot muscles, your Achilles tendon, your calf, your ankle, all of those things need to have greater mobility. You want to start out by using exercises that either improve that mobility or improve the strength in that area. That can include [inaudible 00:06:43] exercises, eccentric calf raises, knee pointers, toe pointers, those types of things, anything that is going to help improve those areas.

The second area you want to focus on is your hips. The hips are probably the most important part of the body when it comes to preventing running injuries. They control a great degree of stability when it comes to impact forces, when it comes to transferring weight across, whether it be hip extension, those types of things and so improving hip strength is extremely important. The types of things you want to be doing, are like therapy and balance, donkey kicks, some running drills like A skips, hip hikes, anything that’s going to help improve the hip strength.

If you are interested, I’ll mention it quickly, we do have a transition to minimalist running strength routine as part of our strength training for runners program. You can head to runnersconnect.net/strengthtrainingforrunners or Google it or if you log into your insider dashboard, it’s available there as well. It’s an option if you want a little bit more in depth than we can go into this podcast, about how to do those specific exercises, how many to do, et cetera, what they look like, whatever it may be. It’s important regardless to work on the mobility, strength and flexibility of your hips, ankles, feet, calves, lower legs, et cetera. That’s the most important part.

For most runners, I would recommend working on that area for at least two to three weeks before you start getting into bare foot running. In terms of transitioning from how do you start wearing the shoes, how far do you go, et cetera, what I like to tell people to do is, the first thing they should do is for a week, after every run they do, they should do some strides in a minimalist or bare foot area. May be head to a grassy field or if you have shoes, then you can do them on the streets, that’s fine. If you have minimalist shoes and do some strides four to six times, 20 to 30 seconds, anywhere from 80 to 85% of how fast you can go. Strides are great in general. It’s a whole other topic. They’re awesome in general, but that is going to be a small dose of getting you used to running in a minimalist type shoe.

You do that for a week, if that feels good, if you have no pain, no soreness the next day, et cetera, then you can move on to the next step and if you do have pain or soreness or et cetera, then stay doing strides for the next week, until you feel no pain or soreness. Once that happens, what I recommend doing is running about a mile after your run. For example, if I had five or six mile run scheduled, what I would do is, do a five mile loop, get back home, and then switch shoes.

Run in my regular shoes for five miles, come back home, switch shoes, put on my minimal shoes, and then add on a mile. Then do a mile of running in my minimalist shoes. I would do that every other day. That process would be the same as a stride, so do that until there’s no soreness, or no extra fatigue. Do that extra mile running and that’s every other day. Don’t do that every day. Do that every other day, every couple of days, et cetera.

When that happens, then you can move to either doing it a little bit more often or increasing the time that you run. You can do one of the two, don’t do both. You could either say, well, I’m going to do it every other day still and do a mile and a half. Run four and a half miles and then run a mile and a half in my minimalist shoes or do a mile every day. Again, the process is exactly the same once you adapt to that.

Once there’s no soreness there and you’re confident that your feet and your legs and everything are holding up, then you can move on to adding more time. Then you’re going to complete that process until you’re comfortable with how much you are doing. You could be one of those runners that every other day, runs bare foot on one day, and runs in your regular training shoes in another. You could want to eventually increase so that you’re always running in minimal shoes, but the process is going to take a couple of months.

Once you get that first mile down, I would not increase by more than a half mile at the time. If you’re trying to get up to a six mile run, it takes you a couple of weeks to adapt each time, again, probably going to take a couple of months. The important part is to remember, that this is not a cure all, this is not a hack, or something that’s going to immediately make you become a better runner, so there’s no reason to rush the process.

Rushing the process will only get you injured and put you on the sidelines and pretty much prevent any progress that you would like to make from a fitness perspective. Be very patient with it. Remember that it’s not a secret hack or something that’s going to immediately make you a better runner. It can make you more efficient, making you more aware of what your running form feels like, et cetera. That’s how I recommend transitioning into bare foot running.

I want to thank Laura for that question. I appreciate you asking. For those of you listening that want to have your own question answered by one of our Runners Connect coaches, you can head over to runnersconnect.net/daily. You can click the record button and send your question over. Now, I wanted to thank today’s sponsor again, which obviously is Runners Connect. If you’re looking for a custom training plan, coaching sample work, and amazing team which supported likeminded runners, head over runnersconnect.net/train to start your free two week trial and you can add your name to the 867 fellow runners we’ve helped set a new personal best.

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