Questions and answers

These shoes have been designed by various manufacturers with features designed to ensure the regular movement that our feet should achieve both when walking and running. When compared to traditional sports shoes that protect and therefore block our feet making them lose strength and stability over time, barefoot shoes leave the foot free to strengthen with every step. Their job is to let us be free to learn and improve. Their use may require commitment and patience initially, especially if we are used to lots of foot support.

Barefoot shoes dress our feet while letting them move in a free and natural way with every moment we use them.
Moving correctly and freely helps, step by step, to  reactivate our muscles, tendons and joints, allowing them to do their job right and help strengthen and stabilize our whole body.
Each individual has his or her unique path to follow depending on how far their actual movement is from being natural. It can take the right mix of patience and willpower.
We have to learn to guide our bodies correctly. This is what barefoot shoes allow you to do.
If you have never tried rehabilitating your feet, then why not try it? with ordinary shoes this will never happen ..

For shoes to qualify as ‘Barefoot’, they must ensure that our feet do not lose their natural movement during walking and running sequance patterns. According to recent scientific studies the characteristics of these products must be:

1. Absolute flexibility (soft and flexible enough to fit into one hand)
2. Sole not thicker than 9mm. A thicker sole isolates our contact sensors that maintain a correct foot movement and causing one to continally have to correct posture in compensation.
3. Zero drop or no difference in height between the toe and heel. Even a minimal difference between heel and toe shortens our tendons and accelerates the rolling phase of the foot.
4. Wide fit in the forefoot. The shoe must not pressure the toes but must adapt to its shape. Improving the contact area of the forefoot guarantees more stability and strength.

All of these features must be present in a Barefoot shoe to ensure the coorect foot work. Tests carried out in our laboratories show that the products we offer on this site do not affect natural movement in any way. They leave our feet free to learn ..

Of course yes and it will also be a pleasure to feel them. We were born barefoot like all animals on earth and feeling and sensing what we are stepping on activates the perceptual sensors of our feet, giving the correct signals to the brain, to improve stability and strength. Unfortunately, since most have been conditioned for years with conventional shoes, our sensors have never worked properly. Therefore when they finally send signals to our brain, it does not know how to interpret them except as a danger.
Just get used to it and be patient and you will see that as soon as you activate your feet you will no longer be able to be without the sensation of perceiving what you are stepping on. You will activate a new sense and what you saw as danger becomes a resource.

There is nothing more false .. we were born without shoes and we were created to support our heavy body as well as the ability to carry weights and if our lower limbs are strong and work as they should we will not feel any kind of impact.
Obviously we have to walk and run correctly, and activate the muscles that absorb and cushion our movements, very often blocked and conditioned by traditional shoes that have led us over time to take on the habit of an increasingly tense posture that prevents us from cushioning ourselves at every step with the necessary muscles.
Continuous incorrect movement and an accumulating feeling of unpleasant knocks on the bones lead many to seek a quick fix solution of padding and buying products without realising that this painfree path, is avoiding the actual cause and making the problem worse. Remember that there are no miracle shoes but only ourselves who can activate and strengthen ourselves. This you can only do with barefoot shoes that leave all sensors, muscles and tendons free to learn.

We recommend for those who have never been used to barefoot shoes to initially use them for a few hours a day, alternating them with other traditional ones. Day by day, listen to your body to feel the changes taking place. With each passing day, wear them more and more, gradually eliminating the traditional ones.
If you have foot problems especially flat feet and tense tendons it will be completely normal to feel initial discomfort and this will mean that you are finally activating your feet which are gradually strengthening. You will see that the ailment will disappear and you will no longer want to wear other shoes.

We recommend adding some proprioceptive exercises to your feet to help speed up the process.
For those who want to use them for running it is essential to have the foot activated from the first while walking otherwise the traumas will be around the corner.
The motor pattern of running is completely different from walking, and therefore after learning the walking phase (which will always be a basis for running too), the running phase will also be learned, always with the same gradual activation methods day by day.

Barefoot shoes are not magical products, if you have always run incorrectly, (for example landing with the heel) because traditional shoes allowed it, with barefoot shoes you will realize just how much you were wrong and your body will respond with an alarm ( pain) directing you to make corrections in technique.
We are the ones who must understand how to run and the shoe will make your brain perceive when there is a mistake and / or when you need to train more. Adapting to Barefoot may take some time as you will no longer be cushioning with rubber under the heel but instead using your muscles that can finally do their job.

Forget your previous training programs, cycles and milage.By doing much less but more efficiently than previously you can achieve much more constructive results.
Once you have activated the walking phase then you can run start to run barefoot without any problem. Try alternating between walking and running slowly with small repetitions (e.g. run 1 minute slowly, walk 1 minute) listening to your body every day . Gradually increasing until you can run slowly for 30mins.
If you succeed you will have passed phase 1 to learn to run then you will need to check other factors.

We remember that in running there are 5 factors that must all be there, the lack of even 1 of these leads to an incorrect and unhealthy movement:

Flexibility
Stability
Power
Resistance
Posture

Some of these phases can also be trained by walking in everyday life with barefoot shoes. You will have to work to understand what you need to improve on the other aspects.

Barefoot footwear must have space for the foot to move.
We have been too used to constricting, closed shoes and obviously the foot inside could not move and if it did it was forced to make wrong movements. This is why we always bought shoes that fit the right way to avoid the risk of blisters.
However, when the foot is no longer locked, it can finally open and adapt to different demands and conditions of movement. The toes must be spread out, so it is recommended to use socks with toes, or wide non-elastic socks.
All these shoes can also be used without socks.
Each brand and model has its own fit, we recommend that you carefully read the technical data sheet of each model and understand the most appropriate for your foot.
We have identified with a symbol the width from 1 to 5 of the forefoot part of the shoes where 5 stands for the wider ones to 1 those models that always fall into the barefoot category but are narrower. This is to give the possibility to those who already have a very wide foot to choose the most suitable products.