Barefoot shoes and back pain...

I was in the gym yesterday, and one of the members came and started talking to me.

He was wearing some vibram fivefingers shoes.

Apparently we'd spoken about it a few months ago and he went off and looked into it a bit more, then ordered some.

Anyway, the guy's in his late 40's/early 50's and had been suffering with back pain for a long time.

But yesterday, he told me his back pain has almost completely gone since getting the barefoot shoes!

Something THAT simple!

It makes sense though.

Your feet are your foundations. The only part of you in contact with the ground.

If your feet are out of alignment (because of shoes or for any other reason), everything above them will be out of alignment too.

Set up a Jenga tower and take out the bottom brick first... see what happens.

If you don't look after your feet, then it will affect everything.

Ankles, knees, hips, lower back, upper back, neck, shoulders...

Your foundations need to be solid and functional for everything else above to work properly.

I'm not saying your back (or any other) pain will go if you just switch to barefoot shoes, but you stand a much better chance of fixing it if you do!

My favourites are Vivobarefoot - they have lots of options to choose from and they're worth the investment (and apparently, I'm out of touch with the cost of things these days so they're not that expensive compared to other, shit shoes either. I just haven't bought any regular shoes for about 10 years!)

If you use the link above, you can get 20% off your first order. On me!

I'd also sign up and keep an eye out on Sport Pursuit as they sometimes have them on there and they're the BEST price you'll find for them anywhere. I've had a couple of pairs from them as have many of my clients.

So free your feet and let me know how it feels!

Mark

P.S. A quick word of warning, if your feet are used to being in foot coffins, you may need to ease yourself into barefoot shoes as your feet will have to get used to them and strengthen up (a good thing!). So just don't overdo it straight away.

Start with short walks and wearing them (or being completely barefoot) around the house as much as you can.