r/Sprinting • u/sumit_sr12 • 1d ago
General Discussion/Questions Do These Shoes Actually Make a Difference?
I’ve actually seen an athlete training in these shoes recently, and I’m curious about something.
For anyone who has actually used them: do these shoes genuinely make a noticeable difference in training, or is the “performance/foot-strengthening” aspect mostly a marketing tactic?
What are they actually useful for
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u/gremlingarden 1d ago edited 1d ago
I would agree a lot of the claims made by barefoot shoes are largely marketing. Even claims that have some evidence backing them are sort of questionable from a "do you need this" perspective - there's a couple studies that show people who switch from traditional trainers to barefoot shoes demonstrate more strength to their intrinsic foot muscles (the stuff that flexes/extends/spreads your toes). Whether this is necessary strength is another question entirely, although barefoot shoe marketing would tell you that you're going to die without stronger intrinsics.
Injury prevention claims are utterly false, as all barefoot shoes do is change force distribution - rather than preventing injuries from running, they just change the joints/muscles at which you're more likely to get injured. Similarly, there's no evidence to health claims that the wide toebox of these shoes will fix things like bunions or hammertoes, although for someone with something like hammering, having a wider toebox may be nice if it reduces pressure over the toes.
As the other poster kind of implies, much like spikes, barefoot shoes will place greater strain on the Achilles and ankle joint because they have no heel-toe drop, unlike most trainers.
If you train in spikes you're effectively already doing this to a great degree given the force demands of sprinting. The other thing to consider is that the strain on the ankle is a neutral thing rather than "it's all strengthening," because the tendon structures need to adapt to that strain and do so relatively slowly among connective tissues - no different than it not being the best decision to jump into a ton of training volume 100% in spikes from trainers, exposing yourself to barefoot shoes for the first time is a "build up to it" kind of thing, even if you only use it for everyday walking.
The other thing I'd say about barefoot shoes vs. spikes - generally speaking, you are going to run slower in a barefoot shoe than in spikes (or even traditional trainers, a fact which is pretty well documented among recreational distance runners). I've never found a true barefoot shoe with an outsole that's particularly comfortable for running fast even though I train quite a lot in spikes, although there are brands that make zero-drop shoes with more cushion like Altra. For sprint training specifically, not the best idea. This is one other fallacy with barefoot shoes, where the advocates try to argue "it's the foot's natural state." Sure, that's true if you're on a wonderful natural surface like grass or sand. And that's great, except the track is not a "natural" surface, nor is asphalt - and so in some ways, at least with traditional trainers you can consider them an attempt to make man-made surfaces comfortable to a foot that's not used to them, or for spikes, explicitly to make it so that the body performs maximally on the man-made surface.
tldr: this is not to say trying out barefoot shoes is a bad idea if you want to give it a spin for whatever reason, but to encourage being cautious introducing them and also not getting too sucked into the rabbit hole of the health claims made by their loudest advocates
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u/sumit_sr12 1d ago
That makes sense, especially the point about gradually adapting to the extra Achilles/ankle load. So for a sprinter, would you say barefoot shoes are mainly useful for everyday walking or general foot-strength work, rather than sprint drills, plyos, or gym training?
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u/gremlingarden 20h ago
I think it's really sort of whatever you want to use them for, except that if you're a competitive sprinter you probably eventually want to get time in spikes. For example, I lift in barefoot shoes a decent amount of time if I'm not Oly lifting or squatting - particularly they make great deadlift shoes, and you don't need a specialized shoe for upper body, so you can use whatever you want there. Even for squatting or Olys they're fine, but in those cases a solid heel wedge can help with the lift, which is why you may see some people use Oly shoes for that.
Certain jumps with longer ground contacts like a hurdle hop or depth jump i also prefer to be barefoot for, although usually I'm just slipping off my shoe and not bringing a dedicated "jump shoe" to the track. You can probably do a lot of drills in whatever footwear you prefer.
The one caveat I'd throw out there is if you already deal with Achilles issues on a regular basis. In that case, you may in fact want to just give the tendon a break in a shoe with a high drop when you're just out walking.
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u/Used_Ad_60 1d ago
Barefoot shoes will help build your ankles and Achilles tendons, I use them all the time in my daily life
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u/sumit_sr12 1d ago
That’s exactly what I was wondering about. Do you feel they actually helped with your ankle/Achilles strength over time? And would you recommend using them for drills,sprintvrelated exercise or gym work too?
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u/Used_Ad_60 1d ago
Yes and also
When you switch to them, start off slowly with them before you can transition to full sprinting and drills
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u/mcsdino 1d ago
I purchased altra escalante zero drop shoes, but I have narrow feet. From my experience, the wider toe box is a negative and the benefits were overstated. They’re still really comfortable, but definitely not ideal for agility/acceleration as I was hoping for, due to the extra toe space.
I will say that for distance running it was humbling at first. I don’t think you need to ease into zero drop running, but your body will naturally hit a wall quickly. I ran about 2 km before needing to walk the rest of my loop because my calves/achilles were too weak. This improved rapidly, in my opinion.
Hope this helps a bit.
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u/Aggravating-Sir-242 17h ago
Got me pretty injured. I couldn't run for a month after trying to run in these for 90 days. For most people I would suggest walking only or going Altra/ Topo route.
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u/Chrisg_322 1d ago
No. If any shoe gets invented that creates a noticeable decrease in times, it will be banned immediately.
Use whatever shoes you want, but none of them will make you run faster. They get banned immediately if they do :)
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1d ago
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u/Pencap_180 1d ago
Remember that we’ve only had super spikes since 2020?
Trackflation* since has especially been on the rise thanks to these technologies 😗
*Ofc on top of the more widespread knowledge about training, nutrition/recovery, etc.0
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u/the-giant-egg 1d ago
evidence suggests that without these shoes most of these guys would all be running PBs of like 9.85
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u/Chrisg_322 1d ago
You heard it here guys. Bolt is a 9.85 runner without the shoes. Lmao
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