I'm thinking about buying minimalist running shoes just for walking around campus- would they still benefit me?

No. Buy a regular running shoe like everyone else. Stop looking outwards to fix internal problems.

I was in the same exact circumstances a few years ago. I started walking around campus actually barefoot, which seems to make more sense to me than buying a shoe to approximate bare feet; you aren't going to hurt yourself walking barefoot. Your skin gets tougher quickly. My lower legs were actually sore from my first <1/2 mile barefoot walk, and after a few weeks I felt much stronger overall. I felt like I had more control over my movement in every situation, most notably in pick-up games of frisbee. I have definitely been less injury-prone since. I gradually shifted to more minimal shoes for running and still walk barefoot quite often.

regular running shoes are an external problem. dick.

yes! wrote:

I was in the same exact circumstances a few years ago. I started walking around campus actually barefoot, which seems to make more sense to me than buying a shoe to approximate bare feet; you aren't going to hurt yourself walking barefoot. Your skin gets tougher quickly. My lower legs were actually sore from my first <1/2 mile barefoot walk, and after a few weeks I felt much stronger overall. I felt like I had more control over my movement in every situation, most notably in pick-up games of frisbee. I have definitely been less injury-prone since. I gradually shifted to more minimal shoes for running and still walk barefoot quite often.

Thanks for the feedback! I was thinking that being able to walk around barefoot would definitely be ideal, but I am nervous about stepping on something, and am a bit self-conscious. Which is why at this point I am considering the shoes, though not ruling out your approach yet.

My pleasure. You will get a few questioning looks, but it isn't a big deal, and less often than you would expect.

The Puma Street Kosmos are inexpensive and very minimal, if you want a recommendation. They don't even have a sole where the arch support would normally be. Very light, comfortable, and snazzy. Lots of color choices.

Yeah, go with a good minimalist shoe, not barefoot - unless you want to be known among 20,000 people as The Crazy Barefoot Kid.

yes! wrote:

My pleasure. You will get a few questioning looks, but it isn't a big deal, and less often than you would expect.

Yeah, you probably got just as many weird looks playing "pickup frisbee" as you did walking barefoot. Snapperhead.

I'll second the notion of walking in a minimal shoe. It can absolutely help strengthen foot muscles, lower legs, etc. I would personally recommend the Nike Free- very thin, flexible sole which I feel works the foot muscles a bit more than your everyday "minimal" type of racing flat.

Good luck. And please don't walk around your campus barefoot.

It's almost impossible to walk barefoot through a college campus and not look like a hippie. And what are you going to do when you get to class? Stop and put on shoes? You'll look like a lunatic.

Wear the minimalist shoes when walking around, and go in socks in your house, etc.

yes switch to minimalist and all your injuries will go away and you'll be as fast as the africans and you'll scoff at those who think running with shoes is comparable to the natural bliss of barefoot running. I like your enthusiasm about immediately going barefoot 24/7. you are perfect for this programme.

OH MY GOD I just realized that EVERYONE walking by must have thought I was like some kind of hippie or something. How can I go on. I just realized how much it sucked. I never knew. If only I could go back and put shoes on instead.

Those people that looked at my feet and were offended or whatever wouldn't have squinted at me and would have just kept walking instead of walking and also having some fleeting disdainful emotion about how I must be a hippie.

They probably even made unfounded assumptions about my personal life and habits that may or may not have been true! I wish I could go back and apologize too for forcing them to endure such things. If only I had worn shoes!

AND THE PEOPLE WHO SAW ME PLAYING FRISBEE! I thought it was fun at the time, but it was actually just lame or something. I shudder.

You have questionable values

Just keep some flip flops in your backpack and put them on if they are required in some campus buildings. Barefoot would be less out of place on a college campus than most other places.

To contribute to this point... There was actually a girl in my high school that walked around barefoot. That's a hell of a lot stranger than being barefoot on a college campus. She always got yelled at by security to put shoes on but she would just walk away. She wasn't an athlete, and I always wondered about how strong she must have developed her "barefoot muscles" to be.

help you not get a girl pregs

bump - anyone else with any input?

It's a good idea, but can go wrong badly. You have to make sure your legs are limber enough to go around minimally or else you're just going to be straining/tearing/pulling on the muscles as you walk. So, if stretch and loosen up in the morning before going outside, then you'll probably be fine walking around minimally. If you roll out of bed and dart across campus, then you're pretty much making matters worse.

The other thing I have to say about this is that I think minimalism is great for people who aren't yet injured. So many times it's the injured people trying to make the conversion, but really you need to get back to square 1 healthy before you can start making a transition. So, I'd actually say wear normal shoes and rest up for a few weeks, then try to do the minimal thing.

You need to stretch. You strengthen all you want. There is a possibility you still get injured. Look at an elastic band. That is what in essence your muscle is. If you strengthen without stretch is will break/injured one day. Go see the great bodybuilder Arnold. Multiple Mr Olympia titles, stretched religiously and even employed a ballet teacher to correct his poses for competition.

fake palindromes wrote:

bump - anyone else with any input?

I have input. I'm a recreational runner, a lifestyle barefooter, and a graduate student at UC Davis. I'm not particularly talented or competitive by letsrun standards but I've run 3 marathons, 2 half marathons, and at least 10 road 10Ks barefoot, as well as a few trail runs. My marathon PR (barefoot) is 3:15:24. I have been living habitually barefoot for 7 years, the last 6 of which have been mostly on college campuses. I did my undergrad at San Jose State, and was barefoot the entire time and for all of my classes. I'm sure that to some people I was and still am "the barefoot guy", but it hasn't been a huge problem and most people don't care. At UC Davis there are several people that I see walking around barefoot regularly, none of whom I would describe as looking "hippyish". There was one kid who was even more hardcore a barefooter than me, but he graduated last year. He was on the intramural ultimate frisbee team, and wore cleats for playing but went barefoot otherwise, even through the winter. I do see a lot of people walking around in VFFs lately, so that is an option I guess. IMHO, they look stupid.

One thing you will never get from any kind of shoe is running form that minimizes abrasion, i.e. twisting, grinding your foot, which may be correlated with other bio-mechanical problems. Running like that in shoes goes unnoticed, but doing it barefoot will give you blisters and wear away your skin and it hurts a lot, so you adapt to run in such a way that that doesn't happen. Good luck.