04/08/2026
The more you can remain injury-free and pain-free, the more it gives yourself the chance to live up to your full potential as a runner. This is why adding barefoot running to your training pays off because it does the most good in training your brain to reflexively land with the least amount of impact, while improving strength deficits in the feet and ankles, and research has provided many examples for us about this.
Landmark work by Dr. Steven Robbins MD makes it abundantly clear that to run at your mechanical best, functionally and safely, the noxious sensitive nerves in the feet need to be turned on to switch on the spinal reflex loop that produces defensive movements that perfectly prevents impact from exceeding threshold, which can only happen when running barefoot. This is one of the top truths about running barefoot.
The good thing about this is, you don’t have to permanently ditch your running shoes, because nerves continue to change with experience, therefore the more you run barefoot, the more it trains your brain to sustainably prevent high impacts at landing for when you run in shoes: http://runforefoot.com/foot-nerves-run-less-impact/
