Barefoot is better?

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It took 4 million years to develop our unique human foot and our consequent distinctive form of gait, a remarkable feat of bioengineering. Yet, in only a few thousand years, and with one carelessly designed instrument, our shoes, we have warped the pure anatomical form of human gait, obstructing its engineering efficiency, afflicting it with strains and stresses and denying it its natural grace of form and ease of movement head to foot." In other words: Feet good. Shoes bad.

Brennan brought his shoe to Clark, and after some modifications, they came up with a very flexible leather shoe with a three-millimeter sole made of rubber and puncture-resistant DuraTex that they call the Vivo Barefoot. "There are no gimmicks," Clark says. "It's a back-to-basics philosophy: that the great Lord designed us perfectly to walk around without shoes."

Epidemiologically speaking, it's been estimated that, by age 40, about 80 percent of the population has some muscular-skeletal foot or ankle problem. By age 50 to 55, that number can go up to 90 or 95 percent." Ninety-five percent of us will develop foot or ankle problems? Yeesh. Those are discouraging numbers—but wait. Are we talking about 95 percent of the world population, or of North America? "Those are American figures," he says. Which makes me think, North Americans have the most advanced shoes in the world, yet 90 percent of us still develop problems? We've long assumed this means we need better shoes. Maybe it means we don't need shoes at all.

Shoes that advertise the barefoot attitude
Nike Free
Vivo Barefoot
Vibram Fivefingers
Newton Running
Masai Barefoot Technology

Cheaper hacks
Aqua Shoes
Zinetic Pocket Slippers