It’s time to reject the marketing hype that elevated, cushioned, heavily constructed modern athletic shoes can lessen impact trauma, control pronation, improve foot functionality, or deliver an inherent improvement in explosiveness, endurance, balance, or other performance attributes. It’s now undisputed that shoes directly cause atrophy and dysfunction in the feet and throughout the lower extremities, which makes you increasingly reliant upon high-tech shoes, expensive orthotics, arch supports, braces, cushions, and perhaps even medications and surgical procedures to keep your body moving.
There are lots of aspects of modern footwear that interfere with foot functionality and cause pain, atrophy and serious medical conditions. Worst of all? In many experts' eyes, it’s the elevation of the heel. Virtually all dress shoes, work shoes, and athletic shoes are higher off the ground in the heel than in the midfoot or the toes. This can be measured by the amount of vertical “drop” between heel and toe. A typical dress shoe, running shoe, or sneaker might put your heel 10-30 millimeters (.4” to 1.2”) higher than your toes; hence a particular running shoe model might be described as having a “15-millimeter drop.”
Katy Bowman, MS, Founder of the Nutritious Movement organization, author of numerous bestselling books such as Move Your DNA, Movement Matters, and Don’t Just Sit There explains, and one of the world’s leading experts on barefoot functionality, contends that an elevated heel is the most destructive aspect of modern footwear: “Positive-heeled shoes radically change the geometry of the human body, cause compensatory reactions in the ankle, knee, hip and spine, and can knock our natural gait pattern off kilter—and they do all this in an instant!” Chronic health problems like arthritis, nerve damage and osteoporosis are all associated with spending years and decades in positive-heeled shoes.
An elevated heel also severely compromises the function of the Achilles tendon, which is a major source of impact absorption and force production during the walking and running strides. An elevated heel prevents the Achilles tendon from lengthening fully and coiling to provide spring-like energy for forward propulsion on every stride. Over time, your Achilles—the largest and most powerful tendon in the body—becomes weakened, shortened, and more vulnerable to injury. A strong, functional Achilles tendon is essential to the health of your foot, all manner of everyday movement, and all manner of athletic performance. Evolutionary anthropologists and exercise physiologists go so far as to assert that the Achilles is the key to human running prowess and one of the most distinguishing anatomical characteristics of humans branching out from our ape cousins millions of years ago. Chimpanzees, gorillas, and others in our evolutionary family tree who lack a robust Achilles tendon or a prominent longitudinal arch are consequently ill-suited for both sprinting and long-distance running.
British computational primatologist Bill Sellers believes that the development of a strong Achilles tendon was the primary evolutionary adaptation that allowed humans to become hunters instead of herbivores! The ability of our Achilles tendons to provide “elastic energy storage” (the Achilles can store and return around 35 percent of its kinetic energy; the arches are at around 17 percent) is believed to increase top human running speed by over 80 percent in comparison to apes. When our human functionality is compromised by shoes, this results in a huge loss of performance—to the tune of an estimated 30-40 percent increased oxygen uptake requirement.
In plainspeak, “primary evolutionary adaptation” means the functionality and resiliency of the Achilles is a huge freaking deal, yet we are knowingly causing atrophy and dysfunction every day when we slip on shoes (athletic, work, and leisure alike) with elevated heels.
It’s heartening to see the popularity of “zero-drop” and minimal drop shoes these days, but it’s important to proceed gradually and safely toward a more barefoot-inspired footwear and lifestyle. Walking in Peluvas is low risk (since impact forces are minimal when walking, unlike jogging), and will help you improve foot strength with every step. For details on how to progress safely, please download our free 88-page eBook titled, The Definitive Guide to a Barefoot and Minimalist Shoe Lifestyle, on the Peluva.com home page form.