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You may have heard Mark Sisson quip, "Don't run in these shoes!" as we want your priority to be using Peluvas for walking, hiking, gym workouts, and general everyday life. Running in minimalist shoes is an entirely different challenge from running in regular running shoes, as the impact trauma and long time required for adaptation make this too daunting for most enthusiasts. Similarly, it's best to use specialized shoes for specialized sport and labor activities. Hard core barefoot enthusiasts enjoy using Peluvas for just about anything, but we want you to proceed slowly and carefully with your transition to a more barefoot-inspired lifestyle.

Peluvas are designed to be worn with or without socks. Of course you can't use regular socks, so grab a pair of our five-toe socks if interested. Order a half-size larger than your regular shoes accordingly. Many people love the feeling of bare feet in Peluvas; remember, blister risk is minimal because there is no toe-to-toe friction. Many other customers love the socks for warmth, protection from sweating, and ease of fitting. Peluvas come with a free pair of premium quality Peluva-branded five-toe socks (you must check the box to add to your order.) You can order extra pairs at different heights any time.

We recommend machine washing your Peluvas with mild detergent and some towels. You can also use mild soap and a scrub brush to hand wash them. Please air dry away from direct sunlight and never in tumble dry machine. If you are spending time sockless and notice any odors, you might try some medicated foot powder inside once in a while.

Sorry, flip flops give your feet fresh air, but they compromise foot functionality. Any footwear that does not fully connect to the foot, such as flip-flops, casual sliders, house slippers, mules, Crocs, clogs, and other slip-on type models, will adversely alter your natural gait pattern. When you proceed through the stride pattern with loosely-connected footwear, the bones and tendons in your feet must contort in various unorthodox ways in order to maintain contact with the shoes. These compensations extend all the way into your calf muscles and you make the necessary subtle compensations through the stride pattern. You can sense this easily by taking a few really slow steps in flip flops; you’ll notice how your toes clench a bit in order to keep the sandal from flying off your foot. These contortions can create chronic tension in certain muscles and joints and generate inappropriate impact trauma during the stride. Flip flops are fine for taking a few steps in your backyard or poolside, but they should never be used for significant walking or any other activity. Peluvas help distribute the weight and the work evenly over the foot, so you have a more natural footfall and can arrive at the best natural gait for your own biomechanics.

Sport sandals, where your bare feet are affixed by straps to a thin, flat rubber sole, also offer an authentic barefoot-style experience. They allow your feet to breathe fresh air and achieve their full range of motion and functionality. Sports sandals are highly functional, but they are also inappropriate for many modern life situations and fashion norms, offer no protection for your feet against potential injury from debris, obstacles, or getting stepped on, and are for warm weather use only. They are definitely a great addition to your shoe collection if you are interested in their relatively narrow application. 

The original “five-finger” style shoes, first released in 2006, were a tremendous innovation and offered a true barefoot-style footwear experience. However, they are typically made with virtually no cushion beyond the 3mm rubber sole. They are great for relatively narrow, fitness-specific use for well-adapted individuals. The goal of Peluva is to provide vastly more versatility than wearing your five-finger shoes to deadlift in the gym. Our various models have you covered for high fashion, comfortable leisure and social time, and of course all manner of fitness and athletic endeavors. We want you to wear Peluvas as much as possible, for as many activities and everyday situations as possible, and feel comfortable and stylish at all times! In the future, we will release new models with more specific applications—including some with minimal cushion and even sport-specific models. 

The emergence of minimalist shoes has been a fantastic innovation to a footwear industry that has been destroying feet for literally centuries. Terms like "minimalist" or "barefoot" shoes are often used brazenly, so understand the key features of an authentic minimalist/barefoot shoe: First, a flat (zero-drop), flexible sole with minimal padding. The other key feature is space for the toes, aka the frequently-touted "wide toe box." This is a great improvement from the damage caused by restrictive toe boxes, but a true barefoot-inspired footwear experience requires five individual toe slots, so toes can move independently, through multiple planes of motion, on every stride. Wide toe boxes don't hurt your feet like regular shoes, but they don't actively strengthen and re-educate your feet like Peluvas.

In order to provide for the most functionality and versatility, we designed the Peluva Strand model with a generous 9 millimeters of cushion in the sole (other lines such as Napa and Miami have even more padding.) The original “five-finger” shoe models that first came to market around 2006 typically only offered around 3 millimeters of cushion. This definitely availed a barefoot-like experience, but for many fitness enthusiasts coming from years and decades in elevated, cushioned shoes, it was too abrupt of a transition. Consequently, the early five-finger shoes were blamed (perhaps unfairly) for running injuries, and many consumers were scared away from the seemingly “all or nothing” footwear transition. After several years of R&D and risk management analysis, Peluvas were created with an optimal amount of cushioning for safety, comfort, and versatility. Peluvas are a more appealing footwear option for more people doing more things! Many Peluva enthusiasts relate that they feel safe and comfortable tackling challenges like long walks on pavement, hiking on rugged trails, or performing high intensity gym workouts involving side-to-side movements. These are endeavors that many would even not attempt in shoes with minimal padding, or that might otherwise cause a high risk of injury.

More than a clever slogan - there is some serious science behind this ideal. Peluvas contain highly customized low-durometer EVA midsoles that are flexible and provide sufficient shock absorption to feel comfortable on the hardest surfaces. We talk about modeling the lifestyle behaviors of our primal ancestors to promote health, but our ancestors didn’t have pavement or hard indoor floors to challenge their bare or barely covered feet. They generally walked on compacted savannah grass, sand, snow, or other forgiving natural surfaces. After several years of extensive R&D, we present a revolutionary shoe that gives you all the benefits of barefoot functionality, while providing sufficient shock absorption to make them comfortable and versatile for everyday modern life and the many hard surfaces we encounter, indoors and out.

Peluva’s five-toe, minimalist design allows your feet to achieve the correct biomechanics and range of motion to absorb impact, balance bodyweight, and provide forward propulsion. The key features that enable this are the individual articulation of the toes (toes can splay wide to absorb impact, and dorsiflex efficiently and independently to provide balance and propulsion), the zero drop from heel to toe (the sole is flat—heel and toe are same height off the ground), and a flexible sole with no arch support (shoe is pliable instead of stiff.) Peluvas also offer sufficient protection to help you withstand the many foot hazards of modern life (hard artificial indoor and outdoor surfaces, ground debris and obstacles, and cold temperatures), while still affording a barefoot-style experience for your feet. 

How old are you? Let’s check back in a few decades! Seriously, foot dysfunction is a cumulative lifelong problem that will likely manifest with increasing severity over time. This is evidenced by research from the American Podiatric Medical Association revealing that 83 percent of Americans complain of chronic foot pain. Granted, it’s not possible nor sensible to suddenly reject modern conventions, disavow shoes, and live barefoot happily ever after.

Modern shoes are designed to provide comfort, protection and functionality for walking, running, and physical labor, conform to workplace and social convention, express fashion, and to engage in specialized activities like basketball, golf, hiking, bicycling, and so forth. 

You may not experience acute foot discomfort when wearing shoes in everyday life or during specialized activity, but that doesn’t mean you’re home free. As prominent research from Harvard University reveals, cushioned shoes promote poor technique and generate excess impact trauma (heel striking generates seven times more impact trauma than a correct midfoot strike.) Shoes inhibit your feet from efficiently absorbing impact, so the forces are inappropriately dispersed throughout the lower extremities.

The concept that elevated, cushioned, “high performance” running shoes promote injury and dysfunction is evidenced by the shockingly high rates of injuries among regular runners. The Yale University Medicine newsletter reports that over 50 percent of regular runners get injured every year. A systematic review of research published in Science Direct confirms that half of all runners get injured every year, and 25 percent of runners are injured at any given time! Cushioned shoes, marketed as preventing injury, are scientifically validated as the driving cause of overuse injuries. The British Journal Of Sports Medicine asserted that misleading shoe advertising presents a "public health hazard." Ouch!

You shouldn’t. Seriously. For specialized fitness and athletic endeavors, especially high injury-risk, high-impact endeavors like endurance running on pavement, vigorous group exercise classes, or dynamic team sports or sports-specific training sessions, we encourage you to use your favorite shoes customized for these purposes. The same goes for performing physical labor where your feet are at risk of trauma or accident. You may see highly adapted barefoot enthusiasts using Peluvas for a variety of high impact or challenging dynamic activities, and it’s certainly possible with a careful and devoted period of adaptation. However, we want you to stay focused on the big picture goal of integrating Peluvas into your everyday life—especially walking, and also trying to go barefoot whenever possible. A Peluva and barefoot-dominant daily life provides the most effective foot strengthening protocol you can imagine. Research confirms that simply walking around in minimalist shoes delivers as good or superior benefits to following a devoted protocol of foot strengthening exercises. In this regard, Peluvas are a wonderful vehicle to help your feet become resilient against any potential negative aspects of performing in specialized shoes. 

Precovery is our term for getting your feet better adapted for challenging fitness endeavors by spending more time walking in Peluvas and going barefoot at home or in other safe areas (lawn, beach, etc.) With more barefoot-inspired movement in general life, you are preparing your feet for the rigors of things like endurance running, hard labor, and assorted endeavors that are highly specialized (basketball, golf, rock climbing, etc.), dynamic, and or involve side-to-side movement. 

Peluvas are also great to slip on after you perform in specialized shoes to give your feet a chance to recalibrate to their natural functionality and range of motion. Today’s emerging exercise physiology and athletic performance research about recovery reveals that remaining active after hard workouts actually speeds recovery in comparison to sitting around. Even for injuries, the dated protocol of resting and applying ice to traumatized muscles and joints has been replaced with the “ECM” strategy—Elevate, Compress, Move. 

Whether you’ve just run a marathon, worked a full day of construction, or walked city streets in dress shoes, slipping on some Peluvas and taking a walk may likely be the best way to help your feet recover. Granted, a foot massage, heating pad, ice bucket, or vibrating pad might feel soothing to your tired feet, and there’s nothing wrong with a little R&R of that nature. However, walking is the new king for recovery because it stimulates increased blood flow; hydrates and strengthens the fascial network into which all your muscles and connective tissue are encased; helps reduce inflammation caused by micro-trauma; nourishes aerobic muscle fibers and enzymes in your feet and legs (which helps both aerobic and anaerobic muscle fibers recover faster); and strengthens muscles and connective tissue while you are recovering. 

The luxury spa-style treatments also help increase blood flow and reduce inflammation, but you don’t get the concurrent strengthening and range of motion benefits as you do with walking in Peluvas or barefoot (on soft surfaces only; tired feet won’t benefit from sidewalks or wood floors.)

Walking, walking, and more walking! First things first! It’s absolutely critical to build a solid foundation of foot health and transition safely away from years and decades in “brace & encase” shoes by spending more time barefoot at home and wearing Peluvas in everyday life—especially walking. When you have built a solid foundation, you can consider a gradual and sensible integration of Peluvas for more complex fitness and active lifestyle endeavors. 

Our highly adapted advanced users eagerly share how functional and effective Peluvas are for all manner of fitness activities, even long-distance jogging, hiking and high impact sprinting and ball or racquet sports. However, our main goal is to encourage everyday use to improve your foot functionality. If you aspire to someday try more challenging fitness activities in Peluvas, please download our free eBook titled, The Definitive Guide To A Barefoot And Minimalist Shoe Lifestyle for step-by-step protocols to help you safely integrate Peluvas.

Our state-of-the art warehouse is located in Las Vegas, NV. We own and oversee every aspect of shipping and returns for the most exceptional customer service experience, including prompt, no-hassle, returns and exchanges.

Our staff strives for the highest performance standard in online ordering. We are fast, but instead of fluffy talk and empty promises, we just show you with a box at your door. Our expectation is same business-day shipping, but it can take one or sometimes two days to ship depending on order timing. Orders placed on Friday after 12pm PST will be processed on Monday.

We do ship to Canada, but at this time, we do not provide complimentary shipping or return labels for international orders. If you opt to return an order at your expense, we will process an exchange or refund once your order is received at our warehouse. All shipping costs and brokerage fees for customs are set by the courier.

At Peluva, we deeply appreciate the service and sacrifice of our military personnel. As a token of our gratitude, we offer a military discount to all active-duty military personnel, veterans, and their immediate family members.

The military discount is a 25% discount off the total purchase price of eligible items. To receive a discount code, you must email support@peluva.com and present a valid military ID or other proof of military service.

The military discount cannot be combined with any other discounts, promotions, or special offers