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Training Feet for Lifting and Whether it Really Matters

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Story at a glance…

  • Unlike in running, there’s less debate about whether lifting or conditioning barefoot helps.

  • Exercises can be used to repair damage in the feet done from excessive disuse.

  • After, implementing one’s feet and toes into lifts can offer increased strength and performance.

This is part two of a two-part series on the observed evidence behind the rise in barefoot running and training in the strength, conditioning, and running communities. Part one can be found here…

 

The human foot is one of the most charismatic parts of the body, and many problems, from plantar fasciitis, to shin splints, to lower back pain can often stem from a weak foot, a collapsed arch, or a poor walking/running gait.

A rise in the awareness of our society’s poor overall foot health has spawned foot training programs, equipment, and a trend of incorporating the strength of our feet into existing strength and conditioning staples like the deadlift and squat.

However the story is not one exclusively of fitness nerds, hippies, and hunter-gatherers (all groups who like to walk around barefoot) but it also pertains to modern society as a whole. We know for example, that deformations in the feet can arise from all manner of modern footwear, from bunions to collapsed foot arches.

“What we’ve seen in clients is instant improvements in stability, so clients that struggle to balance on one leg or any kind of stability work, as soon as they kick their well-cushioned shoes off that improves significantly,” recounts Noelle McKenzie, a co-founder of Leading Edge Personal Trainers in New York City. “And as a result it also helps with stability in the knee and the hips”.

“Our feet are meant to be spread and we should be able to move our toes like we move our fingers, like the dexterity of our hands, we evolved with that ability,” adds Noelle’s business partner and Husband, Kern, “but we lose it because we keep our feet in shoes for so long; tight shoes”.

Noelle and Kern often find themselves working with clients on improving the musculature in their feet in order to repair the damage that poor development has done elsewhere; in their knees, hips, and even back.

“Our feet have so many bones and joints for a reason,” says Kern. “They’re meant to be moving, flexing, and supporting our body weight”.

Of course this is a theory based on the fact that our feet must be able to work because natural selection designed them this way. However one of the major reasons that this isn’t already transforming the footwear industry is that published science continually demonstrates itself to be at odds with this simple evolutionary principle.

PICTURED: A photo of the deformation of the feet from wearing narrow shoes, with the feet on the left belonging to a man who didn’t habitually wear them. PC : Phil Hoffman. The American Journal of Orthopedic Surgery, 1905.

Still up in the air

Some researchers have suggested that the continual example of assuming barefoot running or training must be better because it’s how we evolved “is indulging in a ‘natural fallacy’”. Perhaps it’s due to the difficulty in ascertaining training modalities and surfaces, certainly when it comes to running, that study participants do in their weekly lives that the science of both injury prevention and performance is so unclear.

A perfect example are these two studies: published less than a year apart from one another; the first from the School of Health and Human Sciences, at Southern Cross University, Australia, the second from the University of Plymouth, England.

The first found that performing a deadlift at 60% and then 80% of the participants’ maximum, had almost no significant change from the barefoot sets to the shod sets, with a small rise in the peak force seen in those wearing shoes. The second found that both peak force and rate of force development were lower in study participants performing a hex bar deadlift with shoes, compared to those lifting barefoot, whose were higher.

The generally accepted hypothesis is that barefoot lifters can apply a greater amount of force into the ground and produce force at a quicker rate than shod lifters, with the mechanism potentially being that more neuromuscular activation can occur when there’s a greater proprioception of the floor through the soles of the feet, and that the soles of a shoe absorb the force generated by the feet at the beginning of the exercise, buffering it before it can transfer into the floor.

At the end of the conversation however, the one thing which trainers like the McKenzies have is anecdotal evidence of improvements in foot health in their clients through their barefoot training program. Much of exercise physiology and sports medicine is done through specific measurements like stride length, or loading force on a joint, muscle, or bone, done on specific parts of the body. Studies that look observationally, Placebo Effect be damned, at foot strength, ankle stability, or pain following the end of barefoot training, have just not been done.

 

PICTURED: If it’s good enough for Arnold, it’s good enough for me.

How to barefoot train safely

Other personal training services stress the health benefits of proper foot training rather than much of the scientific literature which focuses more on the execution of a lift or a running stride to measure the supposed benefit.

The Foot Collective, a Canadian personal training program has a program to exercise the health back into one’s feet that doesn’t even involve lifting. Leading Edge incorporates foot exercises for those doing strength and conditioning work like with kettlebells.

“If you pronate or supinate from your feet while trying to do a weight-bearing exercise, your form is going to suffer,” says Noelle. “You really have to learn to ground through your feet and even through your toes”.

“Your feet, ankles, and hips are very mobile joints—the knee not so much,” adds Kern. “So if there’s anything going on at your foot or hip, it affects your knees so any time there’s knee pain, it’s usually your knee compensating for some kind of imbalance or instability”.

“If you’re doing just a basic kettlebell swing the first thing you think about is pushing down below your big toe, and then axially rotating your hips, and what that does is create an arch in their feet. The same thing’s true for squatting, lunging, you need to think about axially rotating from your hip, gripping the floor with your feet, and creating an arch. And that’s where your stability comes from”.

For people with weak or unstable feet, Kern recommends doing a set of four exercises twice daily. The first is sit down and just thread your fingers through your toes to stretch them apart and allow them to slowly develop individual range of motion. The second is to roll the muscles in your feet out first with a tennis ball and then with something harder like a lacrosse ball.

The third is a big toe flex done for two minutes, performed sitting with the heels on the floor and the big toe curling up towards the chest, and a special focus not to allow one’s ankles to move. The last is a foot crunch whereby one presses the big toe down into the floor and creating an arch in the foot by imagining an attempt to touch one’s toes to their heel.

For intermediate or advanced training, the Mckenzies will do animal movements like bare crawls, or tip-toe “Hindu” squats.

Searching the internet for a definitive answer of whether lifting, running, or training is better barefoot is a rabbit hole. But this video of a 2016 unofficial world record for a pause snatch done barefoot by former world champion Dimitry Klokov should certainly be enough for most people. WaL

 

PICTURED ABOVE: Arnold Schwarzenegger was a fan of barefoot lifting, believing it lent him greater power and stability.

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Continue exploring this topic — Exercise — Those Who Frequently Exercise May be Immunocompromised from Deficiencies in Vitamin D and Various Minerals

Continue exploring this topic — Running — What’s With the Rise in Barefoot Running?

Continue exploring this topic — Exercise — The Toes on the Modern Running Shoe Could be Causing Muscle Atrophy and Plantar Fasciitis

About Post Author

Andy Corbley

Corbley@worldatlarge.news
https://www.worldatlarge.news
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