Eschewing shoes?

Until recently, The Real Fitness Nerd was a unflinching advocate of supportive footwear. I always found the whole "cavemen didn't wear shoes" argument silly, given Clug and Womp also didn't run for hours on repetitive-stress injury-inducing cement or spend an hour each day doing ankle-pretzeling plyometric aerobics.

Also, cavemen didn't have aspirin, indoor plumbing or The Food Network, yet you don't hear people complaining about those things.

However...

I've been reading some intriguing articles lately about the benefits of shoelessness. Specifically, I really dig John Sifferman's study-laden "Definitive Guide For Going Barefoot" blog post. Here's an excert.

Think about it – what does putting on a work boot do to your foot in terms of mobility? It limits it to a pre-determined range of motion. Sure, it stabilizes your ankle and protects your toes from falling objects, but it also prevents your ankle from moving through a full (and natural) range of motion, which means over time your ankles and feet will get progressively weaker. Your feet will become less independent and able to protect themselves from injury, and more dependent on the work boots to prevent a sprained ankle or any other foot injury. This starts a vicious cycle of poor movement patterns, which eventually leads to injury or worse.

It's a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg arguement, actually. Some people have weak ankles, unusually high arches or other issues for which a pair of Brooks Beasts will help, but maybe there are a lot of people out there who should be getting back to nature. I've been fiddling with shoelessness or near shoelessness lately myself and I'm enjoying the results.

But if the barefoot brigade ask me to pick lice out of my daughter's hair and eat it or hunt sabertooth tigers with a wooden stick, I'm still going to tell them to piss off.