Is walking barefoot or in minimalist shoes good for your feet?

A cushioned, supportive shoe does part of the foot's job. Take that support away and the small muscles inside the foot work harder. That is the logic behind barefoot walking and "minimalist" shoes, which have flat, flexible, thin soles¹.

Walking barefoot changes how you move. The front of the foot spreads under load, steps get shorter and quicker, the foot lands flatter and the knee bends a little more⁴. People who grew up barefoot have lower peak pressure under the sole, but people who normally wear shoes show higher peak pressure when they go barefoot, a sign the foot needs time to adapt⁴.

Strength. An 8-week randomized trial of 57 runners found that walking in minimalist shoes, with daily steps increased each week, raised foot-muscle size and strength about as much as a progressive foot-exercise routine¹. A 2025 review of 28 trials (1,399 people) agreed that minimalist shoes and foot exercises can raise foot strength, though certainty was low to very low and results on muscle size conflicted³.

Go slowly. When 19 runners switched to minimalist running shoes over 10 weeks, 10 showed increased bone-stress signs on MRI⁵. In a 12-week trial, runners in a partly minimalist shoe had the most injuries². Walking is gentler than running, but the same rule applies: add time gradually.

Exercises work too. In 118 recreational runners, an 8-week foot-core strengthening course, followed by remotely supervised training, was linked to fewer running injuries over a year⁶. You do not have to change your shoes to train your feet.

Pain and joints. The results go both ways. In a small trial, a 4-week barefoot treadmill program eased persistent heel pain more than shod walking⁷. But in 164 people with knee osteoarthritis, flat flexible shoes did worse than stable supportive ones for knee pain⁸. "Barefoot" is not a universal upgrade.

Children. In a large study, children and teens who grew up mostly barefoot had different foot shapes from shod peers: shoe wearers had lower arches and smaller big-toe angles⁹. Whether that means fewer problems later is unknown.

Grounding ("earthing") claims about bare skin on soil are a separate question; see Earthing science. If you have heel pain, see Plantar fasciitis, and if you have diabetes or numb feet, see Peripheral neuropathy.

Trials on strength. Ridge and colleagues randomized 57 runners to minimalist-shoe walking, a foot-strengthening routine or no change for 8 weeks, while all kept their running mileage. Muscle size and strength rose in both active groups but not in controls, and some muscles grew by week 4¹. The 2025 systematic review pooled 28 randomized trials (1,399 participants). Minimalist shoes increased the strength of toes 2 to 5 (standardized mean difference, 95% CI 0.02 to 0.76), and foot exercises reduced arch motion during running. Certainty was low to very low because of few studies and high risk of bias, and effects on muscle size conflicted³. These are surrogate outcomes: none of these trials asked whether stronger muscles mean less foot pain.

Trials on injuries. In an MRI study of 36 experienced runners, 19 who transitioned to Vibram FiveFingers over 10 weeks were more likely than 17 controls to show increased bone marrow edema, a marker of bone stress, in at least one bone (10 of 19; P = 0.009)⁵. Ryan and colleagues randomized 103 runners to a neutral, partly minimalist or fully minimalist shoe for 12 weeks of 10 km training. Of 23 injuries in 99 analyzed runners, the neutral shoe had 4 and the partly minimalist shoe 12, a significantly higher rate; the fully minimalist group reported more shin and calf pain². In contrast, a single-blind trial of 118 runners found that those not given the 8-week foot-core course were 2.42 times as likely (95% CI 1.98 to 3.62; P = 0.035) to be injured within 12 months⁶.

Pain trials that disagree. In 52 people with persistent plantar heel pain who all received ultrasound therapy, 4 weeks of barefoot treadmill walking improved pain and function more than shod walking, with 1-month follow-up⁷. In 164 people with medial knee osteoarthritis, 6 months of flat flexible shoes was not better than stable supportive shoes; knee pain on walking improved more with the supportive shoes (mean difference 1.1 points on an 11-point scale, 95% CI 0.5 to 1.8), and 32% versus 15% reported adverse events⁸.

Mechanics and development. A systematic review of 15 studies found barefoot walking spreads the forefoot, shortens steps and reduces peak vertical force at initial contact; habitual barefoot walkers had lower peak plantar pressures, while habitually shod people walking barefoot had higher ones, and little research covered people over 50⁴. In 810 habitually barefoot children and adolescents compared with matched shod peers, footwear use was associated with lower arches and smaller hallux angles⁹. This is cross-sectional, so it cannot show which shape is healthier.

Hazards. In 176 older adults followed for a year, those who fell indoors were far more likely to go barefoot or wear socks at home (odds ratio 13.74; 95% CI 3.88 to 48.61), while shoe characteristics did not differ between fallers and non-fallers¹⁰. The 2023 international diabetic-foot guideline advises educating at-risk people not to walk without suitable foot protection¹¹. A meta-analysis of 53 mostly observational studies found footwear use went with lower odds of hookworm infection (odds ratio 0.48; 95% CI 0.37 to 0.61), tungiasis (0.42) and several other foot-borne infections, with heterogeneity and poor study quality as limits¹².

What is missing. Our PubMed searches did not turn up a long-term trial of everyday barefoot walking in healthy adults that measured foot pain, bunions, falls or injuries. The shoe trials are mostly in runners and mostly short, and the barefoot-versus-shod comparisons rely on small samples.

Bottom line (confidence 3 of 5). Small randomized trials agree that barefoot time and minimalist shoes strengthen foot muscles, but certainty is low, a fast switch can cause injury, and trials of pain outcomes disagree. Treat barefoot time as optional conditioning: gradual, on safe surfaces, with supportive shoes for the rest of the day, and not at all if your feet are numb.