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My personal experience matches what the article suggests. After I started to use barefoot shoes not just for running, but for all daily activities, I noticed fe

My personal experience matches what the article suggests. After I started to use barefoot shoes not just for running, but for all daily activities, I noticed few things. I walk slower, like 15%. I do strike more with the toe than with with heel, but this is very surface-dependence. My balance improved. Barefoot shoes in general have less traction, but I have found that walking on icy pavement became easier. The most puzzling aspect was that I get tired less at least subjectively. The last summer I was able to walk non-stop 40 kilometers, when previously I restricted my daily hiking tours to 15-20 km.

jacobolus 9y ago
Which “barefoot shoes” are you talking about? Most of the styles of e.g. Vibram shoes have rubber soles (and in particular you end up being able to shape your foot to the surface) so there is relatively good traction compared to other shoes. Leather moccasins and especially canvas shoes can have relatively poor traction. When walking entirely barefoot, skin has very good traction. Either way, walking with a forefoot strike (or even walking with a heel strike in unpadded flexible shoes) generally implies keeping your steps small and your feet directly under your center of mass. If you are on ice, the more you keep your center of mass over your feet, the less sliding you’ll do.
- fpoling 9y ago
  I use Vibram for running and vivobarefoot.com as daily shoes. My experience with both as on slippery surfaces like rocks after rain when hiking and on icy pavement was that traction was definitely worse compared with good ordinary hiking or winter shoes/boots. But as it was much easier to keep balance, the net result was improvement. I suspect with barefoot shoes even those with a rubber sole with a pattern the depth of the pattern is just too shallow. So effectively the weight is distributed over the whole surface of the foot. With ordinary shoes pattern on the soles and heels make the contact surface much smaller and pressure higher improving traction.
  - jacobolus 9y ago
    I guess I haven't walked much on ice. There the standard bearer is probably something with metal spikes. I found vibrams pretty good for e.g. climbing around tide pools.

jacobolus 9y ago

Which “barefoot shoes” are you talking about? Most of the styles of e.g. Vibram shoes have rubber soles (and in particular you end up being able to shape your foot to the surface) so there is relatively good traction compared to other shoes. Leather moccasins and especially canvas shoes can have relatively poor traction. When walking entirely barefoot, skin has very good traction. Either way, walking with a forefoot strike (or even walking with a heel strike in unpadded flexible shoes) generally implies keeping your steps small and your feet directly under your center of mass. If you are on ice, the more you keep your center of mass over your feet, the less sliding you’ll do.

fpoling 9y ago
I use Vibram for running and vivobarefoot.com as daily shoes. My experience with both as on slippery surfaces like rocks after rain when hiking and on icy pavement was that traction was definitely worse compared with good ordinary hiking or winter shoes/boots. But as it was much easier to keep balance, the net result was improvement. I suspect with barefoot shoes even those with a rubber sole with a pattern the depth of the pattern is just too shallow. So effectively the weight is distributed over the whole surface of the foot. With ordinary shoes pattern on the soles and heels make the contact surface much smaller and pressure higher improving traction.
- jacobolus 9y ago
  I guess I haven't walked much on ice. There the standard bearer is probably something with metal spikes. I found vibrams pretty good for e.g. climbing around tide pools.