Every single day, the team at Freilauf Academy (formerly Barefoot Academy) deals with feet and everything that pertains to them, both the physical and the mental. The freilauf® METHOD they have pioneered is a joyful and pleasurable form of movement that removes the pressure of trying to achieve athletic goals. The Academy offers courses online and offline aimed at strengthening our feet, and unfettered by the concept of performance-based sports. Christina has been working at Freilauf Academy since 2018 as a head coach for workshops and the training courses, and also focuses heavily on the topic of minimal shoes and sandals. Today she’s sharing her insights with us as a Blogazine guest author.
Feet, like our hands, are very unique. Once you start thinking about foot health, it’s easy for doubts to crop up. Thoughts like “What’s the correct way to walk? What am I doing wrong? Is that going to go away? I can’t show up at work barefoot, you know. This one foot is my problem foot. One toe doesn’t want to work the way it’s supposed to.” At the Academy, we like to apply the SAID principle (specific adaptation to imposed demands). In simple terms, this means that the body, and thus also the feet, adapt to the circumstances. When our participants take off their shoes and socks, it is immediately obvious that their feet have adapted to the conventional shoe shape as well as they could. This isn’t something that happens overnight; it’s a process that has taken many years.
That’s why we always put extra attention on training the feet. The great thing is that with a little diligence and patience, you can make really big improvements – precisely because we are such masters of adaptation. All that it takes to do this are a few very effective exercises. We call this ToeGa (which is short for toe yoga).
The most important exercises for this are the ones that activate the big toes and help them regain their strength. Their bone structure is up to four times thicker than that of the little ones, and the big toe is the only one with a completely autonomous, or independent, musculature. It plays a leading role in both walking and running. For a start, it is great if you can develop any kind of connection at all from your brain to your feet. Here’s where lot of people hit their first roadblock, because they can see their big toes with their eyes, but they can’t control them at all. We can improve the connection from the brain to the feet dramatically. The quality and regularity of execution is more important than getting through the routine quickly. Just five to ten minutes every day is fantastic. You can stretch a rubber band across the toes for support and to help adjust the desired position of the big toes as you train. We always encourage our clients to do this very persistently, because the benefits are so huge!
Image: Christina Waltenberger
Give it a try
As an example, one exercise is to stand up straight, push the little toes of both feet very firmly to the floor and lift the big toes really high, hold this position for five seconds, and then very slowly lower them again (3 rounds of 10 repetitions). Even sitting on the couch in the evening and just spreading all your toes at the same time helps! Over time, the pinky toe might separate more notably than it did when you first started training. Because this is so important, we have also created an extra online section dedicated to it. Changing footwear to complement this is a great thing, and we are incredibly pleased that the selection has grown so much in the last few years – especially thanks to Wildling Shoes.
If a person decides to largely forgo footwear altogether, it is very important to note that even the skin needs time to adapt, despite the fact that of all places on the body, skin is thickest on the soles of the feet (roughly 4 mm). Many people shy away from this because they think that having thick, callus skin is a prerequisite. But that’s not true. Calluses are caused by friction. People with a pronounced hallux valgus, for instance, are exposed to shearing forces when they walk, especially in the area of the metatarsophalangeal (MTP) joints of the big toe (also informally known as toe knuckles), and this is a spot where a lot of calluses develop. If this person trains in a way that helps straighten the big toe, the entire statics of the feet will change and there won’t be any major friction in these places anymore. If feet are constantly “cushioned” in padded shoes, the so-called structural fat under the feet often atrophies, but it’s built up again with the demand of use.
An even more significant factor, if not the most important, is adjusting one’s inner mindset. Away from the perfectionism that tends to crop up whenever there’s a focus on optimization, and shifting instead to self-compassion. Acknowledging how superbly our own feet have done their utmost for each of us given the circumstances. That’s why for us, running free with the freilauf® METHOD is more than just a way of getting around. It’s original, “natural,” and deserves to be rediscovered. We provide ways to become aware of your own body in order to restore the elemental sense of trust in your body.
Image: Christina Waltenberger
Cover image: Freilauf Academy
