Welcome to the Get Fit Guys Guide to Slim Down and Shape Up. My name is Ben Greenfield, and I'm the Get Fit

Guy. Here on the Get Fit Guy podcast, I've addressed the topic of fitness shoes and whether

funny shaped exercise footwear actually does do a better job at toning your calves,

thighs, or butt. I've also talked about how to choose the right exercise shoes for your specific

activity and even how to avoid heel pain from planter fasciitis by strengthening your feet properly.

With all this talk about shoes and feet, I haven't purposefully neglected the topic of barefoot

running and how to run barefoot, but it's taken me until now to actually get a chance

to do a significant amount of barefoot running myself, and also to extensively test minimalist

running shoes. So, in today's episode, you'll learn if running barefoot or wearing minimalist shoes is safe,

you'll learn how to run barefoot and get some tips for barefoot running.

In case you hadn't noticed, barefoot running seems to be a bit of a craze these days.

From paleo and primal enthusiasts to the barefoot running Society, which has nearly 2,000 members,

to crazy people trying to run across the country barefoot,

and I'll link to that anecdote over in the show notes.

Barefoot running has certainly exploded in popularity over the past decade,

despite significant advances in shoe technology for features such as better

cushioning or enhanced motion control. But to evaluate whether barefoot running is actually

safe or effective, it's important to understand the basic mechanics of running. When you run,

each of your legs goes through two basic phases, a ground contact phase

in which your foot strikes the ground and maintains contact with the ground, and the swing

phase during which your foot is moving through the air. Aside from perhaps a small amount of

extra weight from a shoe, the swing phase is not as important as the ground contact phase

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