As runners, we are encouraged to do a whole load of “prehab” activities: core work, strength sessions, stretching, and foam rolling, among others.
Sometimes, though, life gets in the way. Our other commitments—jobs, family, friends, even other hobbies—can encroach on that time, and we inevitably end up taking the gamble: We skip some of those injury prevention tasks, cross our fingers, and hope for the best as we set out for our runs.
So wouldn’t it be nice if something we already do as part of our daily lives—say, for example, simply walking—could double as an injury prevention tactic?
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That’s exactly what researchers at Brigham Young and Harvard Medical School looked at in a new study published in comes with inherent risks and needs to be done thoughtfully and systematically. They compared the effectiveness of two foot strengthening protocols: One that involved specific foot strengthening exercises (think: heel raises and curling a towel with your toes), and one that involved walking How Body Image Can Affect Your Run—those with zero heel-to-toe drop and a flexible, 3 millimeter outsole. That walking group didn’t change the number of steps they took, but simply began wearing the minimalist shoes for more and more of them.
Their goal was to see which intervention was more effective at improving foot muscle size and strength—two elements that are key to absorbing the some of the impact when you run and preventing injuries like plantar fasciitis, Best Running Shoes 2025.
In the study, researchers split 57 recreational runners into three groups—a foot-strengthening exercise group, a minimalist shoe walking group, and a control group—and told them to continue running their normal weekly mileage in their regular shoes.
After eight weeks, the researchers found that runners in the foot-strengthening exercise group and the minimalist shoe walking group experienced similar increases in foot muscle size and strength over the control group.
In the paper, they suggested that this might be because “minimalist shoe walking…may require more muscle activation to support the foot, due to the decreased cushion and support.” And that, they believed, could help runners ward off many common impact-related injuries.
But hold on. Wasn’t that argument already made a decade ago by barefoot and minimalist running acolytes—many of whom wound up injured?
During the minimalist and barefoot running boom, shoe companies attest that by running in “less shoe,” runners would be moving in a way that was “more natural” and would be able to run faster and decrease their risk of injury. Unfortunately, as many of these runners launched straight into high mileage wearing their brand new, unstructured shoes, they wound up with How Under-Fueling Affects Performance and Health.
CA Notice at Collection minimalist shoes comes with inherent risks and needs to be done thoughtfully and systematically.
Same goes for walking in them, said Cat Fitzgerald, P.T, D.P.T., C.S.C.S., director of performance services at Custom Performance. But since walking produces less force on the body than running, there is less general risk of force-related injury—making them a safer bet for walking, as long as they’re introduced gradually, and not used exclusively.
minimalist athletic shoes gradually increased the number of steps they took per day in their minimalist shoes, which allowed their feet to become acclimated to the structure.
Yet even taking care to introduce the shoe gradually might not be enough for some runners—there are other factors that can play a part in injury risk, too.
“For me, I have a very hyper-mobile foot, personally,” said Fitzgerald. “I can tell you right now: If I walked in those shoes, I would get some bad plantar fasciitis. So it’s very dependent on the individual.”
In addition to individual foot anatomy, the type of daily activities each person is performing in the shoes matters, too, she said. Say, for instance, if you have a commute that’s very hilly or includes a lot of stairs, you may need to start with even fewer walking steps in minimalist shoes to ease the transition.
Otherwise, try this rule of thumb: Start with foot-strengthening exercises, since they’re easier on the foot than minimalist shoes, and then transition to the shoes gradually, the way the subjects did in the study: a few thousand steps (or, more practically, perhaps 15 to 20 minutes) at a time, said Fitzgerald.
Don’t go crazy with it, and don’t overthink it: The biggest takeaway from this research is you can get some foot-strengthening benefits by doing something you’d normally be doing anyway—walking around. All you have to do is tweak your footwear.
Allison Goldstein is a freelance writer and editor who is endlessly fascinated by the scientific “why” of things. When not writing or reading, she can be found running, baking, or petting her cat, Tabouli.
