Whether you’re a seasoned athlete or just starting your fitness journey, a functional optimisation approach to training invites a ground-up review of the most effective ways to move and recover.
Let’s take a closer look at how going barefoot can revolutionise your approach to training as well as how precision movement, prioritised recovery and targeted training can get you closer to your strength and fitness goals.
We will explore:
- How footwear affects posture, performance and injury prevention
- Why recovery is your ally out of the gym
- Training right is more important than training heavy
As a key pillar of health, optimal movement is both dynamic and adaptable. The worst training plan is the rigid, single-plane approach that only challenges your biology in one way. This looks like the bulky person who only lifts heavy while static and moving in a single plane. This looks like the runner who only runs. It looks like the Yogi who only…yogis.
A reference point for intelligent body mechanics is our ancient brother, the wild man. He moved beyond a single plane of movement – often lugging or dragging heavy things, hurling, lunging, pushing, running, sprinting and largely being dynamic in his range of motion. He not only had strength, but he also had strength through range, mobility, and agility. Any one of those elements in isolation renders the body less efficient, less powerful and less resilient to injury.
If you can lift something heavy, but can’t extend through range, you might find the upstream and downstream muscles, tendons and skeletal structure are not challenged. Poor and incomplete movement patterns put you at risk of injury and won’t get you to peak performance.
Here I’ll introduce some key considerations to employ when mapping out your most effective training plan.
Technique is everything
When you lift anything or when your range of movement extends beyond your casual walking gait, your best bet is to employ someone who is an expert in movement patterns to ensure your technique is exceptional.
Injuries seem localised, but often they are an outcome of poor recruitment or alignment with the origin possibly beginning somewhere else. For example, If your ankle is weak, you might have a tendency to internally rotate your knees, making your squats less stable. If you were to squat poorly and injure your lower back, it isn’t a back issue, you need to strengthen and stabilise your ankle. This is just one example of how an injury to one part of your body doesn’t always mean that is where the issue began.
An expert functional movement trainer will look at your whole body from the ground up and teach you to know how correct movement feels. When you are neurologically wiring, you want that movement wiring to be precise and repeatable. If you do hundreds or thousands of reps using poor technique, that is wired in and takes a lot of time and effort to correct. Beginning your movement patterns with precision sets you up for success.
To optimise precision movement:
- employ a movement expert
- use mirrors to check posture and technique
- recruit an educated training partner who will offer corrections
- learn to move barefoot for optimal sensory feedback
Connect with your body’s natural biomechanics
If you’ve ever kicked your shoes off and wandered along on the sand, you might recognise how your toes clutch, and that you get so much feedback from your feet. You likely notice that how you walk changes.
This is largely because of proprioception – the body’s natural intelligence at reading the environment and recruiting appropriate muscles to support that movement.
Matthew Green, CEO of BodyGuide runs a company dedicated to helping people move younger. After accumulating over 10,000 hours working with patients for their chronic musculo-skeletal pain he knows a thing or two about the body’s natural mechanics. Matthew says “going barefoot lets people reconnect with their body’s natural mechanics. Or to put it another way, being barefoot helps you realise just how much shoes interrupt your movement. Elevated heels, soft squishy padding, narrow toe boxes—your body has to compensate for these changes, disrupting biomechanics that our bodies have spent millennia perfecting.” He adds, “What feels comfy in the store is not what your ankles, knees, and hips have evolved to move on. It’s also worth pointing out that barefoot training and barefoot running are different things. While running can be amazing if you’re committed and happy to progress slowly, the lion’s share of benefit is when people introduce barefoot shoes into their everyday experiences.“
When you wear thick-soled shoes, you deactivate the muscles through your feet (and therefore upstream as well). Padding and support might be comfortable for our soft indoor feet, but they leave us wildly blind to tension, weight distribution, rotation and pain.
When in the gym, if you were to lift barefoot, you’d notice the distribution of weight through your whole foot – or certainly through pressure points. Your trainer would be able to identify if you pronate and you might notice the force that goes through your foot with a lift. For your brain, this is invaluable information.
Ido Portal, a prominent movement coach and founder of the Ido Portal Method, is a strong advocate for natural movement practices, including barefoot training. He believes that barefoot training is essential for developing a strong foundation and reconnecting with the body’s natural biomechanics. It supports balance, agility and injury prevention.
Research backs up this approach. A study in the Journal of Sports Sciences highlighted that barefoot training promotes natural foot mechanics and enhances sensory feedback, leading to better stability and movement control. This is particularly beneficial for athletes as it helps in refining motor skills and preventing injuries by strengthening the muscles and tendons in the feet and lower legs.
“The lion’s share of benefit is when people introduce barefoot shoes into their everyday experiences. Whether walking around the supermarket, or doing weights at the gym, barefoot shoes help you improve balance and activate the muscles of the feet, while reclaiming your posture and natural movement patterns.”
– Matthew Green, BodyGuide
If you’ve trained wearing full support shoes, a gradual adjustment to barefoot shoes is recommended to allow for safe adaptation.
“Just make sure you build up slowly—concrete is hard, and our bones, muscles, and connective tissue need time to strengthen.”
– Matthew Green, BodyGuide
Recovery is as important as training
It’s easy to become attached to how many training sessions you’re completing each week. You wake up early or smash it out after work but you always make sure it gets done. When training to a rigid routine, you increase the likelihood of:
- overtraining
- training unrecovered
- injury
Again, let’s refer to our incredibly healthy, strong and agile ancient brother. You would regularly find him resting under a tree, strolling through the grasslands, and napping in the hut a lot more than you would find him active. He likely felt that he performed better when he was rested, and you’re no different. This downtime was critical for his ability to perform when required as his nervous system and muscle adaptation happens during rest.
Dr Kelly Starett, author of The Supple Leopard and world expert in mobility and performance places emphasis on recovery, because it is in the recovery that the body adapts, consolidates and heals.
His recommendations for recovery include:
- Active recovery: This involves low-intensity activities that promote blood flow and muscle repair. Activities such as walking, light cycling, or yoga can help reduce muscle stiffness and improve circulation without adding additional stress to the body
- Sleep: Quality sleep is crucial for muscle repair, hormone regulation, and overall physical and mental recovery. Aim for at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night and maintain good sleep hygiene practices, such as a consistent sleep schedule and a comfortable sleep environment
- Mobility work: Regular mobility work built into rest days is a key part of a complete training plan. This includes techniques such as foam rolling, stretching, and specific mobility exercises to maintain joint health and flexibility
- Listen to your body: Listen for the signs of overtraining or fatigue. Pay attention to how you feel and to adjust training intensity and volume accordingly. Avoid pushing through pain to prevent injuries and promote long-term performance improvements
Train in the right way for your body, for your goals
An expert trainer is not only ideal for precision movement, but they can also guide you to build you up for events and train you through recovery. What is your fitness goal and is your training dialled in to get you there?
Precision training is key for ensuring your goals are reached. Training programs should be specific to the individual’s goals, whether they are focused on strength, endurance, flexibility, or overall wellness. Movement expert Paul Chek recommends periodisation, a method of varying training intensity and volume over time to optimise performance and recovery. This approach helps prevent plateaus and keeps the body adapting and improving.
In other words, for best training outcomes, do not ‘set and forget’. Your training approach needs variety, not only in intensity but also in what muscles and body systems you are training.
Whether your goals are set on being an agile and resilient ‘future you’ or you have competition and events in your sights, ensuring your body movement is precise, your training skills are wide and varied, and your recovery is a priority will see that you arrive fit and capable on the podium of life.