EvidenceHealthFootwear / Barefoot
Walking barefoot vs. with minimalist footwear - influence on gait in younger and older adults
- Study type:
- randomised within-subject laboratory experiment, n = 64 healthy adults (31 younger 29 ± 4 years, 33 older 71 ± 4 years), comparing a single 3-minute overground walk barefoot vs. in minimalist shoes, measuring gait variability and local dynamic stability
- Added:
- 2026-09-04
- Status:
- published
Strength of evidence
Very Low
Source
Petersen E, Zech A, Hamacher D. Walking barefoot vs. with minimalist footwear - influence on gait in younger and older adults. BMC Geriatr. 2020;20(1):88. doi:10.1186/s12877-020-1486-3
Open original studyIn a randomised within-subject laboratory experiment, 64 healthy adults (31 younger, 33 older) walked barefoot and in minimalist shoes for 3 minutes each on flat ground while wearing inertial sensors. The minimalist-shoe condition produced significantly better local dynamic stability (p = .013), lower stride length variability (p < .001) and lower minimum-toe-clearance variability (p = .018) than barefoot walking in both age groups. However, no falls were recorded and every endpoint was a sensor-derived gait-variability index rather than a directly observed clinical event, so the fall-risk conclusion is inferred, not measured. Under WorthDay Evidence Criteria this earns very low-quality evidence: the hypothesis is tested experimentally, but exclusively with indirect surrogate endpoints and with no long-term adaptation component.
Key findings
- Design: randomised within-subject experiment, block-randomised condition order, overground walking on a 25 m indoor track.
- Participants: 31 healthy younger adults (29 ± 4 years, 17 female, 14 male, BMI 23 ± 2) and 33 healthy community-dwelling older adults (71 ± 4 years, 20 female, 13 male, BMI 27 ± 4). All were unfamiliar with regular barefoot or minimalist-shoe walking.
- Conditions: 3 minutes of walking barefoot vs. 3 minutes in one model of minimalist shoe (leguano classic), with 5 minutes rest between conditions and a 1-minute familiarisation before each.
- Measurement: wireless inertial sensors (Xsens MTw2, 100 Hz) taped to the right forefoot; outcomes were gait variability (minimum toe clearance, stride length, stride time) and local dynamic stability via the largest Lyapunov exponent.
- Results - condition effects (minimalist shoes vs. barefoot), both age groups: local dynamic stability p = .013, partial eta squared = 0.10; minimum toe clearance variability p = .018, partial eta squared = 0.09; stride length variability p < .001, partial eta squared = 0.26; stride time variability: no significant condition effect.
- Group effects (young vs. older) in all gait outcomes: better local dynamic stability in younger participants; lower gait variability in older participants.
- No significant interaction between walking condition and age group.
- Authors' conclusion: walking in minimalist shoes is associated with better gait stability and variability measures than walking barefoot, therefore minimalist shoes are not equivalent to barefoot walking and may be a transition option for older adults.
Background
- Minimalist footwear is widely marketed as functioning "like barefoot walking" while still providing a protective sole. That claim is usually treated as self-evident, but it is actually an empirical question: does a thin, flexible shoe reproduce the gait pattern of an unshod foot, or does it produce something different? This study tested exactly that by comparing barefoot and minimalist-shoe walking in the same people, in two age groups, and by measuring parameters that are standard proxies for fall risk in gait research.
Methods
- Design: randomised within-subject laboratory experiment; condition order block-randomised.
- Participants: 64 healthy, community-dwelling adults in two age bands: 31 younger adults (29 ± 4 years, 17 female, 14 male, BMI 23 ± 2) and 33 older adults (71 ± 4 years, 20 female, 13 male, BMI 27 ± 4).
- Inclusion: able to walk 5 minutes without pause or assistive device; unfamiliar with regular barefoot or minimalist-shoe walking; no acute musculoskeletal or neurological impairment.
- Conditions: 1-minute familiarisation, then 3 minutes of walking on a 25 m flat indoor track, once barefoot and once in minimalist shoes (leguano classic), 5 minutes rest between conditions.
- Measurement: wireless inertial sensors (Xsens MTw2, 100 Hz) taped to the right forefoot; first and last strides around turns removed to isolate steady-state gait.
- Endpoints: gait variability of minimum toe clearance (MTC), stride length and stride time, plus local dynamic stability calculated as the largest Lyapunov exponent.
Results
- Significant condition effects in both age groups, all favouring the minimalist-shoe condition: local dynamic stability: p = .013, partial eta squared = 0.10; minimum toe clearance variability: p = .018, partial eta squared = 0.09; stride length variability: p < .001, partial eta squared = 0.26
- No significant condition effect on stride time variability.
- Significant group effects (young vs. older) across all gait outcomes: better local dynamic stability in younger adults, and - unexpectedly - lower gait variability in older adults.
- No significant interaction between walking condition and age group.
- The authors interpret the findings as: minimalist shoes produced better gait stability and lower gait variability than barefoot, so minimalist shoes are not equivalent to barefoot walking and may serve as an alternative to, or transition toward, barefoot walking for older adults.
Interpretation
- From a conventional biomechanics perspective, the study is a clean, well-controlled acute comparison and it contradicts the common marketing claim that minimalist shoes simply reproduce barefoot gait. In this experiment the shoe condition actually looked better on the measured stability indices than the barefoot condition.
- From the WorthDay perspective, the honest reading is narrower:
- This is an experimental study, which is a genuine strength compared with the many uncontrolled before-after barefoot reports.
- But every endpoint is an indirect, computationally derived surrogate: gait-variability coefficients and a Lyapunov exponent calculated from sensor traces. These are modelling outputs, not observed events.
- No falls were recorded. Fall risk is inferred from these indices. Under WorthDay criteria that is precisely the situation that forces a downgrade: soft endpoints used to support a functional, clinical claim.
- The design is an acute laboratory comparison, not an adaptation study. Participants walked for three minutes per condition and were deliberately selected to be unfamiliar with barefoot and minimalist walking. The results therefore describe first-exposure gait, not trained or habituated barefoot gait.
- No assessor blinding is documented, and blinding of participants to footwear condition is impossible by design.
- There is no null/untreated control: the study answers "barefoot vs. minimalist shoe", not "either vs. normal shoes" and not "either vs. doing nothing".
- Under WorthDay Evidence Criteria this yields very low-quality evidence: the hypothesis is tested experimentally, but exclusively through indirect surrogate endpoints, with the clinical claim (fall-risk reduction) resting on inference rather than on counted events.
Limitations
- All endpoints are indirect, sensor-derived gait-variability and stability indices; no falls or any other hard clinical event was measured.
- Acute single-session laboratory exposure (3 minutes per condition), not a longitudinal training or habituation study; says nothing about long-term adaptation to barefoot walking.
- Participants were selected for being unfamiliar with barefoot and minimalist walking, so the barefoot condition was systematically the more novel one.
- Only one model of minimalist shoe was tested; findings may not generalise to other minimalist footwear.
- No comparison with participants' own conventional shoes, so the study cannot say how either condition compares with normal daily footwear.
- No untreated or null control condition.
- Straight-line walking on flat indoor ground only; more complex tasks (uneven ground, turning, obstacles) were not tested.
- Healthy, community-dwelling volunteers only; results may not apply to people with existing gait impairment, foot pathology or higher fall risk.
- No documented blinding of the researchers performing the data analysis.
- The unexpected finding of lower gait variability in older adults remains unexplained by the authors and was openly called speculative.
WorthDay perspective
- S0062 is a genuinely barefoot-relevant experiment and, importantly, it is a counterpoint rather than a confirmation. In this acute comparison, minimalist shoes scored better than bare feet on the measured gait-stability indices, in both younger and older adults.
- That is useful precisely because it resists the barefoot narrative. WorthDay reports it for what it is: a first-exposure laboratory comparison using modelled stability metrics, not a verdict on barefoot walking as a practice.
- The key honesty point for users: this study measures how people walked during three minutes in a sports hall, not whether anyone fell, got injured, or got healthier. The fall-risk language in the publication is an inference from surrogate variables.
- Nothing here contradicts S0047 or S0061. Those studies concern muscle adaptation and clinical pain outcomes over weeks; this one concerns the acute gait mechanics of an unfamiliar condition. Different questions, different evidence levels.
- For WorthDay users the practical takeaway is modest but real: minimalist shoes are not simply "barefoot with a sole", and switching to barefoot is a skill that changes gait mechanics. A gradual transition remains the sensible default, especially in older age - and the transition question itself is still not resolved by high-quality evidence.
Permalink: https://www.worth-day.com/science-compass/s0062-walking-barefoot-vs-with-minimalist-footwear-influence-on
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