The Best Barefoot Running Training Plan
October 31, 2022
By Dr. Barefoot Sidy Diallo
You can easily achieve your adaptation to truly barefoot running—without any shoes or socks—, much faster than you might expect, regardless of your age or any other consideration, because humans are innate endurance barefoot runners and walkers, just as lions are innate sprinters, fishes are innate swimmers, etc., which means that you don’t need to worry about techniques. You’ll naturally adapt to barefoot running.
By Dr. Barefoot Sidy Diallo
You can easily achieve your adaptation to truly barefoot running—without any shoes or socks—, much faster than you might expect, regardless of your age or any other consideration, because humans are innate endurance barefoot runners and walkers, just as lions are innate sprinters, fishes are innate swimmers, etc., which means that you don’t need to worry about techniques. You’ll naturally adapt to barefoot running.
Plan for an Efficient Adaptation to Barefoot Running
Day one: set your feet free, walk or run on concrete or asphalt. Stop when you start feeling inappropriate pain. The pain is a valuable information by which your brain tells you that something is going wrong in your body. The pain is proportional to the seriousness of the issue.
The pain you feel on asphalt or concrete prevents you from the risks of sustaining serious injuries, which explains some injuries of runners with minimalist shoes. The feeling of pain will decrease as you progress in adapting to barefoot running.
My advice: avoid the “comfort” of grass and sand, not only because you need to feel the normal pain during the adaptation period, but also because you might step on hidden hazards and seriously hurt yourself.
Day 2: see day one.
Day 3 and after: keep doing as on day one until the day you complete a barefoot marathon without experiencing pain, injury or fatigue. It’s natural, it's that simple. The time need for full adaptation to barefoot running will depend on how often and how long you walk and run barefoot.
I spell out in the book Running Barefoot for Human Survival how I could easily at 60 fully adapt to running 2.0 in just four months, so much so that I ran barefoot the whole distance of the 2015 Dublin Marathon without experiencing any pain or injury. I also explain in the book why three weeks earlier I had to confront a very serious situation during my first barefoot marathon, and why the doctor I consulted afterwards panicked for no medical reason when she saw my injured left foot. The right foot fared fairly better.
Running Barefoot for Human Survival is available on Amazon in paperback and e-book format (French edition: Courir pieds nus pour sauver les humains).
The pain you feel on asphalt or concrete prevents you from the risks of sustaining serious injuries, which explains some injuries of runners with minimalist shoes. The feeling of pain will decrease as you progress in adapting to barefoot running.
My advice: avoid the “comfort” of grass and sand, not only because you need to feel the normal pain during the adaptation period, but also because you might step on hidden hazards and seriously hurt yourself.
Day 2: see day one.
Day 3 and after: keep doing as on day one until the day you complete a barefoot marathon without experiencing pain, injury or fatigue. It’s natural, it's that simple. The time need for full adaptation to barefoot running will depend on how often and how long you walk and run barefoot.
I spell out in the book Running Barefoot for Human Survival how I could easily at 60 fully adapt to running 2.0 in just four months, so much so that I ran barefoot the whole distance of the 2015 Dublin Marathon without experiencing any pain or injury. I also explain in the book why three weeks earlier I had to confront a very serious situation during my first barefoot marathon, and why the doctor I consulted afterwards panicked for no medical reason when she saw my injured left foot. The right foot fared fairly better.
Running Barefoot for Human Survival is available on Amazon in paperback and e-book format (French edition: Courir pieds nus pour sauver les humains).
Welcome to Running 2.0 and the Marathon 2.0
Truly barefoot running is running 2.0 because of its awesome new features: it’s natural, completely green, healthier, more powerful and more efficient; its capacity is unlimited; it prevents injury, pain and fatigue; it provides permanent and highly efficient natural cushioning, guarantees you a safe and pleasant run, sets your feet and brain free, and makes you increasingly smarter. On top of all that, it’s free.
The closer we get to our roots, the happier and healthier we will be, and the more our species will likely survive, by living in more harmony with nature, instead of making the planet increasingly uninhabitable through unnecessary or harmful consumption.
Unlike certain animals such as koalas, sloths or hibernating species, who barely move or move very slowly to save their calories, Homo sapiens is designed spend a lot of calories in intense physical activity, namely long-distance running and walking, to get food. In other words, human propensity to relative gluttony is normal: physical inactivity is the problem.
I spend for instance around 3,000 kcal per marathon. This means that in my first 300 marathons I’ve burned the equivalent of 100 kg (220 pounds) of body fat, which would have lifted my body mass index (BMI) to very morbid levels. The vicious circle of many current humans result from taking in a lot of calories, like our physically very active ancestors, while barely moving, almost like sloths or koalas.
Moreover, barefoot endurance running is not only about BMI, fitness, physical health and burning calories, but also about preventing running pain and injuries, depression, dementia, etc.
The closer we get to our roots, the happier and healthier we will be, and the more our species will likely survive, by living in more harmony with nature, instead of making the planet increasingly uninhabitable through unnecessary or harmful consumption.
Unlike certain animals such as koalas, sloths or hibernating species, who barely move or move very slowly to save their calories, Homo sapiens is designed spend a lot of calories in intense physical activity, namely long-distance running and walking, to get food. In other words, human propensity to relative gluttony is normal: physical inactivity is the problem.
I spend for instance around 3,000 kcal per marathon. This means that in my first 300 marathons I’ve burned the equivalent of 100 kg (220 pounds) of body fat, which would have lifted my body mass index (BMI) to very morbid levels. The vicious circle of many current humans result from taking in a lot of calories, like our physically very active ancestors, while barely moving, almost like sloths or koalas.
Moreover, barefoot endurance running is not only about BMI, fitness, physical health and burning calories, but also about preventing running pain and injuries, depression, dementia, etc.
The Anthropological Redemption of the Marathoner 2.0
Finally, barefoot running is our efficient way to achieve permanent bliss. Imagine that one day you take on barefoot the 90 km of the Comrades Marathon at the City Hall in Pietermaritzburg, in South Africa—as I did in 2018—amid thousands of shod runners, you get more endorphins than them, your brain works intensively during the race and becomes therefore increasingly efficient, and you cross finish line in the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban without pain, injury or fatigue, so much so that you can immediately start another marathon if you want, while many other finishers can barely walk.
That’s anthropological redemption, and it’s worth the relative penitence during your adaptation to barefoot running. Your life will never be same again. And folks, if I can do it, you can do it. It’s the biology!
That’s anthropological redemption, and it’s worth the relative penitence during your adaptation to barefoot running. Your life will never be same again. And folks, if I can do it, you can do it. It’s the biology!