>>2213269>Anyone here use barefoot shoes?Yes, but not for hiking, just for martial arts and in the city.
>do they have actual health benefits to your feet?Compared to good combat boots: no. Compared to the shitty "trekking" boots most people wear out: absolutely.
The thing is, your body is optimized for walking barefoot. Normally, you'd absorb force by bending your joints against your muscles' resistance. While I'll spare you the mechanical derivation, what that effectively mean is that the balls of the feet need to make contact first - how much earlier depending on how far forward your center of weight is. Then, your calves absorb the shock from your ankles, and your knees get almost no shock.
If you're wearing shoes where the heel is much higher than the balls and hit the ground with the heel first though, your ankles can't bend, and the shock is transfered to your knee. If the knee is stills traight at that point (which it will be if you're walking normally), it can't bend either, and the shock damages your bones. That damage is minor, but over time, it leads to more serious problems.
That's why proper hiking boots and combat boots have such thin, flat soles.
Barefoot shoes give you an additional benefit, namely, a highly flexible sole. This allows you to feel the ground, and makes walking in unstable terrain easier, but also increases risk of injury, as these soft soles are easily pierced.
If you want to try thin-soled shoes, don't buy any of the meme shit. Get a pair of feiyue or one of the french or korean ripoffs instead. They're like ten bucks, and just as good as the 120€ nike "free" I had before them.
