barefoot lifting

[jarrod]

barefoot lifting

[Thom Van Vleck]

I think if they feel good….do it! My Uncle claims to train naked in his home gym! I have NEVER seen this….nor want to, but you ALWAYS want to knock before entering!!!! But he seriously feels more comfortable and he says, “Like the ancient Greeks”……I like a good solid pair of crosstrainers and shorts and a tshirt MINIMUM for myself!!!!! I also wear lifting shoes for squats with the wooden insert. SOLID!

Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-Rounder

[61pwcc]

Yep, I like minimal footwear. Try buttoning your shirt(or lifting for that matter)with mittens on. So, why thick padded shoes to dampen the nerves?? With max weights I want NO NERVE DAMPENING. I alternate between Chuck Taylors, Rafting shoes and steel toe boots. The steel toe boots teach me to pick up my feet more forcefully on the Olympic lifts.
As a waiter I’ll occasionally wear steel toed shoes to build up my shins and the arch of the foot. I call it ‘free training’.

[Joe Garcia]

at home, I lift most of the time in socks. But then, I have horse stall pads down in the area that I lift.

[Al Myers]

This is interesting. I have NEVER lifted without shoes on. I do use different shoes for different lifts. Actually, the sheer thought of lifting without shoes on would bother me. The only time I don’t have shoes on is when I’m sleeping – I even wear houseshoes in the house!! I don’t think my sensitive feet could take lifting without something to protect them!!! But that’s just me. Al

[jarrod]

you know what’s funny, i dropped a dumbbell & broke my toe at thet gym the day after putting up the original post! i was wearing my vibrams, but i don’t think that chuck taylors would have really offered me any more protection. in any case, thanks for the input. training barefoot feels good, but i wanted to check in with more experienced lifters before i kept on with it.

jf

[Steve Angell]

I purchased a pair of vibrams a few months back and love them. I have been rehabbing a prolapsed disc in my lower back (A belated present from my Dinnie exploits last year) One thing my wife noticed was that my toes always looked screwed up. My left leg and foot were going numb all the time as well because the facet joint was pushed against the main nerve running down my leg. During physiotherapy, the guy worked on a lot of postural corrections and got me walking more with the whole foot kind of gliding along the floor rather than the heal toe walking we pick up as we grow older. (Watch a young child walk and they go toe heal) I have since tried to get away from wearing shoes with a heal, and the vibrams work a treat. I train in them all the time now, my toes are not all cramped up any more, and i won’t be going back to training shoes any time soon.

[jarrod]

i’ve noticed a lot of relief in my back from wearing the vibrams. i’m wearing regular cross trainers right now because i have a broken toe on one foot & a dislocated one on the other, so getting the vibrams on is a bit of a chore. i have noticed more discomfort in my back since going back to regular shoes.

jf

[Al Myers]

I’m glad everyone is giving their input on this, because it has made me rethink my ideas of wearing shoes for proper posture. I have always felt that a good pair of shoes were essential for maintaining good feet health and posture, but now I see that might not be the case. My oldest daughter had fallen arches when she was young, and only through the use of orthopedic arch inserts was she able to correct this problem (and added a full inch to her height, which allowed her to hit that 6 foot height). I blamed it on her wearing flipflops or going without shoes all the time.

But I don’t see myself going “barefoot” in the weightroom anytime soon. In fact when I was younger I ONLY wore work boots with steel toes (THAT would have saved that broken toe Jarrod) when I was lifting because of my “feet sensitivities”. At least I have gotten past that! haha Al

[Tom Ryan]

Okay, I will chime in with my thoughts on lifting footwear.

Paul Anderson lifted barefoot at times, even in his exhibitions, as has been recorded on film. I certainly wouldn’t recommend that, however!

When I was in my prime, I wore indoor track shoes for some exercises, such as squats because I had to squat with a thick board under my heels and lifting shoes on top of the board would not have worked at all as my shoes would not have been flat on the board. I also wore those track shoes for all types of pulls and for some pressing exercises. I liked having snug-fitting, lightweight shoes for those exercises. Of course powerlifters have long worn slippers for deadlifts, which is similar.

Indoor track shoes are not a great thing to wear if you are going to drop a 75-pound plate on your foot, however, as I did in 1980. Broke my big toe big time and killed some nerves on top of my foot. The damage was permanent. I also had a metatarsal head surgically removed in 1996 and have had other “foot events” that you don’t even want to know about. My feet are still quite functional, however, even though any doctor would look at x-rays of my feet and practically shudder.

In my prime I wore lifting shoes, which I ordered from York, for squat snatches, squat cleans, and Olympic-style presses. I still wear a pair that I bought in 1978, although you can imagine the condition that they are in! I won an eBay auction a year or so ago, so I have replacement shoes ready when my 1978 shoes finally die.

I used wedges (as Bob Crist, who gave them to me, called them) in my York lifting shoes for the snatches and cleans, with my heels raised higher for snatches. The wedges were hard rubber. For snatches, I would fold a sock a few times and put that on top of the wedge to give me the extra height that I needed for snatches. Just a bit different but I knew what I needed.

There is a big-name Olympic lifter from the distant past who wrote in an article decades ago that lifters won’t need high heels on their shoes if they have sufficient flexibility. That is nonsense, as I did flexibility exercises and could hit very deep positions. Necessary heel height depends on body measurements and ratios. This topic was discussed on the GoHeavy forum about a year ago and someone, maybe Rachel Crass, explained all of this correctly. I was so pleasantly surprised that I complimented her.

Tom

[61pwcc]

Tom, it took me about an hour to find on GoHeavy.com but I think it was a response by Gwen Sisto that you complimented correct?? I’ve always wanted to know more about this subject. I’ve done ALL my Olympic lifting in low cut Chuck Taylor’s.
Here’s a link to the shoe questionhttp://goheavy.com/forums/olympic/index.cgi/read/538763
Thanks to you for bringing it up!!

[Abe Smith]

I find it hard to olympic lift in chucks. For one the thin sole makes it hard to stomp when you jerk. Also the no heel makes it hard to set you up for the second pull and catch portions of the lift as said by Tommy Kono. Chucks are good for the deadlifts we often practice. For proper squatting I found a heel helps but is not necessary.

[Tom Ryan]

[b]Quote from 61pwcc on June 8, 2011, 08:19[/b]
Tom, it took me about an hour to find on GoHeavy.com but I think it was a response by Gwen Sisto that you complimented correct?? I’ve always wanted to know more about this subject. I’ve done ALL my Olympic lifting in low cut Chuck Taylor’s.
Here’s a link to the shoe question[url]http://goheavy.com/forums/olympic/index.cgi/read/538763[/url]
Thanks to you for bringing it up!!

Yes, that is it.

[Al Myers]

All this discussion on proper footwear for lifting must have been a bad omen for me – because last night my lifting shoes of over 10 years “bit the dust”!! It was a sad moment indeed for me, because after that much time with a pair of shoes you build a special relationship. So today, I looking to replace them. I have found a few I like by looking at the pictures of them, but that is not the same as having them on your feet. I need a shoe that is an “all-round” shoe, meaning it can be used for most all of the all-round lifts (except my pulls where I wear wrestling shoes with minimal sole). Any suggestions???? AND BAREFOOT IS NOT AN OPTION FOR ME!! Dinoman

[jarrod]

c’mon al, just try it…you know you want to.

[Author]

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