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Transitioning to minimalist footwear is an emerging topic that is gaining attention because of its clear importance.

We’ve heard about how traditional footwear destroys our feet and why minimalist footwear is excellent for fixing these problems. But many people have noticed or just wondered, wouldn’t that be a severe transition to make though?

The answer is yes, it sure is!

I was unaware of this when I “transitioned” to this new footwear and when I did see articles similar to this one telling us how to do it the right way, I ignored them because I was too excited to just wear them full-time already.

I did come across some pain points along the way and I didn’t think they might be from my foot adapting to the footwear while I was also injured at that time.

While I still wouldn’t call myself fully transitioned yet (I’ve only been in minimalist footwear for about a year at this point), I feel like I’ve come a long way with my feet, ankles, and lower legs already. 

To avoid suffering some of the common pain points during this transition (like plantar fasciitis, achilles tendonitis, etc.), here are a few of the most important things I’ve identified that made my transition easier and kept me from injuring myself during the process. 

Spend More Time Barefoot

With all of the rigid structure and motion-controlling features in traditional footwear, our feet have been kept very weak and can basically be considered “asleep”.

To start waking up these muscles, tendons, and ligaments, walking around barefoot is a great start.

This could be as simple as doing household chores barefoot, taking barefoot walks outside, or anything that is gentle on the feet.

I would not recommend starting out with barefoot exercise or doing anything strenuous because unfortunately, most of us don’t know how much our bare feet are capable of handling and it’s best to assume that its not very much.

Take a slow approach to waking up the feet and allowing them to very slowly build strength. There is no rush. 

Move as Quietly as You Can

Traditional footwear comes with a guaranteed elevated heel; that means on women’s shoes, men’s shoes, athletic shoes, casual shoes, you name it. It also typically comes with a large and heavy heel.

Even though our heel bone isn’t big, that doesn’t stop most shoe producers from making shoes with big, clunky heels that stick off the back of your shoes.

All of this means we end up landing heel-first when we walk, or heel-striking as its called by runners. This is a completely unnatural way to walk and it is part of the problem that relates to plantar fasciitis, different kinds of tendonitis, and so on. 

Related: The Minimalist Shoes I Can’t Live Without

While researching this topic, I noticed some other people recommending that you pay attention to the way you walk and the way you strike the ground. While they are correct, there is a much better way to think of this.

Just walk as quietly as you can.

How do I know this will work? Because when you try to be quiet, you walk on your forefoot, or your “tip-toes”, which allows for your body to absorb the impact of the ground most effectively, as nature intended. This makes the least amount of noise possible and more importantly, gets you walking with much better form and taking less shock through your heels.

Have you ever noticed how animals in the wild walk? Incredibly quietly. So quietly that you may not even hear a deer walk over 100 yards of tree branches and crunchy leaves. They are practicing the same thing. It’s a stealthy way of moving, but also the smartest.

Use Myofascial Release to Ease the Process

As iterated earlier, the musculature in your feet, ankles, and lower legs have been adapting to traditional footwear your whole entire life. That means that 1. It’s going to take some time to undo all of this negative adaptation and 2. That musculature has become tighter and more “stuck” in it’s position. 

What happens is this footwear doesn’t allow our muscles to reach their full range of motion so they end up becoming much less mobile than they should be. Then the fascia, or connective tissue, around it thickens and limits how much these muscles can move, therefore locking them into a reduced range of motion.

The muscles on the top of the foot running all the way up the shin are too tight, the achilles tendon and calf muscles have become shortened and much tighter, and the foot arch (plantar) muscles have become lengthened (which is bad) and very weak because of it. This is all from the shoes you wear every day.

You can see why this will be quite the adjustment for your body, namely restoring all these muscles to their original lengths.

Stretching will not cut it either, you have to break up the tightness yourself.

A great way to help this process along is to use myofascial release techniques to “release” the muscles from the tight, fibrous fascia that now surrounds them.

This technique here is what I used to give my achilles tendon some relief when I felt a lot of pulling during my transition. It worked incredibly well and I’d recommend it to just about anybody. 

You can feel relief from myofascial release techniques in as little as 5 minutes. It’s been incredible to see with my own eyes and feel how much relief I’ve gotten from these exercises.

Use something like a foam roller for larger muscle groups or for less intense releases, and a firm massage ball for those smaller muscles that need a serious release.

Honestly, myofascial release work is probably the main reason that I didn’t re-injure myself while transitioning to minimalist footwear.