A lot of people tend to frown upon shoe-less folk in gyms all around the globe. It’s fair enough if the thought behind this has to do with a workplace health and safety concern. But if one is to truly consider this thought, it doesn’t make too much sense.
For starters, if you were to drop a 25 kilogram dumbbell on your foot with or without a shoe on, you’d be hard pressed to notice any difference in pain or damage. Not only that, but if you did drop a 25 kilogram dumbbell on your foot, then there might just be something to be said about being careful in the gym anyway.
Another concern that comes about from the removal of shoes during exercise is the smell. Unfortunately, most of the time, there’s not much we can do about this. After all, it’s hard enough to ensure that an entire gym of people shower and wear deodorant. And if we’re talking about the individuals that exercise at the end of their busy day—especially if they work in a physically demanding job—then sometimes an accompanying smell is inevitable.
Every gym is different, however. And if you’re lucky enough to have access to a gym that allows you to keep your shoes off when you’re working out your lower body, then you can unlock some great benefits that would otherwise be missed. Here are three of them.
#1 – Enhance Proprioception
What does this mean? Think of proprioception as your sixth sense. It’s the sense that provides you with an understanding of where you are in space and time. It’s one of the reasons you know how to touch your nose when your eyes are closed. And it’s why standing on one leg becomes more difficult when you close them.
Why training without your shoes can improve this sense is because it enables you to utilize your muscle spindles and golgi tendon—i.e., your primary sensory organs—which then causes your motor units to fire more, then causing your muscle fibers to be stimulated, and thus causing strength and hypertrophy gains.
#2 – Produce Maximal Force
As you can see from the picture above, with squishy shoes on, your body will find it harder to truly produce the force that you could have as it seeks out the ground. This is because, quite simply, your soles will literally dampen your ability for your feet to make contact with the ground.
So, by removing your shoes, you will have quick access to the ground, and thus, better ability to produce maximal force.
#3 – Strengthen Foot Arches
Training without shoes—especially when performing lower body resistance exercises—improves your ability to focus on the intrinsic muscles of the feet. What this means is that you’ll be able to truly activate all your muscles because you will be forced to engage the feet to ensure that your knees don’t collapse inwards (also known as valgus collapse).
If you have flat feet, this can be a life changer. I have a video talking about this very thing in far more in-depth. So if this might be of help to you (or someone you know), check out the video below:
What are your thoughts on training without shoes? Do you train without them? Or does your gym disallow it? Let me know in the comments below.