Xero Shoes are surprising. Why? Because no one ever thought of making them years ago! Xero Shoes are minimalist, barefoot shoes with a zero-drop style. You’re low to the ground with minimal padding. Enough to be comfortable but still, feel like you’re barefoot. Your toes are free to move, bend and spread like nature intended. In this video, I share a review of the Hana sneaker from Xero Shoes and how they helped my knee and back pain as a photographer and a karate student. There is even a surprising thing that happened which I share!
Transcription was done by Descript‘s automated transcription services which means it’s an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain spelling, grammar
So what’s the story here? This is called xero shoe. These are very lightweight, minimalistic shoes. These are sneakers that are actually barefoot shoes. Now what’s the barefoot shoe, well you’re obviously, these are a shoe so you’re not really barefoot, what this is is these are shoes that are designed to bring your feet back to the way that we were when we were born and the way that, people were before shoes really existed. These are shoes that are supposed to help your toes spread out. They’re very wide at the bottom and they’re a, also what’s called a zero drop. So your foot is actually pretty close to the floor and it’s supposed to be more natural to walk on in these. And if you have foot pain, if you have, if you have feet problems, shoes like this are actually supposed to completely reverse all that. And, and again, make your foot the way that it was when you were born before we started shoving our feet into tight socks and into tight shoes. So there’s a xero shoes. You might have heard the name. If you watch shark tank
40 years after the invention of the heavily padded and very expensive running shoe research is showing how just your feet without all the bells and whistles can do a better job. But barefoot is not always appropriate. That’s why I developed xero shoes.
The CEO of Xero shoes was originally on shark tank with their sandals. They have evolved to full sneakers and boots, hiking things and trail running sneakers and things like that. They’re based out of boulder, Colorado. And my goal here is to start wearing these and see if they help back pain cause they should, if your feet get proper aligned again, it should help foot pain, it should help leg pain, knee pain, back pain. And so everything’s connected. So my goal is to see if this helps with, the back issues that photographers have. And maybe a lot of the back issues are because of the shoes that we wear and in particular shoes that aren’t really meant for our feet. As odd as that might sound. So I am not a scientist. I am not a foot doctor, I am going by what I’ve been researching and I’m look forward to seeing if these have any effect on foot pain and back pain and knee pain.
And I also am a karate student and I barefoot whenever I take class. So this could even help with that. With the pain that I get in class, I have knee problems, which again could be caused by not only the sport of doing karate, but could also be caused by the shoes that we wear. So I’ve now spent a month with the xero shoes and I’ve been wearing them on a daily basis as regular sneakers and I’ve been wearing them without socks. I found that they’re more comfortable without socks and they are with socks. If I had the athletic sneakers or the running sneakers or the boots, I’d probably wear them with socks. But for the sort of the dailies, no socks, I have found that it’s actually helped reduce pain in my knees and also my back. I don’t find my back hurting. I stand all day at work at a standing desk and I don’t find my back hurting like it used to when I first switched to from a sitting desk to a standing desk and I was on my feet and yeah, I would have pain in my knees quite often and whatnot.
Now I’m also a karate student as I mentioned earlier. And in karate class I wear a brace from Bauer fiend for my knee issue and I wear that because the brace is specifically designed for sport and it’s designed to reduce the swelling of the knee, which then in turn causes more pain. So, um, I still had the pain while I was taking karate class, even with the knee with a knee brace on, but the pain was way reduced and it took a while in certain stances, two that are knee intensive to make the pain start. Now after wearing the, xero shoes for about a month, I’m finding that pain is reduced overall. Another thing that I’m finding that’s really interesting. And again, I’m not a scientist, I’m not a foot doctor, but I do find this really interesting let, when I was at the foot doctor for the first time, I asked about why the Pinky toes on my feet did not move bend like the rest of the toes on my feet.
And he explained that when we are born, we are actually designed or our anatomy is designed to grip sand and dirt as we walk with our feet. And by not using our pinky toes, which are the weakest of all the toes, we are actually making our pinky toes atrophy and they won’t always bend. So by using xero shoes, which are barefoot shoes, meaning they’re more natural of a, of a fit and have a feeling you are actually still using your pinky toe as you walk. They’re not sort of squeezed with your other toes. So, I’m actually finding that my pinky toe is starting to move again more than it would in the past. And each week it’s more and more. So I think that’s so interesting that I’m starting to gain muscle back into the weakest toe on my feet, toes on my feet.
So I have a big photography conference coming up and I, it’s going to be colder weather. I’m not sure if I’m going to be wearing my xero shoes. Cause again the ones I have I wear without socks. I don’t have any other zero shoes right now. But if I had the athletics and I had the boots, I’d probably wear one of those to the trade show with socks and I’d be on my feet all day in their shoes. But because I don’t, I’m probably going to just wear comfortable sneakers that I’ve worn in the past to the trade show. It’ll stink to have to put um, socks and the shoes on that squeeze my toes together. But um, I know that they’ll be comfortable and that’s okay at least for the two or three days that I’ll be at the conference.
But so far so good. I if, but so far so good. If you are interested in checking out xero shoes, just check out the description below. I’ve got a link down there is a referral link. I do make a small commission on it, but, I believe in these. So far I’ve been using them for a month, every single day, and I’m on my feet all the time. So when I’m in my house, I’m literally barefoot and when I leave the house, I’m wearing barefoot sneakers from xero shoes and I’m happy about it. Thanks for watching. Thanks for checking it out. I hope that you check out xero shoes and come back here and comment. Let me know how they’re working for you because I want to hear.
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