About 2009 there began a craze within the running community in the direction of barefoot running. The trend was to get rid of the supportive and cushioned athletic shoes since they were considered the reason for much of the injuries that runners have been getting. The trend was backed and touted by a lot of so-called gurus, web sites, discussion boards as well as books and magazines. It was heavily touted as the response to a lot of the conditions that athletes faced. It was projected that as much as around a quarter of all athletes dabbled in the reasoning behind barefoot or minimalist running at the time. Regardless of all of the rhetoric and boasts created for barefoot running, the science and research failed to support those claims that were being made. For the majority of of those runners which ever done it, the benefits didn't eventuate, and so they went back to running as to what they were previously used to be running in. Runners gradually dropped interest in it and despite all the media hype and also the amount of promotion that was directed at it, the trend began falling off by end of 2014 and these days it seldom gets a mention with the exception of historic terms and also by a tiny dedicated group which still do it and attempt to encourage for this.
The fad did encourage a lot of barefoot running shoes which is a little bit of an oxymoron as how can you be barefoot and also have athletic shoes. Nevertheless, these kinds of athletic shoes at the time were designed to be so minimal and have little cushioning like the standard running shoes. They were really simply protective covering of the feet. It was thought that when by using these types of shoes that they were as near as you could get to running barefoot whilst still utilizing some kind of athletic shoes. There were a great deal of new brands in to the athletic shoes market on the back of this trend as the traditional running shoe companies had been fairly sluggish to respond to the progress in the marketplace. The conventional athletic shoes companies did react with increased minimalist shoes at that time. Since that time many of the new brands have left the market and the choice of barefoot running shoes supplied by the larger running shoe businesses have been drastically decreased as the interest in these shoes have decreased to the degree that they at this point comprise much less than 1% with the running shoe market.
Whilst there isn't any longer much interest, if any, in barefoot running shoes, there is a legacy how the novelty leaves on the industry. Runners are more aware of the various design options in athletic shoes for example the amount of padding as well as the height of the cushioned heel. There are some of the minimalist design features that have been incorporated into the more traditional running shoes. The plethora of athletic shoes currently on the market is currently more extensive which range from the minimalist end up to the more cushioned maximalist end of the spectrum. There's no question that this craze leaves a legacy.
