What really makes a barefoot shoe from BÄR unique!
Experience the interview live on YouTube or read the complete transcript here. The interview covers the anatomy of the foot, as well as important stabilizers required for walking:
INTERVIEW BETWEEN DR. CLAUDIA SCHULZ AND CHRISTOF BÄR:
Dr. Claudia Schulz: There are now many brands focusing on barefoot shoes, and as a consumer, I sometimes find it difficult to distinguish what is best for my feet. I see a foot skeleton lying on the table here. Perhaps you could explain, Mr. Bär, what BÄR does differently, what makes the shoes particularly comfortable, and what makes BÄR barefoot shoes so unique.
Christof Bär: Based on our experience and the 40 years we have spent working with feet, Toe freedom, and their positive effects on the body, we keep returning to this topic: the body is actually well equipped to move forward and lead a healthy life. Yet we now squeeze our feet into shoes that no longer reflect this. That is the major difference compared with the broad range of shoes available. Even among barefoot shoes, it is often overlooked that the foot is a masterpiece of engineering, carrying the greatest weight of the body on the smallest surface. The strain is extreme, and this is often neglected. Here we see a foot skeleton with ligaments and tendons, and at the back we see the thickest bone: the heel, which has an important function. When I step down, I need a strong bone that, surrounded by a layer of fat and thick skin, provides cushioning. In other words, when I make a shoe, I should take into account that the main impact occurs at the back. I can see that clearly from the bone. This means that the shoe also needs a certain amount of cushioning or stability at the back to ensure this.
Dr. Claudia Schulz: I think both are necessary. Cushioning alone would be inadequate, and a shoe that is too soft would also provide too little support.
Christof Bär: Exactly right. Sometimes you see people walking ahead of you, waddling very unstably. At some point, that is no longer sustainable from a health perspective. And accidents can easily happen too. You may twist your ankle because your foot is not being guided. Very few people know this, and this is what we repeatedly try to communicate and offer through our shoes. Returning to the skeleton: between these bones, we see the long bones, which are partly concealed by these muscles, but these are bones that should not buckle. I transfer the body weight forward at this angle via a lever, and I need guidance for that. Guidance in the form of the Archraiser mentioned briefly earlier, which provides stability here. Not by creating something like a wooden box and saying, “You have to stay inside this,” but by recognizing that I can gather and stabilize the natural structure here with the firm bone, or make it broader, while absolutely not overlooking the fact that the softest part of the sole should be located here. That would be wrong; this area needs stability. Then, at the front—and this is what fascinates me most—we see how small these bones are. Beneath them, there are even tinier bones through which nerves and ligaments pass. If they are missing or inflamed, however, the pressure goes directly onto the nerves. This means that when walking, I can do an incredible amount of damage with my body weight on these small bones. A great deal can go wrong, and once I understand that, the question is naturally how I can counteract it. I can counteract it by activating the foot muscles. These small bones have to balance. They have to move forward. The foot lands on the heel, rolls over the ball of the foot, and the weight rests on the toes during this process. Then I am already initiating the next step and have to use these bones at the front to move my body in the right direction. All I need here are these tiny bones, which gently balance the gait and the body in the right direction—and these are the bones in the toes. If you constrain them, I reduce their function. If I force the big toe inward, I no longer have a lever at the front. In effect, I buckle here beforehand, and that is precisely what we take into account with our Toe freedom. When you look at the foot, you can clearly see that it is guided at the back by the heel. As it is guided forward, I have stability in this area, and that is the difference compared with many other shoes, which are far too soft in this area and do not guide the foot or support the arch. At the front, our Toe freedom allows each individual toe to perform and vary its function. If this area is too flat and lacks a certain degree of flexibility, I prevent the foot from carrying out its function. That is where medical conditions arise. This is precisely where we have the expertise to say: there is a lot on the market, and people talk extensively about comfort and how soft shoes are. But the foot does not need a bed filled with down; it needs something that enables it to establish secure contact with the ground in order to truly transfer the body weight over the body's smallest surface, so to speak. Once you become aware of this and apply a little physics to shoemaking, our shoes are relatively far ahead, unlike many others where little thought is given to these aspects. Of course, people often say that a shoe is the best because it is the most beautiful, but in terms of function, we frequently do ourselves no favors. That is where we specialize.
Dr. Claudia Schulz: Cushioning, dynamics, and guidance—that sums it up. So you really need all three aspects.
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