Barefoot running was a significant fad about ten years ago which endured for a couple of years which attracted lots of attention, especially in social media. At the end of 2008 to early 2009 there were escalating assertions that athletic shoes were really bad for the athletes and has been the cause of the majority of the injuries that athletes were getting. It was despite the astounding amount of science and technology which went into creating athletic shoes to avoid these overuse injuries. These claims brought about a trend for athletes to test out running without using athletic shoes and running barefoot or using what become often called minimalist running footwear. Most of these running footwear had nominal engineering or characteristics inside them and were simply just a protective covering of the feet.

The without running shoes running fad had been pushed by a substantial existence in social media. There had been a good amount of internet sites, publications, programs, magazines and discussion boards committed to and pushing without footwear running. A lot of phenomenal assertions were made for barefoot running in what it would do for the athletes. It had been assumed that as much as one fourth of runners may have played around with in some manner with barefoot running. Nevertheless, by later in 2013 and earlier 2014 involvement in barefoot running had dwindled away and athletes were no longer excited about it. This was in spite of all of the remarkable promises which got made regarding the advantages of the idea as well as the statements from some that it had been going to put the athletic shoes companies bankrupt. That in no way happened.

The trend declined because the believed advantages hardly ever accrued for the vast majority of runners who tried it. There were a great deal of assertions made how the science backed up barefoot running, when in fact there wasn't any research which indicated that it was much better and following research has revealed that the injury incidence in barefoot or minimalist running is not really less than people who run in the shock absorbing running shoes. There was clearly a great deal of science done on barefoot as well as minimalist running, however that research just didn't reveal that it had been any superior, it just indicated that it was different. The truth that there was clearly so much science that was misunderstood by individuals who touted barefoot running as showing it had been superior, when that is not what it really showed.

Towards the end with the barefoot gimmick, the Hoka One One athletic shoes company launched some maximally padded running footwear that were ridiculed and loathed by individuals touting barefoot running. Despite that, runners loved this footwear and the Hoka’s have become a dominant player in the athletic shoes marketplace and since 2014 the movement continues to be for the more maximally cushioned running footwear from all of the running footwear manufacturers.

There does exist still a tiny group of hardcore barefoot runners that was always there. At present the minimalist running shoes have made up approximately 0.3-0.5% of the running footwear marketplace for the previous few years. Those maximalist running shoes carry on and control the marketplace for the last 6-7 years and there is no indicator of any loss of the share of the market or a return of an involvement with barefoot or minimalist running footwear.