Around 2009 there started a craze within the running community in the direction of barefoot running. The trend was to dispose of the arch supporting and cushioned athletic shoes because they were thought to be the cause of a lot of the injuries that runners were getting. The craze was backed and touted by a lot of so-called gurus, web sites, discussion boards as well as books. It was greatly offered as the response to a lot of the issues that athletes experienced. It was calculated that as much as around one fourth of all runners dabbled with the notion of barefoot or minimalist running at the time. Despite all the rhetoric and claims created for barefoot running, the science and research failed to support these claims that were being made. For the majority of of those athletes that ever done it, the benefits did not materialise, and so they went back to running with what they were used to be exercising in. Runners ultimately dropped curiosity about it and in spite of all the buzz and also the volume of promotion that was directed at it, the buzz began falling off by end of 2014 and these days it rarely gets a mention with the exception of historic terms and also by a small dedicated group that still do it and try to encourage for this.

The popularity did stimulate a great deal of barefoot running shoes which is a dose of a contradiction as how can you be barefoot and still have running shoes. Nonetheless, these kinds of running shoes during the time were designed to be so minimal and still have little cushioning just like the traditional running shoes. These were genuinely simply protective covering of the foot. It was thought that when using these kinds of footwear that they are as near as you could get to running barefoot whilst still using some sort of athletic shoes. There were a lot of new brands in to the athletic shoes market within the back of this trend as the traditional athletic shoes corporations were somewhat sluggish to react to the change in the industry. The standard athletic shoes businesses did respond with more minimalist shoes at that time. Since that time several of the new companies have left the marketplace and the choice of barefoot running shoes offered by the larger athletic shoes companies are already noticeably decreased for the reason that interest in these shoes have gone down to the magnitude that they currently comprise a lot less than 1% of the athletic shoes industry.

Even though there is no longer much attention, if any, in barefoot running shoes, there is a legacy that the craze leaves within the market. Runners are more aware of the various design features in athletic shoes like the amount of padding as well as the height with the shock absorbing heel. There are some of the minimalist design features that have been incorporated into the more traditional running shoes. All the various athletic shoes now available on the market is now more considerable which range from the minimalist end up to the more shock absorbing maximalist end of the spectrum. There's no question that this novelty has left a legacy.