I wear almost no other type of shoes. Usually 10 or so hours a day. Mostly hard surfaces. Packed dirt, clay, and game or rocky trails are not soft either. Cavemen never ran around on grass lawn like surfaces. Ever ran in a real field? Non-visible ankle breaking holes. Give me a trail any day!

I wear boots during the nasty (real nasty) outdoor adventures, but only because I dont want to thrash my VFF or constantly maintain them. Cant afford a new pair every month right now.

The first time you run wrong barefoot or in VFF on a hard surface, you'll remember it! Probably wont happen again ;)

Yes, I was wondering this myself for a while!

If you watch this video (made by the scientific journal Nature): The Barefoot Professor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jrnj-7YKZE

You will see one of the main benefits of barefoot running is essentially you are forced to run toe to heel (as opposed to heel to toe) and this is essentially creates a lower-impact higher up thge chain in your ankles, knees and hips.

So my thoughts are it is probably better to always run on softer surfaces like grass, dirt and sand as opposed to modern roads/concrete, etc however if you do run on hard surfaces then barefoot is better anyway due to reduced impact! Even our 'ideal' models of humans from hunter-gatherer cultures do suffer joint wear & tear (no amount of good diet or exercise can prevent aging) so you want to minimise wear & tear whilst still getting the health benefits of physical activity

Thats why short bursts of sprinting on grass or sand is probably the single most effective workout-IMO-that you can do!

I think Concrete/modern roads have natural equivalents. Just take a look at a rocky trail/packed dirt. It shouldn't matter much where you would run. It's logical though that you are noticing the hard surface runs if you are just starting to walk/run barefoot since the impact is high and you are probably not fully used to the way of walking barefoot.

When you are, there are major benefits, more even than walking on grass, since the impact on hard surfaces is much more than the soft surfaces. And the damage to your knees/spine/legs is way less when running barefoot.

So i'd say that, especially when you are running on modern roads, go barefoot!

I don't think there is good research on this subject. We do know that the human foot provides more cushioning than any shoe, so if you are forced to run on hard surfaces you are best off barefoot/minimal.

I used to assume that concrete must be bad until I read that Barefoot Ted and other experienced barefoot runners think it is perfectly fine to run on concrete. We adjust our leg stiffness based on the surface hardness (when barefoot), so it is possible there is nothing wrong with this. The harder the surface, the more efficiently we can run because a softer surface absorbs some of our energy. This may be why some barefoot runners like hard surfaces independently of how it effect the body in the long-term. A softer but more variable surface is less predictable and could put more instantaneous stress on muscles and joints. This could be good or bad depending on how you are looking at things.

If you want paleo re-enactment, it seems like our ancestors would have very rarely ran across a surface as hard as concrete. Asphalt is significantly less hard. A surface made by nature would of course be much more paleo.

Barefoot Ted recommends learning proper form on concrete and this seems like a good idea to me. When the learning is over you may want to move onto other surfaces, if nothing else for a more stimulating run. I run on the grass next to the sidewalks and that is a lot of fun. Moving around trees and plants, hurdling over the concrete, and dodging dog poo. Seems more paleo to me.

After I busted up my knees running in regular shoes a while ago, I have switched to running in Vibram Five Fingers or barefoot, and I've never looked back.

Rigid, heavily padded shoes, prevent our body from taking full advantage of the plethora of muscles, tendons, bones, and nerves in our feet. All of those mechanisms are naturally designed to facilitate running.

As a species, we wear shoes because our parents forced us to wear shoes.

Impact forces of your feet on hard surfaces would not be that much different from "soft" surfaces. How much "give" does dirt really have? Anyway, your elastic tendons and muscles in your feet and legs are good at absorbing shocks and distributing stresses when they are allowed to.

I wear mine 8-10 hours a day, 3 days a week average in the summer. No problems unless I go far more hours than that. Can't stand to run concrete/hard surfaces in them, so I stick to trails. But I can buy into your premise, but getting out of shoes often is likely strengthening to your feet/ankles/legs hard surface or not!

Acton is correct, but only once your feet have developed the strength that they've likely lost from wearing running shoes. If you're new to VFF I'd suggest short walks on grass or dirt. If you're running there is a very big difference between the impact on concrete/asphalt and that on dirt.

edited for clarity.