 Today, let's talk about squatting shoes and what you should be wearing while you're squatting. In my mind, there are three possibilities. There's barefoot, let's say four possibilities. There's barefoot, there's shoes that support you, there's shoes that are like standing on pillows, and then there are shoes that are really firm elevated heel made for squatting. What are the advantages of barefoot? I get a lot more feedback from the ground. I'm not going to tell you really if one is right or wrong for you. It depends on who you are. It depends on what you're capable of doing. Maybe we'll fast forward. There is one that I really just don't support, but I'm going to start with barefoot. Barefoot gives you a lot of sensation from the ground. You get a lot of this feeling. You're not biased by your shoes. That can be really appropriate for a lot of people because they get this good connection with the earth while they're doing their squats. Not always appropriate if someone has poor, bony, shoe, foot, ankle, alignment stuff. If you really, really need arches in your foot because your feet are flat, because the bones have grown differently, then it's very appropriate for you to wear those arches. Those can help very, very much. You might not want to be squatting barefoot because it might be collapsing your feet and your knees inward. Second option. You got shoes that support you. Some of these traditional Asics looks like grandma shoes. I don't really know how else to describe them. They're big. They're puffy. Those can be pretty good. Those are generally stiff where you need them to be stiff around the heel and the midfoot. Then they're pretty flexible around the toe. If you have a shoe that does that, I can really support that shoe. I might not squat really heavy in those because that sense of collapse in the foaminess doesn't always help, but if you're trying to do a squat where you're trying to just achieve the most amount of depth, you're not trying to necessarily gain the most strength, gain the most speed. You're just trying to stay healthy. Those shoes can be really good for you. Third type of shoe we mentioned was a really soft but unsupportive kinds of shoes. The one that I picture the most, and I hate to smear them publicly, but Nike Freeze, New Balance Minimus, those are kind of gray area. There are some like Reebok CrossFit shoes. Everyone makes them. I'm not singling out any company or anything. Nike Freeze are just the easiest one for me to picture. They're really light and they're cool because when they kind of look cool sometimes and when you're running, you don't really feel them. It's like wearing socks, right? But those are so cushiony that they keep your heel totally off the ground so you don't get any sensation from the ground. And the ground is the only thing that tells you how you're dealing with gravity, right? So this is very important. Now especially when they're old, they really collapse and they just drive your ankles in. I've had a few people who I just couldn't fix. There's one guy recently I actually bought shoes for because I know he's busy. He just needed a new pair and I'm like, I need you to have these. That's how much I believe in those. I actually bought him the second kind of pair. The ones that are a little more cushiony give you some more support. I didn't want him hurting his knee anymore and I think his shoes were related to that a lot. So they just increased his sense of control and his sense of space, you know? So try to avoid those those number three. So we've talked about barefoot. We've talked about supportive cushiony. We've talked about unsupportive cushiony and the last one, weightlifting shoes. So the big difference with the weightlifting shoes is there is a very deliberate heel lift. It's kind of like wearing high heels except they're low heels, right? It's kind of like putting your heels on a plate while you squat. What does that do? Well, it helps you control your weight a little bit actually and it takes some of the mobility needs out of the ankle. So when I squat down, I need hip mobility. I need my knee to bend this way and I also need my ankle to let my knee come forward. If I don't have that ankle motion, you'll see people squatting like this, bending over a little bit more, or you'll see people just letting their heels leave the ground. So what's nice about the weightlifting shoe or the heel elevation is it makes that better, okay? It takes that out of the equation. It gives me some ankle mobility by straightening my ankle. I'm trying not to use the word plantar flexion, but it's okay. That's what it is. It's plantar flexion. Plantar flex is my ankle and it lets me have more mobility while I'm coming down. This is why when you see people who might not be quite as fit, might not be quite as used to exercising, when you tell them to squat all the way down, lots of times they'll come up onto their toes like this. So they plantar flex their ankles so that they can find extra mobility. With sporting demands like doing the snatch and the clean and jerk for Olympic weightlifting, it's very important that you squat as low as you can so that you can get under the bar to catch it, right? So in those cases, it's very, very appropriate and I would be, I would be hard pressed to find an athlete who was able to maintain like barefoot clean and jerking or barefoot snatching. So for those types of people, for people who squat depth is really important, maybe you need some weightlifting shoes. But if you're just worried about, you know, being generally strong, not necessarily competing in anything, barefoot will take a long way.