Vivobarefoot Motus Strength Training Shoes - 100 Day Review (Should You Wear Them Too?)

 Introduction

I have been following Vivobarefoot for a couple years, especially their wide selection of running and training shoe with some pretty neat features and designs. In theory I am a big fan of minimalist shoes, especially ones with a zero drop and a wide toe box which are shared features with some of my other current favorite shoes in on and off road Altra running shoes. This right here is the Vivobarefoot Motus Strength barefoot training shoe and it’s their first ever strength-training specific version. Of course, it features the signature zero toe-to-heel height drop, and additionally has some more sport specific things like light but supportive padding, protection, and grippy outsole, all to elevate your training while still retaining that natural barefoot feel.

Back in September 2024, I decided to dip my toes into the world of barefoot/minimalist shoes setting out to do 100 days straight wearing these Vivobarefoot’s every single day. While in the end I didn’t end up with enough content for a separate testimonial video, I did want to share a little bit about my personal experience here in the review so that people who are interested in the potential benefits of barefoot training and minimalist footwear can be more fully aware about what to expect and how it actually might not be for everyone. Lets check it out.

Hey guys this is Michael with the Jungle Gym Reviews, today we are reviewing my first pair of barefoot or minimalist shoes, the Vivobarefoot Motus Strength. Vivobarefoot was nice enough to send these to me for review as I have quite a history with chronic knee pain stemming from lifelong collegiate soccer and injuries. Alongside what I consider a more natural leaning diet, functional training, and lifestyle, figured these were a great gear and footwear progression for me.

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Why Barefoot Shoes/Why I Wanted These

As I mentioned before, my goal with these shoes was to wear them as my go to sneakers and trainers and ultimately strength training, running, walking, around the house, you name it. Over the prior year I had firsthand seen some great benefits of switching just to zero-drop, again meaning that there is no height change or pitch from front to back, like you see on many running and training shoes, alongside the wide toe box which allows your toes and feet to spread and splay as they would barefoot rather than cramped together like a typical big name running shoes. As I mentioned before I have a couple different pairs of Altra running shoes for some Spartan races and other road running that I was doing, so then I wanted to now try the minimal padding are barefoot style Vivo’. Even in those first few months with my Altra’s I was able to see the benefits of what these types of shoes can do to retrain your feet and your body and some of your movement patterns, which in turns helped reverse years of chronic knee pain stemming from cramped or sub optimal footwear choices, so I wanted to continue going either further towards the most natural footwear available.

Getting Acclimated to Barefoot Shoes (Progression)

A quick note, I do want to mention that with both a zero drop cushioned shoes and especially with zero drop barefoot or minimalist shoes, you cannot and should not have an overnight transition to wearing them, especially after 20-30+ years of wearing traditional shoes. You are only supposed to start with about an hour a day per week and gradually work up from there: 2 hours a day in week two, 3 hours a day of wear in week 3, etc. till a couple months where you should now be acclimated to wearing these shoes the same amount of hours per day as your previous normal shoes.

Vivobarefoot

So Vivobarefoot is a UK based footwear company developed around the idea that natural and minimal footwear is better, for our bodies, for the enviornement and for a multiple of other similar reasons. So they pride themselves on this minimal barefoot approach to return users to their natural foot shape, feeling, movement, strength, and function. The goal of their footwear is to be wide in the toes like you would be barefoot, flat, even, thin, and flexible thus restoring your more natural movement, bringing you closer to the ground, and the world around you.

All that to say they make all types of these shoes from minimalist hiking shoes, to training shoes, to just everyday lifestyle shoes etc. All of their shoes too are specifically made to be environmentally friendly with recycled or bio-friendly material. I really like their brand and their overall message because is all about people first, humanity, bettering yourself, bettering others, leaving a good impact on the environment, which are all good things in my opinion and it’s not just marketing fluff, if you check out their website, how they make their stuff and what they are doing to recycle old shoes and give back to the community, they are really about it, which can’t be said of most companies to try to showcase how nice and good they are, usually if they have to tell you, that’s a telling sign.

So again I really align with and support their overall message, goals, brand, and even the specific footwear purposes the have, aesthetics, and especially stuff like how you can send back your old shoes to be recycled and turned into new Vivobarefoot ones, or even their 100 trial where you can send the shoes back if you don’t like them after 100 days. All really good things and cool idea and brand.

Motus Strength Specs

So bringing us back to this specific shoe, I chose the Motus Strength specifically for obviously reasons, and if you are not familiar my use case for these is an active lifestyle so running, walking, lifting, occasional jumping and pushing like intervals or sled training is what I wanted these for. The Motus strength have a lot of the same features as their flagship Primus Lite shoe which is pretty much an all around oriented barefoot active shoe for everyday lifestyle, running, crossfit, primal movement, etc. This Motus Strength shoe including the same 2mm sole thickness but are specifically are a little heavier shoes overall than their Primus Lite with more traction on the outsole and higher lateral bracing and sidewalls for more support and in overall meant to be more durable during explosive and athletically driven power movements. The specific combination of the insole and the sole base/outsole thickness is what really gives you that solid ground contact feel in pretty much all of their shoes.

Price

The price of these Motus Strength are $200 which is definitely on the higher end of their offerings, but not by much at $200. If you are looking to save on any of their shoes their coupon code JUNGLE saves you 10% on all purchases, but please don’t buy these you hear my final thoughts in a couple minutes.

Quality/Durability

Now I am not going to pretend I am a shoe expert, but from my experience these do seem very durable. Although they are breathable and lightweight and flexible, because of how it is design and where you foot sits within the overall shoe material all the normal break and rip spots that would happen in a typical shoe really aren’t present with this Motus strength here. Your foot sit so low in the shoe since it’s a really low sole cushion height and your feet are then within what I call the buffered impact zone for sliding rubbing etc. here. Basically your feet done “float” or ride high like some other shoes, or even your toes wear through mesh sliding or just your pinky and other toes being cramped. And again there is no heel wear because there is no metal backing plate there, etc.

Comfort

The shoes themselves are protective but I wouldn’t necessarily call them objective comfortable, next to standing on memory foam lets say, mainly because the standard guage of comfort is padding, softness, etc. which is literally the antitheses of their whole concept here being minimal everything. That being said you do get used to them pretty quickly to the point where I didn’t ever feel like I didn’t have enough padding or comfort in these shoes to do all my daily lifestyle of athletic endeavors, in fact I pushed to wear these as often as I could by the end of my time with them and never found them uncomfortable as I got used to what they felt like. They fit on like a sock and they don’t have any weird pinch or pressure points so I can’t complain there.

Aesthetic

The last thing I wanted to touch on was the aesthetic, which they do a fantastic job on and I think speaks for itself, they are made to look modern, edgy, functional, and bold. The different textures from the mesh and rubber sections of the shoe uppers to the angles and curves and texture of the sidewalls and outsole, and even the embossed logo is really cool. The materials design, shape, and texture is then accentuated by their multiple choice color schemes. I actually saw Coop from Garage Gym Reviews mention this the other day that he buys their women’s versions because they typically have cooler color options which I definitely agree is the case sometimes. Unfortunately for myself, I wear size 12 mens so they don’t have equivalent sizes for me, but just double check their size charts if you want to go down that route.

My Experience Wearing These Shoes

So now that on paper we know the shoes are comfortable, geared towards maximizing your potential, being natural, environmentally friendly, how well did they work for me in my 100 days of wearing them? Well simply put, I don’t and won’t be wearing them anymore, but hear me out.

As I mentioned before I have had chronic knee pain from soccer injuries, I had severe plantar fasciitis as a kid and through high school, and it was found out later at some specialist’s that a lot of this was caused by me simply having flat feet and my knees and the bio mechanical chain above them pronating meaning turning inwards, knees kind of caving in because lack of supportive arches, which put more strain on a lot of my ankles, knee, hip musculature. Immediately within 6 months of getting correct arch supports in all my everyday and athetlic shoes, all my knee pain and such went away for years. Until I developed more 10 years later through different mediums like patellar tendinitis and other things that were results of overtraining, bad form, sleeping in weird positions, sitting in a cramped car for hours for my engineering job, etc. Flash forward to end of 2024 I am actually doing pretty well especially after all of 2024 using Altra’s shoes that have a wide tox box and zero drop as well but do have “normal” shoes cushioning and support. These helped alleviate even more of these nagging or lingering aches and pains or soreness so then now the natural progression for me in my footwear journey was to give Vivobarefoot’s a try.

I followed the exact acclimation progression I mentioned before doing so over the course of about 2 months, but by the end of it, my knees were pretty much fine but my ankles were getting incredibly tight and sore every single day. I really was hoping it was just a small tweak or injury picked up from running or lifting but after probably about 5 times of switching back to “normal” shoes for a few days then with arch supports then transitioning back to even just walking a mile in the unsupportive Vivo’s my ankle pain would flare up every time. After so many times, of trying to prove myself wrong, I ultimately had to throw in the towel as I have come to the conclusion that something to do with my flat feet and the pronation of my ankles knees while unsupported in the Vivobarefoot shoes is just not compatible. Which is a bummer because typically in my diet and lifestyle again, I like to do things as natural as possible when it makes sense, from eating whole food oriented to training leaning towards a more functional fitness and being able to lift and run and sprint, so I desperately wanted these shoes to work as well as liking the idea and the brand behind it, but ultimately it wasn’t for me.

Final Verdict/Who Are These For?

So with that all being considered, I think these are great shoes for someone looking to get into minimalist and barefoot training, footwear, and lifestyle obviously. They look cool they functional well and they are priced about the same as most higher end athletic brand shoes. I would still recommend these to most people only if you do not, have a history of flat feet or similar. I definitely think there is a lot of benefit that can be had by most people who may have some history of knee or foot injuries and at least should try, via acclimation protocol, some sort barefoot shoes to see if allowing your feet to function in a more natural way could benefits you, your lifestyle, and maybe even improve on some of the ways you feel in your feet, body etc. Although I want to be clear natural doesn’t always mean good, like bears, poisonous plants, or snake venom, but I think you also have to be naïve on the opposite end of the spectrum to say there is no potential benefits and 0% possibility trying barefoot shoes could help with XYZ. So please check out Vivobarefoot if you are interested as I think they have some great options depending on whatever specific activity or activities you are looking for. I was planning to try some of their hiking shoes next as that is another one of my big athletic endeavors but due to the reasons mentioned prior will have to pass for now.

Signoff and Q&A

So guys that’s it for this review of the Vivobarefoot Motus strength minimalist shoes. As always, if you have any questions, please comment down below and I will be happy to answer or at least try. Thank you for tuning into The Jungle Gym Reviews, we will see you next time, take it easy, peace.

 -Michael @TheJungleGymReview