performing hundreds of endoscopic plantar fasciiotomies, I've not seen any advantage of "minimalist" shoes to "soft squishy shoes" with regard to strengthening intrinsic musculature of the feet. I've never seen any peer reviewed study that suggests "minimalist" shoes have any benefit over "soft squishy" shoes in any way. In fact, my experience is that "minimalist" shoes actually lower the bar for overuse. Therefore, I and a plurality of my colleagues do not recommend "minimalist" shoes basically at all.

The minimalist shoe phenom, began decades ago and had (and perhaps still has) a passionate, vocal group of followers. In my experience of 31 years of practice, I don't believe minimalist shoes promote strengthening of foot muscles in any way shape or form and can in fact, lead to overuse injuries like plantar fasciitis, achilles tendonitis, posterior tibial and peroneal tendonitis and stress fractures. I never recommend minimalist shoes but hey....a great war in heaven was fought over agency.