British Journal of Sports Medicine: Minimal Shoe vs Barefoot

Indeed. However, they did use a Nike Free (3.0) in this study. Also, all the participants were normally running in "traditional" running shoes. The authors themselves note, that the participants still used a heel strike even in minimal shoes/racing flats. Would probably be quite different for experienced barefoot runners, that use minimal shoes.

Unlike in the barefoot condition, although runners adopted shorter stride lengths when running in the minimalist and racing flat shoes compared with the regular shoe, they did not alter their ankle angle at contact. Perhaps the cushioning, elevated heel and lack of proprioception afforded by the shoes used in our study still encourages runners to adopt a rearfoot footstrike pattern.

There are limitations to this study that must be considered. First, we studied the impact of running barefoot on habitually shod runners’ gait. We do not propose that our results are reflective of the running mechanics of habitual barefoot populations, as others have shown that differences in barefoot running mechanics exist between these populations. Second, the minimalist shoe used in the current study has cushioning and an elevated heel therefore care must be taken when extrapolating our results to different types of minimalist shoes, especially those without cushioning or an elevated heel.