Will Toning Shoes Help You To Work Out While you Walk?
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Exercise shoes can be a pricey item of fitness equipment, but they are one of the most critical items of kit that you use. Whatever sport you take part in, and whatever your exercise regime is, you definitely need a good, comfortable pair of shoes in order to derive the maximum enjoyment and fitness benefits from it. If your shoes are not well designed, or if they are not a good fit, you could give yourself blisters, perform below par and possibly even risk injury.
There are certain types of sports which will require very specialized shoes, but the majority of people will be happy with cross trainers or tennis shoes for general exercise – jogging and walking for example. Currently, new advances in fitness footwear technology are resulting in the appearance of new types of exercise shoes on the market. These are targeted mainly at people who either walk for exercise or, in certain cases, possibly don’t manage to get as much exercise as they might wish. They seem to have popped up from nowhere – and they are proving to be so popular that a new term has been invented for them – “toning” shoes.
The theory is that these shoes are designed in a manner which increases the amount of work carried out by the lower body muscles whilst walking normally. There are now a number of different manufacturers, each with their own offerings available, and designs vary, but this is typically achieved by the use of a specially designed sole.
A number of brands – such as Fit flops sandals, Skechers Shape Upsand Masai Barefoot Technology (MBT) include a curved sole. This is intended to encourage a gentle rolling motion whenever the foot contacts the ground. This reduces any impact shock and is intended to reproduce the effect of walking barefoot on a soft, yielding surface such as sand or thick, lush grass.
Reebok Easy Tones are probably the newest entrant to the market and also incorporate a special sole. However, instead of using a curved sole, Easy Tones have air pods included which produce a small amount of imbalance. The idea is that the lower body muscle will try to compensate for this and regain balance. This will require extra work and therefore your lower body gets toned. Fitflops also make use of this principle in addition to the use of a curved sole, in the shape of something they have termed “microwobbleboard” technology.
Of the brands available Fitflops and MBTs look least like fitness footwear. This will appeal to many people as the shoes are marketed as giving you a “workout while you walk” and “the sandal with the gym built in”. The suggestion is clearly that you will be able to tone your lower body by wearing the shoes whilst you go about your daily business. To be strictly accurate, the main market for MBTs may be more from people wishing to reduce back and joint pain whilst improving posture rather than getting toned.
Skechers do include some shoes which don’t look like exercise shoes within their Shape Ups range. Mary Janes are one of the “non-exercise” models on offer. Reebok Easy Tones are very definitely targeted at the mainstream fitness market segment and, consequently, they look just like what they actually are – high tech and very specialized fitness footwear.
So – is it really possible to get a “workout while you walk” using these new miracle shoes? Will you really be able to trim and tone your lower body simply by wearing a different pair of shoes? It’s a very attractive prospect. There will be a great many people who would like to exercise much more frequently but who find it nigh on impossible to fit it into their daily schedule.
Just at the moment, there are varying opinions. Needless to say, all of the manufacturers are keen to cite the results of independent scientific testing which validates the effectiveness of their products. There is certainly a lot of very positive feedback from satisfied users of this type of shoe. On the other hand, many doctors and health specialists have cast serious doubt over the claims made.
In the final analysis, the cost of these shoes is pretty much the same as conventional fitness footwear. There’s an extensive range of styles and colors to pick from – you should find something that you like. Possibly the next time you are in the market for a new pair of shoes anyway, you should consider buying a pair of toning shoes and finding out if they work for you or not.
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