Reebok Walking Shoes

Can Shoes Really Tone the Body?

New scientific experiments can be inspired by a simple question, and in the case of John Mercer, that question was, “So, John, do toning shoes work?”

Dr. Mercer, a professor of biomechanics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, was talking with a friend who runs an athletic shoe store. The friend told him that customers were coming in and requesting toning shoes, which are soft sneakers, often with a rocker-shaped sole, that promise to exercise and tighten muscles in the calves, thighs and buttocks. (“Your boobs will be jealous,” a refined advertising campaign for one of the shoes declared.) Many manufacturers make them: Reebok, New Balance, MBT, FitFlops and Crocs, among others.

The store owner carried various models of the toning shoes. But, he told Dr. Mercer, he was uncomfortable recommending them to his customers, because he didn’t know if they actually functioned as claimed.

Dr. Mercer didn’t know, either. So he recruited a group of healthy young female students (toning shoes are marketed almost exclusively to women) and had them walk on a treadmill for 10 minutes at a time while wearing, alternately, a walking shoe or a toning shoe — in this case, the Skechers Shape-ups. He and his colleagues attached sensors to the women’s legs to measure the electrical impulses generated as their muscles contracted. They also determined the women’s oxygen consumption, to see if they worked harder and burned more calories with one shoe rather than the other.

But as it turned out, according to results presented in June at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine, muscle activation and oxygen consumption were almost identical whether the women wore walking shoes or Shape-ups. The finding “was a little surprising,” Dr. Mercer said, since his volunteers commented that the toning shoes, with their bowed, unstable bottoms, felt different underfoot from the walking shoes. But that difference didn’t change how they moved in the various models, he said.

Dr. Mercer’s study joins a small but growing body of science about toning shoes, much of which does not support the makers’ claims. A study conducted last year by exercise physiologists at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, for instance, found that muscle activation and calorie burning did not change whether people wore ordinary athletic shoes or any of three different models of toning shoes. “There is simply no evidence to support the claims that these shoes will help wearers exercise more intensely, burn more calories or improve muscle strength and tone,” the authors concluded.

Some swear by 'toning' footwear, but don't cancel gym membership ...

Can you wobble your way to buns of steel?

The popularity of “toning” shoes, whose unstable soles require you to work muscles harder to stay balanced, suggests consumers are banking on it.

Sales of toning shoes, which cost from $70 to upwards of $200 and have enlisted celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Wayne Gretzky to tout their fitness benefits, soared to $736 million in 2010 from $145 million the year before thanks to the entry of more than a dozen brands into the market, according to market research firm NPD Group.

The ads for many of the shoes, showcasing women with enviably sculpted legs (there are toning shoes for men but the customer base is overwhelmingly female), say that wearing them will help you burn more calories, tone muscles and improve posture.

Most manufacturers compare the experience of wearing their shoes to walking on sand. Foot doctors for years have been prescribing shoes with unstable soles to help patients with foot or ankle arthritis, but can they also get you a few steps closer to firmer thighs?

Peer-reviewed studies on shoes made by Masai Barefoot Technology, pioneers of the rocker-bottom shoes that are beveled at the heel and toe, have found that standing and walking in unstable shoes can strengthen neglected foot muscles and provide some knee and low back pain relief, along with other therapeutic benefits.

Studies on FitFlops, which use Microwobbleboard technology in the midsole, have found they reduce foot pressure by an average of 25 percent and can absorb 22 percent more shock in the lower legs. Whether that translates to a better backside is sketchy.

Skechers, whose Shape-ups have a rocker sole and an “ultra-soft Resamax kinetic wedge” for a squishier cushion, points to a study published last year in the journal Clinical Biomechanics that found that people who walked in MBTs after ankle arthritis surgery burned more calories than controls who walked barefoot or in normal walking shoes. Previous news stories have cited studies funded by Skechers that found people lost more weight and body fat wearing Shape-ups than flat shoes, but those studies were criticized as being poorly controlled (Skechers declined to provide the studies).

Reebok, whose EasyTones use balance-ball-inspired pods and “Moving Air Technology” to create instability, commissioned a study that found electrical activity was 28 percent greater in buttocks muscles and 11 percent greater in calf muscles for wearers of EasyTones versus a regular Reebok walking shoe. Neither company provides guidelines for how long or frequently people should wear the shoes to see benefits.

15th Nordic-Baltic Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics, NBC 2011. 14-17 June 2011. Aalborg, Denmark

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