Toning Shoes

Our suspicions on the new “toning” shoe craze has been confirmed! A new scientific study with proper design has been published by the American Council on Exercise (ACE). There is no scientific evidence to support that wearing these shoes will enhance your fitness. The concerns with the shoes for the researchers and myself is that they will alter your walking gait making you walk worse—not better.

It’s a great review with nice graphs. Check it out.

Walk well and walk simply. The answer is not in more technology—but less as in correcting the neurological and biomechanical function in your feet and ankles—fancy shoes can never do what the foot can do alone.

Will Toning Shoes Really Give You A Better Body? (ACE)

*At the end of the article, ACE recommends carrying “hand weights” if you want to rev up your walks or wearing one of the new weight vests. I have not recommended hand weights for years because it can greatly alter your gait in a negative way—creating issues with your “back force transmission” as force travels off the ground and up one leg then across the body into the opposing arm and shoulder. Again—just walk—simply. If you can truly walk well, then yes, think about using a vest if you need more load for an upcoming mountain hike or backpacking trip—or just need more metabolic load for weight loss and fitness, but first, just walk! If you load a poor gait or walking problem with “more weight,” the problem will get worse and not better.

In Foot Fitness, Coach RJ