One shoe company boasts that it's products can reduce cellulite. Other brands boast they can strengthen and tone legs, bum and tum. The following article was recently featured in the Guardian on trainers.
Extract from The Guardian newspaper - Thursday March 9th 2006
As someone cursed with a genetic aversion to exercise but also biologically programmed to stuff as many Marks & Spencer double-cream fudge bars down my throat as finances and waking hours will allow, I am always alert to news, rumours and susurrating whispers on the wind of ways in which one can lose weight, tone up and get fit without having to put any effort into it. All hail then, the claims of a new generation of trainers that promise to help you do just that.
But can it be true that what you wear on your feet can improve your health, weight, posture, muscle tone and circulation as the various manufacturers assert? Perhaps the most famous among this modern breed are the £134 Masai Barefoot Technology trainers (MBTs), worn by Cherie Blair, Jemima Khan and throughout Fulham by mummies intent on maintaining their yumminess. The makers claim the shoes strengthen and tone legs, bum and tum by means of a sole that mimics walking on sand as the (generally spectacularly long and lean) Masai warriors do. What really caused them to "fly out of the shop", says Glenys Berd, managing director of an MBT supplier, lovethoseshoes.com, was their claim to reduce cellulite.
Like any woman who has watched her thighs increase at a geometric rate ever since puberty, I long for it to be true. But can it be? Podiatrist Mike O'Neill from the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, who works at Thames Valley Nuffield Hospital, gently suggests that a shoe capable of targeting unsightly fatty bumps specifically would be unlikely. "Any exercise will make you lose cellulite," he says consolingly, before adding rather less soothingly, "If, indeed, it is possible to lose it."
So much for my hopes of gazelle-like thighs achieved through a little gentle strolling. But hoping that they will aid general weight loss might be more reasonable, says Ron McCulloch, podiatric surgeon and specialist in gait analysis and biomechanics at the London Podiatry Centre. "In terms of increasing calories burned, I could well believe that might be true because the shoe is inherently not that stable. I haven't seen any studies showing an increased oxygen demand [as proof] but I have no problem with the concept." He does point out, however, that many people have innate instability problems that would be exacerbated by wearing MBTs, "so I would be wary of recommending this shoe for them."
O'Neill suggests an alternative application. "I've tested MBTs myself and they make your stride longer and make you speed up. For patients with arthritis in the feet and knees, they could be very good at helping to propel them forward with minimum effort and shock to the body because they also have a good, shock-absorbing heel."
Other shoes, such as Nike Free or Vivo Barefoot, try to replicate the barefoot experience, in the belief that this encourages foot strength and reduces the likelihood of injury. To the relief of McCulloch and O'Neill, who express concern about the lack of shock absorption, they are intended as shoes for training and normal daily activities rather than sports. "Vivo has quite an amazing feel," says O'Neill. "Very wide fit, very thin sole. For anyone younger and in good general health walking on plain surfaces they could be worn occasionally for a different experience. Nike Frees are meant to make feet behave in a more natural pattern and used as a social trainer would be quite good."
A lot of the new shoes, including the Earth and Ciabasan footwear, use "negative heel technology" as their selling point. It means that the heel is lower (or in the case of the truncated Ciabasan, missing entirely) than the rest of the sole so the wearer is effectively walking at a slight incline the whole time and therefore, supposedly, toning and calorie-burning yet more avidly. The makers also claim the shoes realign and correct posture and relieve back pain.
O'Neill says that it is a good idea to rotate shoes of all kinds, with a variety of heels, to keep the Achilles tendon limber and prevent it shortening (common in women who wear extreme high heels every day) but after that, the experts fall short of enthusiastically embracing negative heel technology. "My concern would be that it puts too much stress on the calf and makes it more susceptible to injury," says McCulloch. He acknowledges that some people feel better for wearing them, but thinks the most likely explanation is that "the [majority of the] injuries I see are due to the way people repetitively stress their bodies. So if you give them different shoes, they make different stresses. But that doesn't mean that the new shoe is doing good in itself. I would need to see a lot more, and better quality research, before I was convinced of that."
O'Neill acknowledges that the enforced realignment of the pelvis and lower back could help some kinds of back pain - "but only certain cases and you must take the advice of a chiropodist or osteopath before you start to wear [such shoes]." The Ciabasan's heelless form was given shrift as short as the shoe itself, as were its claims to stimulate reflexology points on the sole of the foot. "I'm an evidence-based practitioner," says McCulloch. "I think it's a bit dubious to start saying you can tell the state of your internal organs based on a sensitive point on the foot."
So it seems that my hopes of slimming down and toning up even as I walk to M&S to denude the shelves of their latest shipment of confectionery are doomed to disappointment. Still bobbing gamely along in the frothing waves of innovation/marketing genius/expensive gimmickry (delete according to cynicism) is the gnarled driftwood of fact. However outlandishly moulded or exotic the inspiration for them, your shoes are unlikely to resolve your lumbar pains, gazelle your thighs, realign your joints, straighten your warping skeleton or diagnose your kidney problems. What you need, according to the combined wisdom of McCulloch and O'Neill, is a shoe that offers you the basic sportive triumvirate - support, stability and shock absorption - with enough tread pattern left on the sole to stop you skittering about the squash court like an ice cube on lino. Oh, and the energy to get up off your bum and put them to use.
Author: Lucy Mangan - The Guardian Newspaper
Soc Chiropodists & Podiatrists 30-Mar-2006
Categories: Sports, Work Wear, Footnote
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