They claim to tone your bodys,healthy for you body.
MBT trainers seem like an unlikely item of footwear to catch the imagination
of the young and trendy. With their thick, curved sole and sensible wide straps,
they look like the sort of thing you need to wear if one of your legs is shorter
than the other. Despite their distinct un-beauty,MBT UKtrainers have, for the last
eight years, been cited as the answer to modern-day solution for anything from
back problems to cellulite on your bum.
As if the company were not doing a roaring trade as it is (MBTs are available
in over 20 countries and sell one million pairs each year), they have now
re-invented themselves as the "anti-shoe", by bringing out a new range that,
although unconventional, are designed to look less like something prescribed by
your doctor and more like something you might wear out of choice 2012.07.14
sasuke.
MBT stands for Masai Barefoot Technology and the shoes were invented by a
Swiss engineer called Karl Müller in the early 1990s. He noticed, on a visit to
Korea, that walking barefoot over some soft paddy fields alleviated his back,
knee and Achilles tendon problems. He also discovered that the Kenyan Masai
tribesmen don't suffer from back pain and are famous for their perfect posture.
Putting these two pieces of information together, Muller reasoned that this was
because they walk across ground that yields underneath their feet. Walking on
hard surfaces, such as pavements, that don't have any " give", he concluded, has
done our backs in. Not to mention our knees and ankles.
Muller decided that the answer was a shoe with a curved sole, effectively
with no heel, which mimics the rocking motion of a foot walking on soft sand or
grass.
The first prototype of theMBTwas constructed in 1996 and by 2000 approximately 20,000 pairs were
sold in Switzerland, Austria and Germany, home to the ever-ugly Birkenstock –
and even that was eclipsed in hideousness by the MBT.
Since then the shoe has exploded in popularity and despite its ugliness was
leapt upon by celebrities such as Jemima Khan, Jodie Kidd, Sadie Frost - and
anyone else who could afford the eye-watering £129 price tag.
In fact, the shoe has been so successful that other shoe manufacturers have
taken up the idea. The FitFlop, launched last year, claims to lengthen and tone
the leg with the sandal's built-in "micro-wobble board", which means the leg
muscles have to work harder to stay balanced.
The claims of the MBT manufacturers are pretty bold. With correct usage, they
say, MBTs will activate neglected muscles, improve your posture and gait, tone
and shape your body, ease back, hip, leg and foot problems and help with joint,
muscle, ligament and tendon injuries. There have also been claims that MBTs can
help get rid of cellulite and burn extra calories (although these claims are no
longer made by the manufacturers, the rumour persists, which may be why MBTs are
predominantly bought and worn by women).
So do they really work? A Sheffield Hallam University study concluded that
wearing MBTs was better for the knees, hips and ankles than wearing conventional
shoes. "There was some reduction in strain on the body while walking in MBTs,"
says Tim Vernon, who led the study. "Also, if you walk properly in MBTs you
should be making shorter strides than if you were wearing normal shoes and the
more strides you take, the more work you're doing."
However, recently there has been speculation thatMBT salemay not be for everyone.
"The claims as to assisting posture, back, hip and knee problems are not
supported by evidence or any good rational explanation," says Dr David Johnson,
consultant orthopaedic surgeon at St Mary's Hospital in Bristol. "Indeed the
instability provoked [by the shoe] will increase the muscle activity and energy
required to walk – thus increasing fatigue and tiredness. Technically, the
increased need for this muscular activity in stabilising is not "natural" or
"physiological" and would increase rather than decrease stress and pressure on
all these areas of the body which, rather than be helpful, may be detrimental."
Laura Williams, diet and fitness expert, thinks that while wearing the shoe
is better than nothing, nothing replaces learning good posture, permanently. "Of
my clients who have tried MBTs, some have had to stop wearing them because they
have aggravated bad backs and hips. The problem is that everyone has their own
bio-mechanical quirks and if you wear these shoes without proper recommendation
and instruction, they can make things worse. And then, what happens when you
take the shoes off? I always think that if you were to go to a couple of Pilates
classes then you would be able to improve your posture yourself, but some people
simply aren't going to do that. And I've certainly seen anecdotal evidence that
they do work for some people, just not for everyone."
However, she rejects any idea that the shoes beat cellulite. "I just can't
see how they could help. Cellulite is just the way that women store fat.
Specific weight training and some caffeine-based creams are the only things that
have been shown to do anything to the appearance of cellulite. To make any
difference to your muscle tone you have to be lifting quite a lot of weight at
20 repetitions; even if the shoes do, as they claim, activate your glutes [the
bottom's muscles] by nine per cent, I can't see that making any differenceMBT."
Hannah Snow, 31, an events organiser, bought her MBT trainers five years ago
and wore them daily for two years. "At my old job I walked into work four miles
each way and I was finding it quite easy in normal trainers. I wanted to step up
the work-out but I didn't want to run into work and so these trainers seemed
like a good idea – and everyone else was raving about them. I wasn't convinced -
and they were hideous - but I gave them a go. They toned my muscles but they
didn't do anything about the fine layer of cellulite that covered some of the
top parts of my leg – so I had all these toned muscles but you couldn't see
them!"
Sammy Margo of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists believes that MBTs
are not necessarily a bad thing – but they're not for everyone. " They can
possibly help people with stiff backs, who do jobs that involve a lot of
standing. Ideally, you should get them only on the recommendation of a
physiotherapist and should be trained to use them properly. They are not a
cure-all for modern life.
More on MBT Shoes:
Womens
MBT shoes
Womens
MBT trainers seem like an unlikely item of footwear to catch the imagination
of the young and trendy. With their thick, curved sole and sensible wide straps,
they look like the sort of thing you need to wear if one of your legs is shorter
than the other. Despite their distinct un-beauty,MBT UKtrainers have, for the last
eight years, been cited as the answer to modern-day solution for anything from
back problems to cellulite on your bum.
As if the company were not doing a roaring trade as it is (MBTs are available
in over 20 countries and sell one million pairs each year), they have now
re-invented themselves as the "anti-shoe", by bringing out a new range that,
although unconventional, are designed to look less like something prescribed by
your doctor and more like something you might wear out of choice 2012.07.14
sasuke.
MBT stands for Masai Barefoot Technology and the shoes were invented by a
Swiss engineer called Karl Müller in the early 1990s. He noticed, on a visit to
Korea, that walking barefoot over some soft paddy fields alleviated his back,
knee and Achilles tendon problems. He also discovered that the Kenyan Masai
tribesmen don't suffer from back pain and are famous for their perfect posture.
Putting these two pieces of information together, Muller reasoned that this was
because they walk across ground that yields underneath their feet. Walking on
hard surfaces, such as pavements, that don't have any " give", he concluded, has
done our backs in. Not to mention our knees and ankles.
Muller decided that the answer was a shoe with a curved sole, effectively
with no heel, which mimics the rocking motion of a foot walking on soft sand or
grass.
The first prototype of theMBTwas constructed in 1996 and by 2000 approximately 20,000 pairs were
sold in Switzerland, Austria and Germany, home to the ever-ugly Birkenstock –
and even that was eclipsed in hideousness by the MBT.
Since then the shoe has exploded in popularity and despite its ugliness was
leapt upon by celebrities such as Jemima Khan, Jodie Kidd, Sadie Frost - and
anyone else who could afford the eye-watering £129 price tag.
In fact, the shoe has been so successful that other shoe manufacturers have
taken up the idea. The FitFlop, launched last year, claims to lengthen and tone
the leg with the sandal's built-in "micro-wobble board", which means the leg
muscles have to work harder to stay balanced.
The claims of the MBT manufacturers are pretty bold. With correct usage, they
say, MBTs will activate neglected muscles, improve your posture and gait, tone
and shape your body, ease back, hip, leg and foot problems and help with joint,
muscle, ligament and tendon injuries. There have also been claims that MBTs can
help get rid of cellulite and burn extra calories (although these claims are no
longer made by the manufacturers, the rumour persists, which may be why MBTs are
predominantly bought and worn by women).
So do they really work? A Sheffield Hallam University study concluded that
wearing MBTs was better for the knees, hips and ankles than wearing conventional
shoes. "There was some reduction in strain on the body while walking in MBTs,"
says Tim Vernon, who led the study. "Also, if you walk properly in MBTs you
should be making shorter strides than if you were wearing normal shoes and the
more strides you take, the more work you're doing."
However, recently there has been speculation thatMBT salemay not be for everyone.
"The claims as to assisting posture, back, hip and knee problems are not
supported by evidence or any good rational explanation," says Dr David Johnson,
consultant orthopaedic surgeon at St Mary's Hospital in Bristol. "Indeed the
instability provoked [by the shoe] will increase the muscle activity and energy
required to walk – thus increasing fatigue and tiredness. Technically, the
increased need for this muscular activity in stabilising is not "natural" or
"physiological" and would increase rather than decrease stress and pressure on
all these areas of the body which, rather than be helpful, may be detrimental."
Laura Williams, diet and fitness expert, thinks that while wearing the shoe
is better than nothing, nothing replaces learning good posture, permanently. "Of
my clients who have tried MBTs, some have had to stop wearing them because they
have aggravated bad backs and hips. The problem is that everyone has their own
bio-mechanical quirks and if you wear these shoes without proper recommendation
and instruction, they can make things worse. And then, what happens when you
take the shoes off? I always think that if you were to go to a couple of Pilates
classes then you would be able to improve your posture yourself, but some people
simply aren't going to do that. And I've certainly seen anecdotal evidence that
they do work for some people, just not for everyone."
However, she rejects any idea that the shoes beat cellulite. "I just can't
see how they could help. Cellulite is just the way that women store fat.
Specific weight training and some caffeine-based creams are the only things that
have been shown to do anything to the appearance of cellulite. To make any
difference to your muscle tone you have to be lifting quite a lot of weight at
20 repetitions; even if the shoes do, as they claim, activate your glutes [the
bottom's muscles] by nine per cent, I can't see that making any differenceMBT."
Hannah Snow, 31, an events organiser, bought her MBT trainers five years ago
and wore them daily for two years. "At my old job I walked into work four miles
each way and I was finding it quite easy in normal trainers. I wanted to step up
the work-out but I didn't want to run into work and so these trainers seemed
like a good idea – and everyone else was raving about them. I wasn't convinced -
and they were hideous - but I gave them a go. They toned my muscles but they
didn't do anything about the fine layer of cellulite that covered some of the
top parts of my leg – so I had all these toned muscles but you couldn't see
them!"
Sammy Margo of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists believes that MBTs
are not necessarily a bad thing – but they're not for everyone. " They can
possibly help people with stiff backs, who do jobs that involve a lot of
standing. Ideally, you should get them only on the recommendation of a
physiotherapist and should be trained to use them properly. They are not a
cure-all for modern life.
More on MBT Shoes:
Womens
MBT shoes
Womens