Review: Overview of MBT Shoes and Skecher's Shape Ups

Walk your way to better health with MBT and Shape Ups

Would you agree that most aspects of our busy modern lifestyles are a far cry from what nature intended for humanity? Nowhere is that more evident than in daily walking. Walking on hard pavements is, well, hard! It puts undue pressure on your knee and hip joints and back, especially when compared to walking naturally, that is barefoot, on natural surfaces like semi-soft, somewhat undulating lawns or sand.

What’s more frustrating is that all your hard work, movement that you believe qualifies as exercise – dashing around running errands, standing all day on your feet at work, and so on – performed on hard surfaces forces you to adopt an unnatural gait that does not work your muscles optimally. Nor do you end up burning as many calories as you would by walking barefoot, as nature intended, utilizing the full natural movement of the foot apart from working muscles in your ankles, leg, buttocks, back and abdomen.

Given this reality, and the fact that there is no reversing the way we live and where we walk, footwear from Masai Barefoot Technology (MBT) shoes and Skechers Shape Ups are taking the footwear industry by storm. Wearing MBT and Shape Ups, the manufacturers claim, you can retrain yourself to walk differently – the soles of these shoes are fashioned to trick your muscles into believing that you are walking on a soft uneven surface, and thereby, force you to adopt an optimal, upright, active gait. These shoes will work their magic whether you are engaging in fitness walking as an exercise regimen, or just carrying on in your active life.

In the case of MBT shoes, the trailblazer in barefoot technology footwear, this remarkable feature stems from the core technology, based on the principle of natural instability, worked into the footwear. A Masai Sensor fitted beneath the heel of MBT shoes simulates uneven terrains found in nature, thus creating a natural instability to which your body responds with small, intuitive, compensatory movements.

Simply put, this means that unlike traditional hard heels that lead you to apply more force from your knee joints while walking, the unique patented curved multi-layered rolling soles of MBT shoes train your body to maintain its natural balance by working its muscles harder, quite like the natural shock absorbers they were designed to be.

So, when you walk in step with barefoot members of the Masai tribe, the inspiration behind the barefoot technology, by wearing MBT shoes, your body per force stimulates and exercises its skeleton-muscular system, particularly the muscles in your abdomen, buttocks, back, legs, and ankles, thus reducing stress on your joints and back. Over time, as it actively re-educates your foot, the new gait enhances your posture, reduces lower back pain and improves blood circulation and breathing patterns, allowing more oxygen into the body. MBT shoes have also been referred to as anti-cellulite shoes because of their ability to combat cellulite.

With the benefits stacking up, it comes as no surprise that barefoot technology, is making rapid inroads in the sports and fitness arena, such that a number of trainers and sportspersons around the world have experienced its benefits.

If mere walking in MBT shoes is both a training session and a massage, imagine what training in MBT would be!

So, do MBT shoes work? When you train in MBT shoes, experts say, the shoes help prevent injuries, as well as improve your core stability, endurance performance, and running style. As sports persons in the limelight adopt MBT shoes, favorable media reviews are helping getting the message out about the benefits of the footwear.

"Having studied and researched the effects of proprioceptive training and physiologic effects of rocker boards and wobble boards on muscle re-training and musculoskeletal rehabilitation, I feel that MBT has accomplished the 'evolution of walking'," so says Mike Miller, the chiropractic team physician for the last 29 years to the three-times Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots.

The Times Magazine review said, “Running in these shoes is like running in soft sand, which is great for body tone.” According to the four-star Now Magazine “These will tone calf muscles and improve posture.” And, giving the technology a thumbs up, Chief Dr Artur Trost, surgeon at the UKH Salzburg and team doctor of the Austrian Ski National Team, is known to have remarked, “Through MBT we are able to transfer balance and coordination training in a dynamic way and through integrating additional therapy and training in daily routine we are able increase repetition. That results in higher muscular stability, improved balance and the relief of the strain of the passive apparatus of movement. The best is that these effects are quickly and clearly measurable.”

Skecher's Shape Ups: Breakthrough Pricing in Barefoot Technology

If your personal budget has left you a little short, you may want to consider Skechers Shape Ups, another brand of rocker-sole shoes from Skechers USA, which offer breakthrough pricing in barefoot technology. Priced around $100, or roughly half the price of a current style MBTs (although Walker's Warehouse offers a wide range of discontinued and clearance MBT shoe styles at deep discount prices), Shape Ups live up to the popular terminology, rocker-sole shoes (meaning shoes that are deliberately unstable), by means of a different three-point technology designed into the framework of the shoe.

Shape Ups dynamic rolling bottom is designed to contribute to optimal biomechanical motion vital to a natural walking state; its kinetic wedge, a soft foam insert under the heel is designed for maximum shock absorption to protect the body while exercising core muscles; and its dual-density midsole is specially designed to support and stabilize the foot.

These three elements work together to ensure a natural walking gait – heel sinks easily to the ground as you step, you roll forward as your weight shifts to its center, and you push off for your next step with your toes. The end result is a pair of shoes that offer you a wide range of health benefits, such as improving the way you look and feel, improving your circulation, toning your muscles – from your back and abdomen to your buttocks and calves, burning more calories hence helping you lose weight, and last but not the least, a feeling of walking on clouds!

So, do Skecher's Shape Ups work as advertised? Being a relatively new player in the barefoot technology market, Shape Ups have yet to be made subjects of multiple research studies like MBT. Still, an early trial conducted by California-based Dr Steven Gautreau, which involved testing Skechers Shape Ups shoe wearers for weight loss, body composition, glutei strength, and low back endurance over six weeks, reveals promising results similar to MBT.

The participants wore Shape Ups shoes during their normal daily activities and typical walking program, while also maintaining their usual diet and exercise strategies. The participants’ assessment at the end of the trial indicated an average weight loss of 3.25 pounds, reduction of body fat by 1.125 percent, and an average improvement of glutei strength and low back endurance by 41 and 37 percent respectively.

Explaining these positive results as emanating from Shape-ups’ three-point revolutionary technology that targets and conditions the postural and stability of muscles of the hips and lower back, Dr Gautreau expressed the opinion that prolonged regular use of Shape Ups would increase low back endurance and gluteal strength even more.

Evidently, like MBT shoes, Shape Ups promise you the experience and all the benefits that accompany regular walking on a simulated natural surface irrespective of where you actually walk.

Wearing barefoot technology footwear works your body as nature intended while standing, walking or during gentle running. It improves posture, tones legs, strengthens the stomach, tightens buttocks muscles and significantly reduces cellulite, while improving your overall health and well being – making you look good and feel better 24/7.

When you wear MBT shoes and Shape Ups, you will never have to feel guilty about not making it to the gym, because you will be getting a workout every time you walk. So, try on a pair today and start walking your way to better health.