{"id":3015,"date":"2009-12-09T07:40:32","date_gmt":"2009-12-09T05:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=3015"},"modified":"2015-03-09T09:16:49","modified_gmt":"2015-03-09T13:16:49","slug":"speaking-exercise-gimmicks-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/speaking-exercise-gimmicks-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaking of Exercise Gimmicks… Shoes!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tara Parker-Pope has an appropriately skeptical post in the NYT about those Reebok “Easy Tone” shoes<\/a>… here’s the money quote:<\/p>\n

But the claim that the shoes offer muscle toning is backed by a single study involving just five people, not published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. In that study, done at the University of Delaware, five women walked on a treadmill for 500 steps wearing either the EasyTone or another Reebok walking shoe, and while barefoot. Using sensors that measure muscle activity, the researchers showed that wearing the EasyTone worked gluteal muscles an average of 28 percent more than regular walking shoes. Hamstring and calf muscles worked 11 percent harder.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

28 percent?\u00a0 Well, whoop-ti-doo.\u00a0 Does the increased muscle activity actually lead to any observable changes to one’s derriere?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reebok says it has collected 15,000 hours\u2019 worth of wear-test data from shoe users who say they notice the difference. \u201cThey definitely feel something in their muscles after they\u2019ve walked in the product,\u201d Mr. McInnis said.<\/p>\n

One of them is Carol Vanner, 51, an executive assistant in Atlanta who had tried the larger-soled FitFlop shoe and was skeptical she would notice much difference with the EasyTone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought there was no way they would work, but I tried them and I felt like I had worked out,\u201d she said. \u201cDo I look like I\u2019m 20? No, but I feel like when I wear them for periods of time that I have exercised and worked those muscles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shay Gipson, 31, an apparel product manager in New York City, said she tried the shoes after hearing a friend rave about them. She immediately felt the balancing effect, she said, and she likes walking in the shoe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can definitely feel the muscle groups in my legs working more than I would in regular shoes,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel more toned.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“They feel<\/strong> something in their muscles;” “I feel<\/strong> like… I have exercised and worked those muscles;” “I feel<\/strong> more toned”…<\/p>\n

Does anyone feel<\/strong> like something’s missing here? Like some, y’know, objective measurements?\u00a0 I don’t know about you, but personally, I feel<\/strong> like knowing\u00a0if the\u00a0shoes perform as advertised, BEFORE I drop $110+ on it (not to mention, spend time teetering around the neighborhood in them).\u00a0 Will they actually perk up my boo-tay or not?<\/p>\n

I’m guessing not.\u00a0\u00a0I suppose there\u00a0could be some small, initial benefits,\u00a0but these will\u00a0decline\u00a0once\u00a0wearers adapt to walking in the shoes on a regular basis.\u00a0 BFD.<\/p>\n

I suspect the main benefit of these shoes is that they’ll get some women to walk more – which is certainly a good thing (for overall fitness, if nothing else).\u00a0 But if\u00a0they’re looking to get their butts\u00a0in gear (pun intended),\u00a0they’ll be much better off with conventional glute exercises, like the ones recommended in this ACE “Glutes\u00a0to the\u00a0Max”\u00a0study<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tara Parker-Pope has an appropriately skeptical post in the NYT about those Reebok “Easy Tone” shoes… here’s the money quote: But the claim that the shoes offer muscle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,10,14,28],"tags":[554,610,759,1177,1207,1387],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3015"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3015"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10012,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3015\/revisions\/10012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}