Butt Toning Shoes???

A number of clients have asked me for my opinion on the many "leg toning" or "butt toning" shoes that have flooded the market.

1. I'm not a big fan of the word "tone". A muscle can get bigger, stay the same or get smaller. That's all. I assume by "tone" they mean the shoe will lead to less fat and more muscle in your legs and butt.

2. You can't make fat loss occur on a specific part of your body. Walking burns fat form all over your body, not just your legs.

3. The ad states that the shoes lead to a 28% increase in gluteal (butt) activation and 11% for your hamstrings and calves. Because the bottom of the shoe is wobbly this is likely correct. The only problem is that walking is NOT a major activator of your hamstring and gluteal muscles anyways. If walking normally makes your glutes work at 10% then they work at 12.8% with the shoes. Not a bad thing. But certainly not nearly enough to cause any visible change in your gluteal muscles.

4. Simply, there's no physiological way that wearing these shoes will make your muscles any larger. And that's what you should want to do, make your gluteal muscles larger and thus more shapely. To build muscle you need to have adequate resistance. Walking is nowhere near enough resistance. You could walk 50 miles and it wouldn't matter (maybe if it was all uphill). Exercises like squats, lunges and leg press are resistance exercises that can build muscle.

5. I am not saying you shouldn't get the shoe. If it makes you walk more then great, and there's likely a slight calorie burning benefit to using them. Just don't expect to look like Beyonce or JLo anytime soon. You could wear them for a hundred years and it would never happen.

For a NY Times article on the shoe, please checkout:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/health/08well.html?no_interstitial