Toning shoes from various companies including MBT, Sketchers, Reebok, Ryn and other manufacturers continue to grow in popularity. We know people who wear these types of shoes almost exclusively. These are the shoes with oddly-shaped soles that make walking on them just a little bit unstable so you have to work at balancing and moving. These shoes typically have a rocker sole or other topographic textures on the bottom of the foot to make your stride a little tougher. Continue reading Toning Shoes May Not Be All They’re Shaped Up to Be
Tag: American Council on Exercise
Playworld Systems Offers High ENERGI
We hope all our readers had a good holiday weekend, but we assume everyone likely indulged a bit too much. This isn’t a new trend in America, but it is something that needs to be addressed, especially as childhood obesity is becoming an issue.
We were pleased to hear that Playworld Systems, a manufacturer of imaginative playground equipment, unveiled ENERGI Total Body Fitness System with Microsoft Tag technology at NMSA2010 in Baltimore earlier this month. The ENERGI uses just one moving part, but yet delivers a guided, fat-burning workout with 120 progressively challenging exercises that use body weight resistance to target nearly all 600 of the body’s muscles. The system, which is designed for ages 13 and up, is further supported with a complete curriculum and easy-to-follow lesson plans to help teachers integrate ENGERI into the school day.
“One of the consequences of obesity is that for the first time in U.S. history, the lifespan of children in elementary school today is expected to be shorter than that of their parents,” said Ian Proud, research manager of Playworld Systems. “Sedentary lifestyles contribute to obesity, and the problem has grown to epidemic proportions among the nation’s children. Having ENERGI installed on school grounds gives teachers a strong ally in their quest to make a real difference in students’ fitness levels.”
ENERGI was designed in accordance with the FITT principle — frequency, intensity, time and type — which is endorsed by the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Council on Exercise.
Debate Rages on “Toning Shoes”
One of the latest rages this year has been the so-called “toning” shoes, such as those from Masai Barefoot Technology (MBT), Skechers Shape-Ups and Reebook Easy Tones – but now the American Council on Exercise (ACE), the largest non-profit fitness certification, education and training organization in the world has given those shoes a thumbs down. This week ACE released the findings of an independent research study, which suggests that there is no evidence that the shoes help wearers exercise more intensely or burn more calories.
The study, which is reportedly one of the first from an independent organization further enlisted a team of researchers from the Exercise and Health Programs at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse.
“Toning shoes appear to promise a quick-and-easy fitness solution, which we realize people are always looking for,” says ACE’s Chief Science Officer Cedric X. Bryant, Ph.D. “Unfortunately, these shoes do not deliver the fitness or muscle toning benefits they claim. Our findings demonstrate that toning shoes are not the magic solution consumers were hoping they would be, and simply do not offer any benefits that people cannot reap through walking, running or exercising in traditional athletic shoes.”
However, Katherine Hobson, who contributes to the Health Blog for The Wall Street Journal offered a bit of commentary on this release:
“It should be noted that ACE is a nonprofit that certifies a lot of fitness pros who would be out of a job if we could all get fit without working out. ACE says it commissioned the study but that it was independently designed and conducted.”
Skechers also disagrees and has posted a website that includes results from four clinical case studies. In other words, the debate will rage on.
Wall Street Journal: American Council on Exercise: Study Finds Toning Shoes Don’t Work