Toning shoes are the latest trend sweeping the nation, and by now you have probably seen people wearing them around from day to day. Some questions may come to mind regarding toning shoes when you see people wearing them. Do they work? Who came up with the idea of a shoe that helps you get in shape? Where did they come from?
I would like to address that last question here and it actually starts with back pain. A series of events led Swiss engineer Karl Muller to wonder what separated those who have back pain from those who live happily without it. He went on vacation one year to South Korea and noticed that very few of the locals had back problems. What did they have in common? Well, they were all farmers and they spent much of their day out in the field – barefoot.
That gave Muller two likely ideas about causes of back pain. First, being out farming in the field, they were not walking on as many hard surfaces as our society does. From the paved streets and concrete sidewalks to the tile in our homes and workplaces, we spend a lot of time standing and walking on solid surfaces. Secondly, they were barefoot. Shoes work well as protection from the surfaces we walk on and also help prevent the spread of certain diseases, but could it be possible that they were not all that great for spinal alignment?
Muller took this idea back home with him and began the process of developing a shoe that mimicked as closely as possible the experience of walking barefoot on an uneven or sandy surface. This product was then rebranded with a picture of a young African (presumably from the Masai tribe) man and sold as MBT (or Masai Barefoot Technology).
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