Fit Flops??? Really???

Here is a portion of the review for Fit Flops.

"A new footwear, invented in the UK, does not only protect our feet, but can also do wonders too nowadays - to improves posture, tone calf muscle, trim and firm up butt.

Sound too good to be true? Read on.

A company in the UK has creatively created this unique footwear called FitFlop. By wearing it on your feet, you are actually working out your legs and butts when you walk. The company even has the tag line “It’s the flip flop with a gym built in“."

I'm not really sure where to start with the FitFlop. If you believe that these sandals can help get you in shape and improve your fitness any more than any other footwear (and probably less than a good pair of running shoes) than I'm not sure that I can dissuade you of your opinion. But let me try anyway.

"Fit Flop has a multi-density midsole. It slightly destabilizes the foot as one walks, making a continuous tension in the muscles of the foot and leg.



Here are some other things that produce tension in the muscles of the foot and leg, walking, jogging, running, and the elliptical trainer. Almost any time you use your legs to produce motion there in a constant tension in your muscles. First, the primary muscle groups that produce movement are working, and second, multiple supporting muscle groups help you to stay balanced and direct the force from the primary muscle groups in the direction you want.

"It activates the slow-twitch muscle fibres in the legs and that muscles fibres which are the fat burners in your legs."



Again, any motion activates the slow twitch muscle fibres in your legs. However, you are not activating the muscle fibers at a high enough intensity to cause any skeletal muscle adaptation. To put it another way, unless you are so deconditioned that you consider a walk to your mail box high intensity exercise you will not get any fat burning benefit from wearing a sandal, and then it would be the same benefit that you would get from any walking.

If fat loss is your goal, you have to make changes to your diet (eat 5-6 balanced meal/day, etc.) and exercise (with sufficient intensity). Wearing sandals is not going to help you loose fat.