Reebok Easytone Trainers: Do They Actually Work?

Tom Doerr    Pilates     Body, exercise, jogging, Pilates, running, shoes, sport, Toning, trainers, women, yoga

Major sports brand Reebok have claimed that their new line of Easytone trainers can tone your hamstrings, calves and bum nearly 30% more than regular trainers just by walking in them. They claim the trainers can “train muscles your trainers never knew you had.”

The concept seems too good to be true; you exercise the same amount or simply walk around and your legs and behind get a workout that would usually take hours a day at the gym. But is this all just some marketing campaign or do they actually work? A team of scientists with expertise in exercise, sport and physiology at the University of Wisconsin conducted a study to test the claims on each of the shoes.

John Porcari PhD, who led the tests, agrees that the trainers should work in theory as they make the muscles work harder by creating instability that the body attempts to counteract. The shoes are based on a curved sole which creates an unstable surface which forces the wearer’s body to constantly struggle to find equilibrium.

The team tested the Reetone range on a group of females aged between 19 and 24. The subjects were tested through exercise trials and measured by muscle activation, heart rate and caloric expenditure.

The trials were conducted with a second, older group and both groups were tested with regular trainers to compare. The instant results were not greatly significant, using the Reetone trainers did not increase caloric expenditure or heart rate and only produced aching of the muscles.

The scientists also surveyed users of the shoes over a period of several months and found that they experienced a degree of toning of the legs and bum. But the team struggled to determine whether the toning was entirely due to the imbalance the shoes created or the motivation to walk more.

The Reebok Easytone campaign has promoted the Easytone trainers by emphasising the positive effects on the toning and shaping of women’s legs and bums.

The Pilates Body: The Ultimate At-Home Guide to Strengthening, Lengthening, and Toning Your Body–Without Machines (Paperback)

admin    Pilates     AtHome, Body, BodyWithout, Guide, Lengthening, Pilates, Strengthening, Toning, Ultimate, Your

Amazon.com Review

Thin-but-fit supermodels like Amber Valletta and Shalom Harlow and actresses like Ally McBeal’s Courtney Thorne-Smith and Liv Tyler swear by Pilates workouts to keep their figures toned and flexible. The Pilates Body is the latest in a string of books dedicated to this fitness program, which is now soaring in popularity nearly 100 years after it was first developed by Joseph Pilates in Germany in the early 1900s. While today’s Pilates studios take advant (more…)