Are FitFlops a Farce? The Lab Rat

I must admit that when it comes to fitness trends, I am highly skeptical. I’m skeptical about most claims made by most products, but fitness seems to fall into a special category, since companies love to prey on the many people desperate to slim down and tone up. Although I’ve watched a lot of late-night infomercials advertising products that promise to tone my buns ‘n’ thighs for only five minutes a day without dieting, not once have I believed a word of it. So when I was presented with a spiffy looking pair of FitFlops, I didn’t exactly rush out and start buying hot pants.

FitFlops are the sandals that claim to be “the flip flop with the gym built in,” according to the Web site. They claim that the specially designed footbed on the sandal will more fully engage your leg and core muscles, resulting in longer, leaner legs and a tighter, more toned butt. The Web site also claims, “FitFlop sandals wearers have also reported relief from plantar fasciitis, heel spurs, chronic back pain, sciatica, osteoarthritis, RLS (restless leg syndrome), scoliosis, and degenerative disc disease.”

Curing sciatica and making my legs leaner? That’s a tall order for a simple pair of shoes. I started wearing the sandals to see what all the fuss was about, and almost every time I wear them, someone stops me to ask, “Are you wearing those new fitness sandals? Do they work?”

The Skinny? Not So Much
It seems like there’s a lot of interest in get-fit-quick schemes. As I say to the people who ask me on the street—as shoes, they perform admirably, but as a magical fitness miracle, they fail miserably. Alas, my legs are no skinnier, and my buns no tighter than when I began wearing the FitFlops many months ago. Surprise, surprise. My dad always told me that things that seem too good to be true usually are, and the FitFlops haven’t absolved me from my daily squats and lunges in the gym.

Yet I continue to wear the FitFlops, because they’re by far the most comfortable pair of sandals I’ve ever worn. I’m usually anti-flip flop, because the thin, flimsy ones are not good for your feet or back, and wearing them in the city subjects your feet to all kinds of pavement nastiness. The FitFlops, however, are a different story. They have a thickly constructed bottom that elevates your foot from the street, and they have solid arch support. I can’t confirm whether they can actually cure foot ailments, but I do feel like my gait is more efficient in them. I could walk miles in these things.

In fact, I have walked miles in them. Besides wearing them for day-to-day tasks, I wore my FitFlops during San Francisco’s Bay to Breakers event this May. I trudged up and down hills for seven and a half miles, and my feet were no worse for wear. While my companions’ feet were blistered and beaten, my own felt great. No back or foot pain at all. I wear them to do errands, I wear them to the park on the weekends, and not once have I felt that aching, weary feeling of wanting to slip on something more comfortable. Honestly, there might not be anything more comfortable.   

But alas, despite my love of walking in them, the FitFlops have had absolutely no noticeable effect on my buns or my thighs. I do sometimes wonder what the FitFlop experience would have been like if I wasn’t already an avid runner living in a walking-intensive city. My legs are already my primary mode of transportation, so a new pair of shoes probably wasn’t going to awaken some magical set of little-used muscles. Maybe for someone who wasn’t used to walking every day, the FitFlops would have a noticeable effect, but they’d still have to walk multiple miles a day to see any noticeable difference. Which begs the question: If you’re walking four miles per day, is it really the shoes that are making you skinny? I would guess that it’s the walking itself, but I’m no scientist.