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For the past month, the patent-pending 'microwobbleboard' in the soles of my FitFlops have been firming my bum every time I walk. Now, that's not the kind of sentence I ever imagined writing when I first started out in this job. But as a writer, I do spend a shocking amount of time during the day sitting on my backside, rather than doing anything that's likely to firm it up. Domestic bliss (sic) means I get little chance to exercise in the evening, unless you count opening and closing the oven door.
Let's be blunt. If I wasn't addicted to tea, and if I didn't have to walk downstairs from the office to get to the kettle, I would have a butt the size of Mount Fuji and have to be crane lifted to bed every night through the skylight. The FitFlop was made for women like me.
Their inventor was Marcia Kilgore, the entrepreneur behind Bliss spa. While maybe not as sedentary in her work as me, she recognised that bringing home the bacon as well as cooking it doesn't leave much time for working on your hamstrings or your glutes. "I thought, how amazing if I could invent something that would help fight the onset of cellulite while I'm walking to the office," she says. "I work. I have kids. I have a husband. And the likelihood of me seeing the inside of a gym in the next 10 years is slim to none. That said, I'd obviously prefer to go with slim." Quite.
After a two year collaboration between Kilgore and Senior Lecturing Biomechanist Dr David Cook, along with a team of footwear engineering technologists, the first basic FitFlops hit the shops last year, designed to help modern women "squeeze a little more exercise into their increasingly hectic schedules".
There was a waiting list of ten-thousand pairs for the launch of those first black and red FitFlops, and now it seems like everyone's wearing them, everyone's talking about them, and they're a fashion hit as well as a fitness sensation. They were listed on Oprah Winfrey's 'Top Picks for Summer' this year. They've been spotted on the feet of Carly Simon in Martha's Vineyard. They recently wowed style setters at Jennifer Klein's Hollywood 'Girl's Day Out'. And a woman in Virginia has admitted she's addicted to them, only removing them to bathe and sleep. There are a whole lot of bums around the world becoming less wobbly thanks to 'microwobbleboard'.
So what is this magic microwobbleboard and why do you need it? According to FitFlop's manufacturers, the tapered midsole of the FitFlop features a fusion of three different shore hardnesses of EVA foam, challenging muscles every time you step, to deliver a workout while you walk. Billed as "the flip flop with the gym built in", they are reported to tone leg and bum muscles, alleviate chronic back pain, speed rehabilitation of injured joints, deliver relief from plantar fasciitis, heel spurs and arthritis, decrease swelling and aching legs after standing or walking all day and result in inch loss.
To be totally honest, I haven't walked in them often enough to cause any noticeable inch loss or fabulous firming. I have done my best to redress this by taking up the company's 'Bottom Blaster Challenge', where you walk upstairs two at a time wearing your FitFlops, clenching and squeezing your bottom as you go. The company claims this will "challenge the hip extensor muscles (the hamstrings and glutes) by stimulating them with a bigger load, and also a longer activation time." They recommend starting with 10 a day and working up to 100. Anyone who manages 100 gets a free pair. I've managed 24.
Of course, the problem with the Bottom Blaster Challenge is that to verify the results you really need a control experiment, where someone else tackles the same number of steps without wearing FitFlops, and then you feel their bum or measure it with callipers to gauge the effects. I admit it wasn't a good idea to mention the Bottom Blaster Challenge to my partner. So I went it alone.
I want to believe my tush is firmer. I do believe, I do believe... It probably is. I'm not asking him to get out the callipers. But I can report without any leap of faith that FitFlops are the most comfortable things I have worn on my feet, with the possible exception of my partner's slippers. Though designed to be slightly destabilizing in order to work your muscles more, it took me no time at all to get used to wearing them, and it didn't feel like I was wobbling or making any special effort to walk. I flipped, I flopped. Nothing to it.
And my pair of patent black Walkstar II FitFlops (£45) look a treat with a skirt or dress, as well as trousers, jeans or shorts. I can trot around the city streets in them at night, all slick and shiny, then wear them down to the shop on a Sunday morning with my crumpled Saturday night trousers. True, they make my feet look big. But, it's far better for your feet to look big in your shoes than for your bum to look big in everything.
On the style front, FitFlops come in various shades and shapes, including the classic Walkstar (£36) in a range of colours, the suede Fringe (£45), the spangly Electra (£45), and the gladiator style Aurelia sandals (£90 to £100). There's also a men's version, the Dass, and the company is working on a winter FitFlop boot. If they also bring out a FitSlipper in time for Christmas, all my footwear dreams will come true.
To find details of the latest styles, current stockists and of course the Bottom Blaster Challenge, log onto http://www.thefitflop.com/
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- 18 - 21 January, 2009
CHIC - UK
