Many people worldwide are discovering how they can reduce their limp by walking and standing on the elastic springy products from kybun.
Healthy walking is known to be very balanced. However, various orthopedic disorders cause irregular gait patterns that lead to excessive strain and possible injury due to overuse. Therapists focus on gait symmetry training during prevention and rehabilitation. Although it is well known that standing on unstable surfaces increases muscle activity, especially in the case of small supporting muscles, evidence of this effect in walking and limping is limited.
Pilot study proves: In a kybun shoe you limp less!
The aim of this pilot study was therefore to quantify the effect of walking in shoes with a less rigid and elastic springy construction on gait symmetry in stooping patients. Recognising that shoes with less stiff and elastic mid soles reduce painful walking impacts while increasing feedback from the musculoskeletal system, we hypothesised that walking balance can be improved by wearing less stiff and elastic springy shoes.
Walking with special elastic springy soles demonstrated a better gait symmetry in 81% of the tests, compared to walking with regular shoes. The answer as to «why» seems to lie in the physics of the extremely soft yet elastic material. In contrast to an ordinary heel strike on hard ground, the heel sinks into the approx. 2cm deep, elastic springy material with a delay, so that the muscle loops involved have about 4x more time to build up the intra- and intermuscular tension. Instead of feeling shocked and falling into the usual passive protective pattern, regulating mechanisms are activated in the fascia network, which help to break through the familiar protective patterns. As the sole material simultaneously has a spring-back and unstable effect, the activated control mechanisms can remain sensorimotorally active during the entire standing phase and protective support mechanisms are overridden, i.e. reduced or even eliminated to a large extent.
This pilot study points to the direct positive effect of elastic springy soles on the asymmetrical gait pattern. Systematic follow-up investigations should help to understand the effective principle and to support the evidence already available.
