Reebok's New EasyTone Shoe Lets You Take the Gym With You

We all love finding ways to get more out of our workouts, but one thing we might love more is finding ways to turn our everyday activities into calorie roasters. That's why so many of us get really excited about shoes that give our legs and booties more of a workout. There's the FitFlop, the MBT Anti-Shoe, and now, Reebok has come out with the EasyTone, a shoe that they say "lets you take the gym with you."

The website claims 28 percent more action in the gluteus maximus muscle, 11 percent more activation of the hamstring, and 11 percent more calf activation, and all you have to do is walk. Built-in "balance pods" create instability with every step you take, so your muscles have to work harder -- kind of like walking through the sand on a beach.

The shoe runs $109.99 and comes in a variety of colors -- white, black, lilac, blue and red -- and, well, they're okay-looking. I wouldn't choose them as a fashion sneaker (is that an oxymoron?), but they don't look as orthopedic as some of the other sneakers that claim to have the same benefits.

I talked about the EasyTone with Dr. Benno Nigg, who was involved in a study on MBT shoes and their effect on pain reduction. He said that, although he hadn't measured the Reebok product, that, "MBT claims (and has been shown experimentally) that they affect the many small muscles crossing the ankle joint complex," and that "[t]he substantial difference is that all results are reported for the large muscles and not for the small muscles." But, essentially, the EasyTone is another incarnation of the MBT concept.

Have you tried a shoe like this? If so, did you feel a difference? Let us know in the comments!