What the engineer Karl Muller wanted to accomplish when he invented the Masai shoes was to come up with another way for us to walk. A shoe that takes less strength on our bodies, because we are mostly walking on concrete surfaces. There's a lot of pressure on the foot when we walk, pressure that spreads through your body.

If you have improper shoes or walk a lot on hard surfaces, you may have noticed that you can get sore back. The Masai shoes are built in a way that evens the pressure out in the whole foot, from sole to toe. The shoe hold four layers, each one created to improve the way you are walking. The first layer is built of glass fibre that gives the natural rolling movement for the complete foot, from heel to toe. The layer under that one is thick, and that part imitates a feeling of walking on a soft and uneven surface, a bit like walking on sand or soft moss. That's why the shoe can activate not used muscle groups, that are not normally used at all. Next is the part that is a section located under the heel. It completes the walking by making the sole of your feet feel like it really sinks in to a soft surface. The last layer protects the others and are designed to make it easy to walk in slippery weather.

What you get is more activity in the rear thigh muscle, in the lower limbs muscle and will get LESS stress on knee and hip joints.

The Masai shoes are used by many professional sport people to recover from injuries and regain muscle mass, many times because they takes little toll on the knees. So, if you are suffering with back problems and are having trouble exercising because of that, try a pair of Masai shoes and see if you get any ease from wearing them.

It takes some time to get use to, they can sure feel a bit unsteady to walk with for at the beginning, but you'll get used to them in couple of weeks before your body got used to the shoes. Then you can use them everywhere you fell like Then you can clean your house with them, go shopping, wear them at work.

Want to know more about MBT shoes and the benefits of walking? Sign up for a free e-mail course on walking exercise or just surf around around: www.mbtshoes.efven.com Beatrice Stephenson is a freelance writer on fitness and recreation issues.