DST Walking, Running and Exercise

DST uses biomechanical processes for improving how we walk, jog, run, and exercise while equally distributing body weight, foot load, and muscular movement to the primary stabilizing muscles. While most exercises and training systems put more pressure on the skeletal structure through continuous shock and pressure from shearing forces, DST reduces the shock to the body by retraining the body to activate the skeletal and postural muscles to lift and hold the body more upright and redistribute shock and shearing forces more evenly. DST is in fact, the only fitness system designed with this biomechanical principle in mind.

DST WALKING SYSTEM

MBT WALKING (Max Body Toning)

The Maasai tribe is one of the most famous and well known tribes in Kenya who walk regularly as part of their herding lifestyle. The Maasai are also well known for their upright posture and the particular way they move their feet and bodies.

For example, recent studies have indicated that Maasai women are able to carry as much as 65 lbs on their head and walk for miles without suffering any back pain because of a particular gait pattern and the pendulating movement of their hips.

With the growing evidence and popularity of walking as a low-impact alternative to rigorous exercise, there is growing interest in finding a way of walking efficiently and effortlessly that accelerates toning and reduces stress on the joints.

Unless people grow up walking on natural surfaces, most will not experience walking like the Masai women above. We need specific training to enable us to walk in a more stable, dynamic, healthier way. Now there is a method and training system designed specifically to help the body move efficiently. The system is called MBT Walking (Max Body Toning).

What is MBT Walking(Max Body Toning)?

MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) is a basic fitness technique practiced to improve they way we walk, run and workout. It incorporates a method that uses MBT footwear alongside DST.

MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) recreates the same foot rolling technique, pendulation of the hips and counter rotations of the shoulders used by the Maasi tribe to carry heavy weights for miles. This makes the body more active in its use of muscle groups, such as the legs, buttocks, thighs, abdominals, shoulders, arms and chest.

By using hand weights and natural arm movements with relaxed shoulders whilst walking in the MBT, MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) actively converts the entire body into a “walking engine”. This allows walking for longer periods, at faster speeds, burning more calories and delivering more power than regular power walking, or walking with poles

What are the benefits of MBT Walking (Max Body Toning)?

Why just "power walk" for fitness when you can MBT Walk? MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) is a fun way of training and toning the entire body using a healthier and more effective walking technique. Also, by using the Masai Walking method, people are able to take full advantage of natural surfaces

While some walking methods use devices such as poles, they lack the proper training system to improve the biomechanics of how we move. This is critical. A history of walking on uniformly flat surfaces in flat shoes combined with a lack of muscle and joint position sense (proprioception), means many people are powerless to alter their gait (the manner in which their foot strikes the ground), and their posture (position of their head hips and spine in motion).

Regardless of what equipment is added to the upper body, if walkers do not alter their traditional walking technique they are doomed to continue to experience the injury, pain, and joint compression that result from passive muscles that are failing to support the skeleton correctly.

MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) uses the MBT as an unstable footwear device to activate the muscles in the legs, abs and buttocks, and uses a specialized walking technique that optimally activates the feet, hips, shoulders and spine.

MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) aids the counter rotations of the upper body whilst minimizing stride length for more stability and muscle activation. When hand weights are added, MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) provides accelerates the reprogramming of counter-rotations in the thoracic spine to improve the axis of rotation in the upper chest and shoulder area, allowing for greater overall relaxation whilst moving. The upper chest and shoulders are typically static and stiff when walking, jogging or running - a major contributory factor in the widespread prevalence of back pain. In this way, MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) helps to improve conditions that cause back pain by making the body more active when walking.

MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) Benefits:

• Safe form of exercise
• Easy for anyone to do
• Improves cardio vascular activation
• Great for muscle toning
• Controllable in its intensity and duration
• Can be done singly or in groups
• Great for joint flexibility
• Excellent for proprioception
• Improves use of pelvic floor muscles

Who MBT Walking (Max Body Toning)?

MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) is a unique dynamic system of exercise. Because Masai Walking is adaptable to different age and fitness levels it can be done by anyone between the ages of 9 and 90 who is capable of walking and carrying minimal weight in the hands.

MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) is ideal for power walkers seeking a safer and more effective way to walk as it trains the body to be more upright and improves the gait cycle. Anyone in pain can benefit from learning the Masai Walking technique to improve posture, circulation, and muscle toning.

Women seeking an alternative cellulite reduction solution can use the MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) method to activate the buttocks, hamstrings and calves to tone those troubled areas.

Anyone recovering from injuries can use the MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) method as a simple and easy way to improve muscle and joint awareness (proprioception). It provides a safe low-impact cardiovascular walking workout.

What is needed to do Masai Walking?

• MBTs
• 0.5 – 3 kg hand weights or dumbells (1 lbs – 5 lbs)
• A scenic outdoor environment or a treadmill if indoors

What are the medical benefits of MBT Walking (Max Body Toning)?

MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) maintains blood pressure and also ensures optimal blood flow to activate muscles in accordance with the metabolic demands of various muscle groups. As training progresses the walker will be able to produce a higher breathing rate and also an increase in maximal pulmonary ventilation. This enables the walking athlete to generate a higher maximal cardiac output while maintaining a normal blood pressure, while reducing the pressure on the circulatory system.

Overall, MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) is the perfect exercise system that is able to balance cardio vascular benefits with posture and gait improvement. As clinical studies have shown, MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) is an ideal exercise regime that causes less loading through the hip and knee joints, and is a useful exercise for affective prevention of bone loss that leads to osteoporotic bony change.

DST RUNNING SYSTEM

Dynamic Running Method (The DRUM)
When it comes to running and jumping the Maasai tribe in Kenya rival top performing world athletes. For example, the Maasai’s vertical jump of over 40 inches when dancing could rival even the top high jumpers in the world.

The Maasi share a particular technique for movement that involves pendulation of the hips, counter rotations of the shoulders and use of the buttocks for explosive leaping (plyometrics). Studies have shown that this makes them among the top in posture, gait, carrying heavy weights, jumping incredible heights, and long distance walking and running.

Most middle and long distance training focuses on the runner’s workout methods, diet, topography, climate, and anatomy. Rarely, if ever, is there any focus on biomechanics, gait, posture and dynamic stability.

The DRUM is a technique of running inspired by the Maasai, that makes the body a stable running, jogging and exercise machine, delivering minimal shock to the body and maximizing power and speed in exercise. The DRUM is the first running technique to incorporate principles of dynamic stability, postural alignment, gait cycle and biomechanics, with an unstable footwear device, i.e. the MBT. This gives runners a training edge that improves speed, endurance and power.

What is the Dynamic Running Method (The DRUM)?

The DRUM is designed with the following characteristics:

• High arm swings
• Active counter rotations
• Active use of abdominal and oblique muscles
• Activation of gluteus and hamstrings
• Minimal knee lift
• Minimal time in the air between strides
• Shortened strides
• Minimal shock to the body in support (landing) phase
• Maximum power in the drive phase
• Upright posture

The DRUM can be done outdoors, or indoors on a treadmill. It’s a dynamic exercise system using MBTs and hand/wrist weights with an effective fitness and therapy system called DST (Dynamic Stability Training)

The DRUM aids counter rotations of the upper body whilst minimizing stride length for more stability and muscle activation. With hand/wrist weights added, The DRUM provides a method to accelerate the reprogramming of counter-rotations in the thoracic spine to improve the axis of rotation in the upper chest and shoulder area and to allow for greater overall relaxation while moving. The upper chest and shoulders are typically static and stiff when walking, jogging or running, which contributes to the wide prevalence of back pain.

The DRUM is a balanced, low impact workout that also improves gait and posture. The warm up consists of the The DRUM. Later, hand/wrist weights are incorporated as well as specially designed exercises that tone the buttocks, hamstrings, abdominal and oblique muscles, arms, and back muscles.

The DRUM gives you the benefits of cardiovascular exercise with a proven system that tones your legs, abs and upper body safely and effectively. Fundamentally, The DRUM provides cardio vascular conditioning, muscle toning and proprioceptive training where the individual chooses levels of intensity.

The different levels of The DRUM vary according to training goals. The DRUM is adaptable to individual speeds and by varying weight and course topography.

• Endurance Training – involves normal running speed with less hand/wrist weight over longer distances
• Power Training – involves normal running speed with heavier hand/wrist weight over a shorter distance with as many hills as possible.
• Speed Training – involves periods of quicker foot speeds with heavier weight over a shorter distance with flat roads and some hills.

What are the Benefits of The DRUM?

The DRUM can be experienced either individually or on a group basis, in a gym or outdoors. Indoor workouts use a treadmill as an active instrument to activate the primary muscle groups.

Most people who run on a treadmill do so improperly. Rarely do runners warm up, for example. Instead, runners jump on the treadmill, and start running at fast speeds immediately. In The DRUM there is a brief warm up that incorporates the MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) method (fast steps, relaxing the body with shoulder rotations, pelvic and thoracic alignment, bent knees, then progression into running).

The DRUM is a full body workout using hand and arm exercises with weights and rotational movements that stretch and lengthen the muscles, while applying maximum power and leg drive through the feet in a cardiovascular workout that will make you sweat and burn!

The DRUM is excellent for all levels of fitness and helps beginners to obtain the proper technique for walking and running, and can be enjoyed by top level athletes as a vital part of their workout routine.

The DRUM will improve ability to travel for longer distances on normal runs, and will improve overall running speed and endurance. For advanced athletes, The DRUM is an excellent training system for improving running technique, and strengthening the gluteus and hamstrings, as well as using the abdominal muscles actively to relax the shoulders - a very important technique in middle and long distance running.

The DRUM is a fun and basic workout that enables MBT wearers to experience activation of the core muscles in a dynamic state of walking, running and balancing. While exercising participants also greatly improve their posture and gait.

The DRUM improves:

• Leg strength and speed
• Endurance
• Running form
• Posture and gait
• Coordination
• Toning

Who should do The DRUM?

Anyone who enjoys running or jogging as a regular form of exercise should do The DRUM. For those who do not run or jog as their normal exercise routine, MBT Walking (Max Body Toning) is more appropriate as a starting point. After 1-3 months of regular MBT Walking (Max Body Toning), walkers can start The DRUM. Running should not be done more than twice a week for the first month, after which endurance should be built gradually to allow more The DRUM.

What is needed to do The DRUM?

• MBT Sport Low only
• 0.5 – 3 kg hand/wrist weights or dumbells (1 lbs – 5 lbs)
• Treadmill if indoors

What are the Medical Benefits of The DRUM?

The DRUM provides similar intensity of exercise in shorter session, and one can reap cardio vascular benefits in shorter periods. The DRUM is also a more comfortable form of running than normal running. This is due to more optimal loading through the lower back, hips, knees and ankles, with less stress through those areas as well.

Finally, The DRUM offers greater control over changes in the center of Gravity (COG) that occurs in high dynamic states of movement like running. As the individual takes shorter steps with soft knees throughout, the running pattern should be smoother and if used correctly the MBTs should provide some propulsive aid.