What to Expect at the Start

Everyone reacts differently to the fantastic but unfamiliar ‘walking-on-air’ feeling. Nine out of ten people can wear the kyBoot all day long right away and love the feeling and the effects. One in ten will experience ‘initial reactions’, and it is helpful to know what to do about them. We cannot say with certainty how the kyBoot will affect you or how quickly you will experience your first successes. This is because wearing the kyBoot ‘renovates’ your body.

An ‘initial reaction’ is a perceptible, unpleasant reaction by the body to wearing a kyBoot or standing on a kyBounder. These reactions can take three forms: fatigue, pain and ‘unpleasant feeling’.

Antalgic gait: Walking in normal shoes on flat surfaces protects the body instead of challenging it. This weakens the body instead of training it. Muscles become shorter and lose their sensomotoric abilities, among other things. Joints are improperly loaded. The entire system becomes susceptible to pain arising from overloading.

Natural gait: Walking barefoot on uneven, natural surfaces such as sand trains the entire musculoskeletal system with every step: power, coordination, sensomotoric ability, endurance, elasticity, etc. Joints are protected, and muscles, ligaments and tendons become healthy and robust.

Wearing the kyBoot helps you to ‘switch gears’ from the antalgic gait to the natural gait. This transition is a smooth one in 90% of cases. 10% of may experience temporary overloading reactions by immobile joints and weakened muscles, ligaments and tendons because becoming accustomed to the new freedom of movement and the greater strength in the kyBoot after years of relieving postures requires more time.

An initial reaction is not fundamentally negative because it shows that the kyBoot is challenging the musculoskeletal system and simultaneously locating the body’s weak points and its coordination and muscular deficits.

Simply put, an initial reaction means that the kyBoot is working!

Now in more detail:

Overloading reaction triggered by transitioning out of relieving postures 

In some cases the pain has prompted the customer to unconsciously shift the majority of the load to their ‘healthy side’ for a long time and that they continues to do so. This is called a relieving posture. Standing and walking on air-cushioned soles corrects the relieving posture, and this is fundamentally good and correct. But it also means that the side that has up to now received the lighter load – and has not suffered pain for a long time – will receive more load, which is the correct solution that ensures that the healthy side will not experience problems in the long run. The side that has received less load must, however, become accustomed to the new load and may therefore react with fatigue and even pain at first. That is why it is important in such cases to take breaks and to perform basic kyBounder exercises and special kyBoot exercises to counteract these reactions.

Overloading reactions due to overly quick load increases 

The soft, elastic sole may bring about an immediate reduction in acute pain. The excitement may be so great that a person who has previously been able to walk only a few hundred meters immediately embarks on long strolls. Severe reaction pain can arise because the entire body (joints, feet, back, muscles and the area that was painful) is no longer accustomed to such great distances. That is why it is important to immediately pay attention to the small warning signals, such as fatigue, unpleasant movement processes or even what is initially minor pain and take breaks or perform the basic kyBounder exercises and special kyBoot exercises until the reaction has disappeared again. Short breaks of 30 minutes are often enough to allow normal use to proceed.

Overloading due to weak musculature

Very weak musculature can fail to stabilise the joint sufficiently at first. This can lead to an initial increase in irritation. Long-term kyBoot wear improves proprioception, sensomotoric ability and musculature and quickly leads to a stabilisation of the foot and of the entire body. The weak musculature must, however, become accustomed to the new load and may therefore react with fatigue and even pain at first. That is why it is important in such cases to take breaks and to perform basic kyBounder exercises and special kyBoot exercises to counteract these reactions.

For quick and continuous changes to muscle and movement structures, we recommend ‘interval walking’ and ‘micro-interval walking in place’.
Further information about kybun exercises can be found below:

kyBoot Exercise

kyBounder Exercises

Important notice for newcomers suffering from inflamed or painful joints.(e.g. Knee or ankle)

In the beginning it’s possible that an inflammation is getting worse because of the training effect. To prevent this reaction, the quality of the ankle‘s movement while walking has to improve, that means more slowly, more precise and less range.
Attention: Don’t walk for too long, especially in the beginning, even if it’s very comfortable to walk in kyBoot and you feel less pain. Otherwise unnoticed overstress can occur. At first you won’t feel it but after a few days it will possibly start to hurt and then a kyBoot break becomes unavoidable.
In the videos below you can see how it's possible to improve the own gait within seconds and prevent inflammation just as pain.

 

Important for all initial reactions: Listen to your body and take a break if you have a reaction. After the reaction has passed, you can put the kyBoot on again. This way, you can take shorter breaks and do so less frequently (see image).