In went onto Amazon.com to see what kinds of magnetic insoles people were offering for sale there and found a few.

First is the Mag-Insole sold by Chinese Accupressure Magnetic Insoles. The description says that it has 16 magnets per pair, which means that there are only 8 discreet magnets on each insole. That leaves a lot of the surface of the insole without any magnetic coverage, which mean a lot of the bottom of your feet are not exposed to magnetic coverage. The Magnetic Foam Insoles from Austin Medical Equipment has the same small number of magnets.

The Magnetic Insoles by Dr. Bakst Magnetics didn’t say how many magnets are in their insoles, just that they have 2,000 gauss per insole. That doesn’t tell you a whole lot. A lot of companies will add the gauss strength of each magnet on the device and give you a total when they word it that way. That means that these insoles likely have something like 1 magnet in the center with a 2,000 gauss rating or 10 magnets spread around the insole each with a 200 gauss rating. It is also possible that the insole have several 2,000 gauss magnets on them. You just don’t know.

The magnetic insoles sold by Brands On Sale were a little more interesting. They have 5 magnets per insole that you can place in a variety of labeled locations on the insole depending on where your feet hurt. You can decide the 5 points that hurt the most and move the magnets to the correct place for the magnetic field to go to work. Still, only 5 magnets leaves even more of the surface without any magnetic coverage than the other brands did.

Nikken’s magnetic insoles, according to the literature, have 100% magnetic coverage on their surface. I couldn’t find anything that said exactly how many magnets are on each insole, but there are a lot. Someone once told me that it was 80+ magnets on the medium magnetic insole. I used to have a magnetic sensor disk that showed the magnets on the Nikken Magsteps or Magstrides but I never had the patience to sit and count each magnet that I could find. It would just take too long.

The magnets used in the Nikken Magsteps and Magstrides are all 450 gauss magnets. If you used the additive method to rate the gauss for the entire insole that would be 36,000 gauss. I think it is rather deceptive to go that route, so we’ll stick with saying that the entire surface is packed with 450 gauss magnets and leave it at that.

The other magnetic insoles also say that they provide passive massage or reflexology because they have bumps. From looking at the pictures of the products, Nikken’s Magsteps have a lot more bumps than the other products too. I actually had to wear my Magsteps with the smooth side toward my feet for the first year I had them because I found the bumps uncomfortable. I have since flipped that back over to the bumpy side and find them very comfortable now even when I’m on my feet all day.

Nikken has been making magnetic insoles, specifically the Magsteps, for more than 35 years. They know what they are doing, so they are the ones that I think highly enough to promote and sell on my website. You can click here to see more about the Magsteps and Magstrides magnetic insoles from Nikken.

If you use magnetic insoles, tell me what brand and what you think of them in a comment below. I’d love to hear your story.

Wayne Woodworth

I haven’t talked in a while about Nikken’s magnetic insoles, the Magsteps and Magstrides. Magnetic insoles are an important item for Nikken because that is where it all started for them 36 years ago in Japan. That’s right, Nikken has been making magnets in the form of magnetic insoles for 36 years. That’s a long time and is a good testament to their effectiveness. Products that don’t work don’t last 36 years on the market.

What Do Magnetic Insoles Do?

People often ask me what magnetic insoles do. The short answer is that they sit in the bottom of your shoes and create a magnetic field above the surface of the insoles. The real question is what kind of benefits can your body create while the bottom of your foot is bathed in a magnetic field. I believe that the magnetic field helps to relax your feet and to improve energy flow. There is a double-blind study demonstrating that magnetic insoles can help diabetics with peripheral neuropathy and you can see more about the study here. While studies are nice,they don’t really tell you if magnetic insoles are going to work for you. I think that actual personal experience is much more telling.

I like my Nikken Magsteps and I feel that they work very well for me and I don’t have any serious issues with my feet that I need them to “fix”. What they do for me is keep my feet feeling good when I have to spend time on my feet. I can spend 2 long days on my feet at an event and only at the end of the second day will they start to get tired. Imagine what that could mean for someone whose job requires them to be on their feet, like a server at a restaurant, an employee at a store, or someone who works at a spa or beauty shop.

Magsteps are a great introduction to Nikken’s magnetic products. They are fairly inexpensive and should last you for several years. And like I already said, they have been around for 36 years. I don’t generally recommend the Magstrides only because most people don’t have enough room in their shoes for the extra thickness of the Magstrides. Click here to learn more about Nikken’s Magsteps and Magstrides magnetic insoles.

Wayne Woodworth

I have received a few questions about Nikken magnets lately that I want to take a few minutes to answer.

How to Use Nikken Magnets

The first question is “how to use Nikken magnets?” When I get this question I assume people are talking about the Nikken magnetic patches, like the Kenko Mini, Kenko Flex, or Kenko Power Patches.

The Kenko Mini and Kenko Flex are typically used with the black side against the body and can be used anywhere that you need them and can get them to stay. The Kenko Flex is usually used on the lower back. The Kenko Mini can be used anywhere. I often hear about people placing a Kenko Mini in one their pants pockets or a shirt pocket. That is an easy way to hold them near where you want them.

I find the Kenko Power Patch to be easier to use because they are smaller and come already attached to a self-adhesive disk, like a circle Band-Aid. The bumpy side is intended to go against the skin and works great in most places. The smooth side is probably more comfortable against bone, like at the temples, in which case you can just peel the magnet off the adhesive and flip it over. I also think the Power Patch is a better value because you can get 30 of them for about the same price as 2 Kenko Minis.

How Do I Use My Insoles

Another common question I get is “how do I use my insoles?”

Magsteps first. Brand new they are probably too big to go into your shoes, so cut them down to the right size using a regular pair of scissors. There are faint lines at the toe and heel on the smooth side to show where to cut for your shoe size. The Magsteps are designed to go into your shoes with the bumps facing up toward your feet. If you find the bumps uncomfortable then take them out of your shoes, flip them over so that the smooth side is up, then put them back in. I recommend that you try the bumps again after 6 months or so. I don’t notice the bumps anymore even when I go hiking.

Now the Magstrides. The dark side with the Nikken EQL+FIR logo goes up toward your feet. Like the Magsteps, they will probably be too big for your shoes straight out of the box. The bottom side has the lines showing where to cut for your shoe size. Regular scissors will cut them. The dark surface has a far-infrared ( that’s what FIR stands for ) coating on it that helps to reduce sweating in your shoes.

Which Side on the Skin for Nikken Magnets

This is a common question that I receive about the Nikken magnets and I have already answered it for some of the magnets. More generally, if their is a bumpy side or a darker side, that is the side that goes toward your body. The bumps will be there to shape the magnetic field or to stimulate the skin and muscle, kind of like a passive massage. The darker side is usually dark because it is coated with Nikken’s far-infrared material that will help to regulate temperature to either gently heat the muscle or reduce sweating. Those are some good guidelines to help you out if you see a Nikken magnet that you aren’t sure about.

I hope that helped answer any questions you have about the Nikken magnets. If you have a question that I didn’t answer here then please leave me a comment below and I will get you an answer. I would also appreciate it if you would share this with your followers on Twitter and Facebook. There are some convenient buttons at the beginning of this post for you to do that.

Wayne Woodworth

You hopefully already know all about the benefits of wearing magnetic insoles in your shoes. You probably don’t know about the benefits of having a pair of MagSteps in your washing machine though. This isn’t one of the uses listed in Nikken’s brochure, it comes by word of mouth.

Assuming that the drum in your washing machine is metal, you take a pair of magnetic insoles and stick them to the sides inside your washing machine. I like to keep them on opposite sides, across from each other. The water, detergent, and bleach aren’t going to hurt them. I don’t know how long they will last in there, but ours have been there for 4 years with no sign of wear.

But why put magnetic insoles in your washing machine?

Because they help to soften the water. Did you know that most of the chemicals in your laundry detergent are there to treat your water, not to wash your clothes? It’s true. So, with the insoles helping to condition the water, you will need less laundry detergent. Actually, when we put a pair of MagSteps in our washing machine we didn’t use any laundry detergent for about a month because there was so much laundry detergent left in our clothing from washing with the “correct” amount of detergent.  If you try this, you will probably find the same thing.

So, the bottom line is that a pair of magnetic insoles in your washing machine will save you money in the long term because you will need maybe a quarter of the amount of laundry detergent that you currently use. This could even help people with sensitive skin because there is less detergent residue to react to.

Wayne Woodworth

Nikken doesn’t have any products with the extremely high Gauss ratings that you can find from some other products online. I have received questions from several people who think that the stronger magnetic fields will do better for them.  I haven’t been able to give them a good answer until now because I’m not an expert on magnetism and its effects on the body.

While not an official Nikken response, the answer comes from the man who has invented and developed several of Nikken’s magnetic products, Anthony Bove.  Basically, those high Gauss magnetic fields can generate too much electricity and heat in the body.  If you want to get more into the science and all of that then you are welcome to look up things like Faraday’s Law and Lorentz Force.

More telling for me is to look at thermographic images from before and after actually using the magnets.

Notice that when the thermographic image first shows up, the subjects toes are cold (black) and by the end they are warm (white). That’s what really matters, and this is just from a pair of magnetic insoles (MagStrides in this case).

Wayne Woodworth
My feet are happy with my MagSteps