https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/monkiibars/stoic
In a time when stepping out seems like such an existential threat, the Stoic wonderfully mimics the effects of being outdoors. Designed to be a mat you stand on, but with an unusual twist, the Stoic actually comes with a three-dimensional surface on top, with textures that either trigger acupressure points on your foot, or 3D patterns inspired by the outdoors, giving your feet the feeling of standing on natural ground. The patterns range from actual scans of forest floors to pebbled creeks, giving your feet something more than just a carpet or a hardwood floor to stand on. Coupled with a nifty balance-beam running right down the center of the Stoic, the mat offers much more than what your regular exercise or yoga-mat does. While giving you a dedicated space to work out or meditate, the Stoic actively helps strengthen the muscles and joints in your feet. It stimulates the nerve endings on the bottom with its soft 3D-textures, and helps release chemicals in the brain that help you stay focused and relaxed. Ultimately, it serves as a safer alternative to being outdoors by bringing nature’s grand designs to the comfort and safety of your home.
The Stoic mat was built to serve five broad uses – Motion, Balance, Fitness, Massage, and Strength. The base of the mat comes with removable uppers, letting you swap out the textured foam surfaces. The balance-board in the center comes with multiple swappable options, including a bamboo flat-board, a curved board, a ridged board for higher difficulty, and a fidget-board with a massage-ball fitted in. Coupled with the Stoic app, which guides you through multiple exercises you can do on the mat, the entire setup’s built to give you the feeling of standing on natural land, while you either meditate, exercise, or even work!
Its swappable elements give it more than 50+ configurations to choose from. You could either use the Stoic mat to exercise/meditate on, using its undulating patterns and textures to stimulate your feet and present a slightly harder challenge than exercising on flat-ground, or you could just replace your sitting workplace for a standing one, with the Stoic underneath your feet. Stoic’s nature-inspired 3D surfaces not only help you constantly correct and improve your own posture and increase your core strength, but its variety of foot-fidget toys also help you boost focus as you work, and give you something to further exercise your foot-muscles on. The mat even features two hooks on each side to suspend bungee-bands from, allowing you to get a more intense work-out while you’re at home.
While we’re self-isolating at home (it’s hard to think that we’ve been doing this for 8 months already), away from nature, recreation, and even the gym, the Stoic brings its unusual set of outdoor and gym-inspired experiences to our homes. The swappable mats give you the impression of standing on an uneven forest floor, complete with branches, twigs, and pinecones, or an undulating pebbled surface that your toes can explore and wrap around, or even a textured design aimed at targetting your foot’s pressure points to boost blood flow. The balance-board running across the center provides a new dimension too, giving you MUCH more than anything your traditional yoga-mat could. It isn’t safe to venture outdoors, but that doesn’t mean we can’t bring the positive effects of the outdoors to the comfort and security of our own homes!
Designers: Dan Vinson and David Hunt
Click Here to Buy Now: $169 $219 ($50 off). Raised over $740,000.
STOIC – The Natural Standing Mat
STOIC™ is the world’s first modular standing mat inspired by nature to stretch, strengthen and massage your feet during your workday.
Use it at your home office, office desk, home school or anywhere you like to. It helps relieve chronic pain, strengthen feet, ankles, knees and joints. STOIC helps you improve posture and core strength, along with helping you stay focused on the task at hand. Other benefits include:
– De-stress and relax
– Having fun while working
– Burn calories
– Ground yourself and enhance awareness
– ADHD relief
– Alleviate pain from plantar fasciitis
STOIC Features
Stoic features the 5 Elements of Natural Standing: Motion, Balance, Fidget, Massage & Strength.
Features 50+ setup options.
Stoic App guides you through daily flows.
Comfortably firm yet supple.
STOIC Benefits
Stretch and strengthen over 100 muscles, 30 joints and 26 bones in your feet.
Fully engage your ankles, knees and hips.
Practice perfect posture.
Get a deep tissue massage without going to a therapist.
Burn calories just by standing and ease your mind by reducing stress and anxiety.
Focus and finish your (home) work early.
No-sweat strength training right at your desk.
How It Works
It’s no secret that stillness is the killer silently stalking this new species of desk-bound humans.
When you slump in your chair for hours each day your body slowly erodes, even down to the cellular level. Without movement muscles tighten, tendons and ligaments stiffen and your metabolism becomes disrupted. Stoic adds back natural levels of activity to your day which means you’ll stimulate blood flow, improve joint health and mobility, stretch and strengthen muscles in your feet, knees and legs, maintain good posture, increase flexibility and even lose weight.
Balance is a skill, use it or lose it.
Balance is especially important for preventing injury and maintaining core strength. Stoic allows you to level-up as you develop more skills, so you can continue to improve your balance for years. Your new balance practice will help to increase your proprioception (aka body awareness) and strengthen your core.
Stoic’s pop-in fidgets help you stay focused, relieve stress and anxiety, and add some fun to all that boring screen-time.
Stressed? Who isn’t?! Soothe the angst while also improving your foot health and focus. By manipulating the dexterity balls and exploring the toe-spreaders your feet get a workout while your mind gets a break.
Our feet have it rough.
Not only do they have to carry us around all day, but they also get shoved unnaturally into shoes, boots, and other modern forms of footwear that may look sweet, but come at a cost. Do your feet a favor and stand on Stoic. Massage improves circulation, stimulates muscles, reduces tension, and often eases pain.
Maintain momentum with quick, sweat-free workouts – without leaving your desk.
For thousands of years, our ancestors would spend their days moving at a relatively slow, easy pace. This casual activity would be regularly broken up by short feats of strength. Whether it was carrying food, constructing a shelter, or wrangling a wild child – strength was a common and everyday part of life. The Stoic strength philosophy seeks to thoughtfully reintroduce regular moments of Strength back into your day.
Completely modular design.
Level up as you get stronger.
Click Here to Buy Now: $169 $219 ($50 off). Raised over $740,000.
