What Kind Of Shoes Are Best For The Gym?
Believe it or not, footwear plays a big role in your workouts. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people we see at the gym are wearing shoes that suck for working out!
However, we don’t blame them. There’s been lots of research and progress in the shoe department in recent years, it just hasn’t reached the mainstream quite yet. It’s especially frustrating when you walk into a shoe section and see “Casual, Running, Training” sections. You’re led to believe that all shoes in the training section are good for the gym but that’s not the case.
We’re going to keep this blog post short and sweet.
Bad Gym Shoes
Running Shoes - This is the number 1 shoe that we see people show up to the gym wearing. It’s a shame because they’re usually nice shoes! They’re just not good for the gym!
This is because running shoes have a shape and contour to them that’s meant to help assist someone who’s running in a straight line for long periods of time. Unfortunately, once you start loading any sort of weight on them, the instability is evident. Even a light load on a set of squats, deadlifts and especially single leg exercises (they require more stability such as lunges) can cause your foot to wobble. This is not only potentially dangerous, it also decreases the amount of load you can handle on your muscles thus decreasing the effectiveness of your workout!
A good gym shoe on the other hand has a flat and stable surface and outsole to more evenly distribute your weight from your foot through the shoe and into the ground.
Good Gym Shoes
Flat Soled Shoes - These include Shoes that have a 0mm (or minimal) heel to toe drop off. Some examples include:
Converse
Vans
Nike Metcons*
Reebok Nano (Crossfit) Shoes*
New Balance Minimus*
No Bull*
Underarmour Tribase*
INOV-8 Bare Shoes*
Tennis Shoes*
Other Barefoot Shoes
The list is not limited to those shoes. Those are popular examples of flat soled shoes that are good for the gym. The * shoes are arguably better because they’re designed to be gym shoes so they tend to have at least 2 elements over the Converse and Vans. The first is that they’re designed to be a more breathable workout shoe. The second is that they’re made to help stabilize your feet while doing forward, backwards and lateral movements. The converse and vans on the other hand are still good flat soled shoes, but they lack the workout design advantages that the other shoes have.
The Argument For Barefoot Training (Can be in socks too, same same)
Barefoot Training has become increasingly more popular. There are a few main benefits to training barefoot:
Your foot is not relying on the shoe to provide support. This means you’ll be strengthening your foot muscles and muscles around your ankle joint while working out. This not only has strength benefits, but it can also help decrease risk on injuries. So many running and foot injuries are related to weak foot muscles (even leg muscles such as glutes, calves and tibialis anterior). Simply training barefoot can help strengthen those muscles and decrease the likelihood of an injury! Some common injuries include shin splits and side (lateral) or front (anterior) knee pain.
Your feet and toes are meant to spread and grip the ground. When you wear a shoe with a narrow toe box (which is most shoes unfortunately) , your toes gets slightly squished and you actually can’t spread your toes. This in turn can lead to poor gate (walking form) and possibly lead to injury as well.
Your feet are just like your hands in the sense that they’re very sensory based. Training barefoot will enhance the proprioception of your feet which again
The only real downside to training barefoot is that of course you’re more susceptible to accidental injuries. For example in the gym, you hit your foot on a piece of equipment, or stub your toe, you might accidentally drop a weight on your foot, etc. This can really hurt and possibly cause an injury if this happens to you. At least wearing a flat soled shoe will damped the blow and mitigate some of the potential for a foot injury.
Weight Lifting Shoes
There is another category of gym shoes that are specifically for Olympic weight lifting. We only recommend these shoes if you are participating in Olympic weightlifting, or if you prefer using an elevated heel for performing squats. Otherwise, these shoes are not ideal for a general purpose gym or athletic shoe.