How To Choose Gym Shoes

You wouldn’t wear snorkeling fins to a Barre class, right?

Or go for a run in ski boots, right?

While you can do Barre and go running in whatever you like, you sure as hell wouldn’t do either with the suggested shoes.

Why?

Because your feet wouldn’t be comfortable and you wouldn’t get the most out of your footwear, which would hinder your performance and desired results. For example, snorkeling fins are flexible and lightweight but they don’t allow for a ballet dancer to dance en pointe.¹ Know what shoes do? Ballet shoes that are coincidentally called pointe shoes! As for running, ski boots are heavy and aren’t designed to cushion and absorb the energy of your body striking the earth over and over again. Know what shoes are weightless and engineered for shock absorption? Running shoes!

Now, just like the mentioned activities have specific footwear that’s best worn for the performance of them, so too does weightlifting. And here’s a tip: the godawful shoes you’re lifting in aren’t godawful only because they’re ugly but also because they’re not up to the task.

The shoes best for weightlifting are three things. The first is snug fitting. The shoes you work out in should fit snugly because the body doesn’t have to work as hard to balance itself when there’s less space between your toes and the end of the shoe.² Second, gym shoes should have a flat-heeled. Not that you train legs but if you ever decided to, a less elevated back foot allows for closer contact to the ground so you can push through your heels and better activate the glutes, quads, and hamstrings. You know, those muscles that comprise the legs that you never train! Thin soles are the last requirement that make shoes worthy of being worn to work out in. Shoes with a minimal undersurface and little cushioning provide for a more stable base, not only helping to prevent stress and injury to the ankles, knees, and other joints, but also optimal firing of the lower body muscles that I still haven’t heard you disagree with me about you never ever training!

Putting all the criteria together, you have a wide range of shoes to pick from, ranging from shoes specifically designed for bodybuilding, like Otomix Stingrays and Ryderwear D-Maks, to shoes whose original purpose fall far outside of the weight room. Examples include casual sneakers like Chuck Taylor All-Stars; skate shoes like Vans Original Classics; wrestling shoes like Asics Matflex 5; and boxing boots like Nike Machomai and TITLE Speed-Flex Encore Mid.

NOTE (A): Toe shoes like Vibram FiveFingers also work.³ The only issue with them, apart from the shit in the footnote, is that they offer little protection for your feet when, as you’re reracking a weight and being responsible for the first time in your life, your gym crush struts by and you lose focus for a second and drop the plate on your foot.⁴

NOTE (B): The same for toe shoes applies for training barefoot.⁵ While it’s a viable option, it’s not the safest thing to do because not only is the identical risk of physical injury present but also because the gym is a pretty dirty place. There are germs causing colds, flu, and strep, athlete’s foot, Hepatitis A, and skin infections like staph and MRSA at almost every corner, all of which can be directly exposed to your feet and then transferred from them to your shoes and hands and everywhere else. Ewwwwwwwww, yucky!!! So that’s why barefoot training might not be for you.⁶

NOTE (C): Go for a shoe with a wide toe box if you have bunions or nerve issues.⁷

NOTE (D): If you find yourself tipping forward while you squat, one possible reason may have to do with limited ankle mobility. In that case, Olympic lifting shoes with elevated heels — e.g. Nike Romaleos 3, Reebok Legacy Lifter 2.0 — are an option to help you maintain an upright position.⁸

Ever heard the old saying that shoes can tell you a lot about a person?

Well, it turns out that the saying is true!

A study conducted at the University of Kansas found that participants were able to guess the age, gender, and income of the owners of 200 pairs of shoes. That’s not all that surprising given that info can be easily ascertained by the shoe’s style and designer label. What’s of note is that the personality traits of any given shoe’s owner were guessed with 90 percent accuracy.

What that means for you?

Ummmmmm…it means it’s a good idea to follow through with this guide and buy a new pair of gym shoes tailored for lifting rather than continuing to broadcast to everyone in the gym that you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing!⁹

Glossary: cardio, fitness, glutes, gym, leg press, muscle, squat, stepmill, treadmill, weight room, work out

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Monster Longe

Monster Longe is a personal trainer in San Diego. He has been lifting weights for +25 years and training clients in the gym and online for about half of that time. When not working with clients or making content that's easy to read, understand, and apply to everyday life, he enjoys long walks and leaving buildings crushed and entire city blocks decimated in his wake.

How To Choose Gym Shoes

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