Best walking Run tennis shoes

“Your workout shoes should be your workout shoes and not your running-around-town shoes." - Tracie Rodgers, PhD

1. Grabbing Whatever’s Handy

"The biggest mistake people make when they start running, jogging, or some other exercise program is just reaching into the closet and pulling out an old pair of sneakers, " says Tracie Rogers, PhD, a consultant for the American Council on Exercise. An old pair of shoes may no longer have the support you need. And even more problematic, that pair of shoes might be inappropriate for the activity you choose.

2. Choosing the Right Shoe - for the Wrong Workout

You need to choose the right type of shoe for the kind of workout you’ll be doing.

A shoe made for running is very different from a shoe made for basketball or tennis.

"Running shoes have no lateral stability built into them because you don’t move your feet laterally when you run. You’re only going forward. A running shoe is built to give you support and stability as you move your foot through the running gait cycle, " says Joe Puleo, the author of Running Anatomy.

Puleo says basketball and tennis shoes both need to be stabilized laterally. That's because you move your feet side to side a lot when playing these sports. "You can’t build a running shoe that has lateral stability, " he says, "and you can’t build a shoe for basketball or tennis that doesn’t have it."

Even walking shoes differ from running shoes.

Runners land more on their forefoot, while walkers have a heavier heel strike, says Catherine Cheung, a foot surgeon with the Post Street Surgery Center in San Francisco. "So for running, you want a shoe that has more cushioning on the forefoot, while walking shoes should have stiffer rubber to support the heel."