CrossFit tennis shoes

What kind of shoes should you buy for CrossFit?

“Wait, What? I need new shoes?”

Yes.

Throw out your running shoes and get something which is more appropriate for a wide range of tasks.

Ever try a max deadlift while standing on a mattress? Well that’s basically what you’re doing when you’re wearing shoes with big, squishy soles such as these. You want a shoe with a firm sole, something that you can push against without having it compress. You also want to be able to run in that same shoe and be able to jump, push and pull stuff as well.

Olympic shoes, basketball shoes, tennis shoes, running shoes, minimalist shoes, no shoes or those weird, glove/5 finger things?

If our training consisted of only running we’d probably buy some type of running shoe. Logical, right? Basketball players, I’m guessing, wear basketball shoes. Olympic weightlifters? Yep. Olympic shoes.

But what about CrossFit shoes? We run, jump, lift heavy weights, climb ropes, scale buildings and generally, do awesome stuff everyday. So we need a shoe that’s able to deal with all of the variance that we typically deal with, and up until recently it’s been a problem to find a shoe that can hold it’s own.

In the past, my go to shoe was an old pair of Chucks that were literally falling apart, and I loved them. For inside the gym, lifting and CrossFitty type stuff they were great. But every time a run came up the ol’ dilemma of “should I do the lifting part in my chucks and then change shoes for the run?” would come up. And yeah, that’s possible but why not have one shoe that can deal with it all, shave a minute or two off your time by not having to change shoes and then only worry about kicking ass on the WOD.

In CrossFit we do a lot of Olympic lifting and if you’re serious about improving your technique then getting yourself a pair of Oly shoes is a must. But for those who don’t want to shell out the cash for two pairs of shoes and would rather have one that can be used as a good all-around shoe, then I’d suggest getting a type of minimalist shoe that can adequately cover all of the different training styles which we use in Crossfit.

I currently own two pairs of minimalist type shoes and I don’t think I’ll ever buy normal running shoes again. The connection that you have with the ground with minimalist shoes is a huge advantage in CrossFit where you need to be sure of your footing. This is also known as “proprioception” or, the ability to sense the position of your limbs in space.