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Choosing the Best Workout Shoe: 5 Biggest Mistakes

Maybe you shouldn't reach for those comfy old sneakers, after all.

By Gina Shaw
WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

What’s the one piece of workout gear you can’t live without? Your Ipod Nano? A good water bottle? A truly supportive sports bra?

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. The single most important piece of equipment to virtually any kind of exercise program -- running, aerobics, hiking, tennis, basketball -- is the right pair of shoes.

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A good pair of shoes can make or break your workout -- but it’s easy to go wrong.

1. Grabbing Whatever’s Handy

"The biggest mistake people make when they start running, jogging, or doing any exercise program, is just reaching into the closet and pulling out an old pair of sneakers,” says Tracie Rodgers, PhD, an exercise psychologist and spokeswoman for the American Council on Exercise.

But how do you choose the right shoe for your workout?

A recent search of a popular shoe-buying web site yielded more than 4,500 different pairs under the category “sneakers,” including more than 1,000 running shoes, 199 “cross-trainers,” 133 pairs of basketball shoes, 110 pairs for tennis, and more than 1,500 in a nebulous category dubbed “athleisure.” Supposedly, you can wear these to the office andfor a workout -- but you probably shouldn’t.

2. Choosing the Right Shoe -- for the Wrong Workout

First, you need to choose the right type of shoe for the kind of workout you’ll be doing. And yes, it does matter.

A shoe made for running is very different from a shoe made for basketball or tennis, in a number of ways.

“Running shoes have no lateral stability built into them, because you don’t move your feet laterally when you run,” says Joe Puleo, the author of Running Anatomy and the head men's and women's cross-country and track and field coach at Rutgers University in Camden, N.J.

“You’re only going forward, and a running shoe is built to give you support and stability as you move your foot through the running gait cycle," Puleo says. "Basketball and tennis shoes both have to be stabilized laterally, 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, 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 when walking you have a heavier heel strike,” says Catherine Cheung, DPM, a podiatrist and 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.”

Can’t you just get a good cross-trainer and use it for everything? Probably not.

“Cross-trainer" shoes never existed before Bo Jackson, who played professional baseball and football (remember the “Bo Knows” ad campaign?).

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