Why Proper Shoes Matter For Cross Training: By Coach Victor Lucena
The other day one of our coaches posted a recurrent situation to most of us Cross Trainingers, that exciting moment of waiting for your beloved delivery truck to arrive, bringing with it the most valuable and waited treasure one could ever desire in their life: a brand new pair of lifting shoes that you’ll use everyday and love above everything until the next brand new pair arrives next week!!
If you missed that, you’re probably wondering who is this rich coach buying shoes more often than you come to the gym, but to tell you the truth, that description fits for any of us. However, have you wondered why we even buy lifting shoes?
Yeah I know, because they look sooooo good, and I still need a purple brown and orange pair to match with that one pair of socks I’ll never use, and these are 3% offfffff… For all these undeniably good reasons, an adequate pair of workout shoes might be a good first investment for your training life. But wait, there’s more.
Lemme ask you something, do you bowl wearing flip flops? Do you play football wearing sneakers? Would you go to a basketball court wearing soccer cleats? All kind of exercises demand specific appropriate shoes that will not only improve your performance but also keep you safer.
We all have those old comfortable pair of running shoes that we put on to lift some weights. What happens is, running shoes are made for… running? Their soles and insoles are developed to absorb the impact of your feet hitting the floor as you run, therefore giving an easier time to your ankles, knees, hips. And that’s great.
The thing is, our main activity at a Cross Training gym is not to run, but to lift. And in order to lift, you don’t need a caved cushioned unstable platform to stand on, but a base as flat and solid as possible so you have stability to keep your joints stable and thereafter perform your lift with more safety.
There are basically two kinds of shoes we care about in a Cross Training gym: proper lifters and cross-training shoes. A proper lifter is almost the opposite of a running shoe, they’re hard and non-flexible, and they have high heels to help/increase your ankle mobility. If the WOD includes only pure lifts, i.e. a day with back squat for strength and thrusters and sit-ups for metcon, or a powerlifting class, lifters will give you the stability you’re looking for. They’re usually expensive though, which is why companies developed cross-training shoes, which are an option in between lifters and runners. So if you have box jumps and burpees besides the back squat, cross-trainers might be a better idea for you.
Anyway, if you’re still WOD’ing with your old runners, go to a store some day, try some lifting or cross-training shoes on, do a few squats, lunges, jumps with it, I promise you’ll feel the difference right away and understand what I’m talking about. And if you find a good deal lemme know ASAP, I think I need to buy new ones!