What Should You Wear On Your Feet When Lifting Weights?
If you are serious about lifting pay attention to your footwear.
One of my readers on this page just made this comment about using squat shoes.
“I’m not going to take my running trainers (for my warm up), then change into squatting shoes then deaflift shoes on legs day”.
Why not?
If you are serious about lifting weights then take your foot wear seriously. If you are a recreation person who is not training hard and heavy fine wear whatever shoes you want.
BUT if you want to lift weights, get stronger and work your technique then you should pay attention to your feet and the proper footwear.
When I train I use the following.
– Vibrams/Minimal shoes for things like short sprints, jumps, lighter strength workouts.
– Deadlifts I wear Wrestling Shoes. Some wear Chuck Taylors but prefer wrestling shoes as they have a smaller sole and better grip.
I prefer something with a hard sole and a very flat sole for deadlifts. You don’t want your heel elevated on deadlifts as this will push the knees forward throwing off proper deadlift mechanics. I highly recommend going barefoot and or using a flat soled shoe like a deadlift shoe, wrestling shoe or chuck taylors.
– For Squats I wear and recommend Adidas Squat Shoes for 80% of my squatting and flats/barefoot for 20%.
For squatting you want a hard sole shoe and for most people you want a heel elevation. This will help with energy transfer when you push into the ground. A running shoe is designed to absorb impact, you do not want this when you squat. You want a hard sole to improve force transfer and stability.
The heel elevation will help work your quads more and also allow the knees to come forward. Another key point here is that for a lot of people the knees can come past the toes when squatting. This is FINE.
The knees can come past the toes when squatting. This is FINE.
Runners Are Meant For Running. Lifting Weights Is Not Running.
If you are going to take your training and strength serious pay attention to your foot wear. It will help improve your strength and also use footwear designed for what you do.
Runners are meant for running. Lifting is not running.
Coach Rob
By the way if you want a stronger squat, and my stronger I mean adding, 10, 20, even 30 pounds to your Squat in only 6 weeks.
Check out my 6 Week Peaking Squat Program For Women.
Rob King is a Competitive PowerLifter, Coach and Writer.
