Right here at SELF, we all know good footwear could make or break your day—however with all of the choices available on the market, discovering the right pair isn’t at all times straightforward. You desire a model that feels nice; helps you run, cycle, stroll, elevate, and simply flat out transfer higher; and boosts your confidence (and your look) the minute you slip it on.
If all that sounds interesting to you: Welcome to our 2024 Sneaker Awards, our annual compilation of the perfect vetted and examined kicks on the market.
For this 12 months’s Sneaker Awards, 50 manufacturers submitted 167 types—probably the most ever—of footwear launched between August 2023 and August 2024, and editors really helpful 14 pairs of their very own faves for consideration too. Then SELF editors narrowed the pool down, contemplating every little thing from perform to price to design. This left us with 157 fashions to check throughout a bunch of classes: working and racing sneakers; climbing footwear; athleisure types; strolling sneakers; footwear glorious for people who’re on their toes all day; biking footwear; HIIT and cross-training types; sneakers for weightlifting; and—new for 2024—kicks for pickleball and tennis.
Subsequent, our testers. Our testing pool of 47 individuals was made up of SELF editors (together with people who’ve run marathons and raced different distances, hiked in canyons and on trails, deadlifted massive PRs, and logged tens of 1000’s of steps per day) and associates of the model, together with outside influencers, med college students, manufacturing employees, academics, and new mother and father who did all those self same actions and extra.
That pool actually put the footwear to work throughout our monthlong testing interval. When evaluating every shoe, we requested our testers to maintain a number of issues in thoughts: We requested them to check the shoe not less than thrice for its meant use—so, for example, climbing sneakers or path footwear have been worn on path terrain quite than pavement; racing footwear throughout intense working efforts; strolling footwear throughout days you’d be in your toes for a ton, and so forth. Then we had our testers take into account the next questions:
Match
- All footwear ought to have about half an inch of house between your toe and the highest of the shoe. Do you’re feeling any stress factors?
- Does the scale of the shoe match as anticipated?
- For working or strolling footwear: Do your toes have loads of house to wiggle? Is your heel safe, or does your heel slip out whenever you run?
- For biking footwear: Do your footwear match snugly, however with satisfactory toe house?
Form
- What’s your foot form? How properly did the shoe map to the form of your foot?
- Does the shoe have a slender or huge toe field?
Really feel
- Is the shoe cushioned or extra agency?
- Does the arch of the shoe really feel supportive or obtrusive?
- Do you’re feeling such as you’re combating the shoe to discover a snug rhythm, or does it really feel like an extension of your foot? Does it really feel too heavy, or does it really feel mild?
- Do you’re feeling in contact with the bottom whenever you carry out weight-lifting or different cross-training train strikes?
- Did you develop any blisters, scorching spots, or bruised toes throughout or after put on? Did you expertise every other pains, like shin splints or knee ache?
- In the end, is the shoe snug?
