When it comes to your shoes, you don’t want one pair to be a jack-of-all-trades. In some ways, this is obvious. You wouldn’t even think of taking your dress shoes to the track for a run nor would you wear them to get in on a pickup game of basketball. In other ways, it is not so obvious. Many people that engage in a sport on a casual level believe that they can use one pair of athletic shoes for all of their sporting needs. However, there are different sport designs for different reasons.

As an example, consider running shoes. When a shoe is designed for running, it will be made flexible in order to allow the foot its full range of motion. This gives the runner a more natural stride and the feet do not have to fight against a shoe design that is too rigid for the activity. On the other hand, you have walking shoes. A pair of walking shoes will still be flexible, but not quite as much as a pair of running shoes. A proper walking shoe is designed for the normal heel to toe stride and will have more support for the arches and the ankles.

Beyond that, you have the many sport specific shoes. Consumers can find shoes for basketball, tennis, soccer, and the list just goes on. In addition to that, within each sport, you will also have different shoes that are designed for people with different body types and shoes for different styles of play.