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 all the time straightforward. You desire a model that feels nice; helps you run, cycle, stroll, raise, 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—essentially the most ever—of footwear launched between August 2023 and August 2024, and editors really useful 14 pairs of their very own faves for consideration too. Then SELF editors narrowed the pool down, contemplating the whole lot from operate to value to design. This left us with 157 fashions to check throughout a bunch of classes: operating and racing sneakers; climbing footwear; athleisure types; strolling sneakers; footwear wonderful for folk who’re on their ft 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 folks was made up of SELF editors (together with of us who’ve run marathons and raced different distances, hiked in canyons and on trails, deadlifted huge PRs, and logged tens of 1000’s of steps per day) and pals of the model, together with outside influencers, med college students, manufacturing employees, lecturers, 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 just a few issues in thoughts: We requested them to check the shoe at the least 3 times for its meant use—so, for example, climbing sneakers or path footwear have been worn on path terrain reasonably than pavement; racing footwear throughout intense operating efforts; strolling footwear throughout days you’d be in your ft for a ton, and so on. Then we had our testers take into account the next questions:
Match
- All footwear ought to have about half an inch of area between your toe and the highest of the shoe. Do you are feeling any strain factors?
- Does the dimensions of the shoe match as anticipated?
- For operating or strolling footwear: Do your toes have loads of area 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 sufficient toe area?
Form
- What’s your foot form? How effectively did the shoe map to the form of your foot?
- Does the shoe have a slim 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 are 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 gentle?
- Do you are 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?
- Finally, is the shoe snug?
