My New (Parkour) Shoes

Last night I went to buy myself some running shoes. My close friends and family may know that I actually hate running. I do, however, love parkour, which involves running, jumping, climbing, and the like. I forgot my previous parkour shoes in South Africa (a pair of New Balance), which is unfortunate since I trusted that pair of shoes a lot.

Since it is starting to warm up again, I my want to go for some parkour runs in the not too distant future, so I needed some shoes. Choosing shoes that are appropriate for parkour is not easy. It must have the comfort of a running shoe, but with really good cushioning to act as buffers when you jump off of high things. It should also have excellent grip as many of the parkour movements entail precision jumps. Slipping could cause serious injury. There should also be a fare amount of flexibility as different movements require you to place your weight on the balls of your feet, or in the centre of the sole. If you cannot comfortably pull your toes back, you may not be able to land precisely on the balls of your feet, which again could result in injury.

Most of the shoes I tried out had terrible cushioning and half of them did not have good grip. Also, most of them were horribly hard. I at last settled for a pair of Reeboks. I’ve tried a couple of Nike’s already, but wasn’t too impressed. Then my friend who went with me tried on these Nike Dual Fusion running shoes and spoke highly of them. Although I’ve already settled on the Reeboks I decided just to test the Dual Fusions. They turned out to be very comfortable. The grip is good and the shoe is quite flexible. The base is also quite soft. I’m not too sure how its shock absorption is and will in any case add a shock absorption layer as I usually do with my parkour shoes.

Surprisingly the shoe was actually quite inexpensive.

This afternoon I took a dash to the gym. (Usually when I go to the gym I would run there as part of my warm up.) The shoes were really comfortable and wonderfully light. I look forward to trying them out during parkour session.

Other shoes that are really good for parkour are the Merrel Slams. Unfortunately I didn't see any.