Right here at SELF, we all know good footwear could make or break your day—however with all of the choices in the marketplace, discovering the right pair isn’t all the time straightforward. You desire a fashion that feels nice; helps you run, cycle, stroll, carry, 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 easiest vetted and examined kicks on the market.
For this yr’s Sneaker Awards, 50 manufacturers submitted 167 kinds—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 every little thing from operate to value to design. This left us with 157 fashions to check throughout a bunch of classes: working and racing sneakers; mountain climbing footwear; athleisure kinds; strolling sneakers; footwear wonderful for folk who’re on their toes all day; biking footwear; HIIT and cross-training kinds; 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 people who’ve run marathons and raced different distances, hiked in canyons and on trails, deadlifted huge PRs, and logged tens of hundreds of steps per day) and associates 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 a number of issues in thoughts: We requested them to check the shoe a minimum of 3 times for its supposed use—so, for example, mountain climbing sneakers or path footwear had been worn on path terrain fairly than pavement; racing footwear throughout intense working efforts; strolling footwear throughout days you’d be in your toes for a ton, and so on. Then we had our testers think about 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 scale of the shoe match as anticipated?
- For working or strolling footwear: Do your toes have loads of area to wiggle? Is your heel safe, or does your heel slip out once you run?
- For biking footwear: Do your footwear match snugly, however with ample toe area?
Form
- What’s your foot form? How properly did the shoe map to the form of your foot?
- Does the shoe have a slim or extensive 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 preventing 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 once you carry out weight-lifting or different cross-training train strikes?
- Did you develop any blisters, sizzling spots, or bruised toes throughout or after put on? Did you expertise another pains, like shin splints or knee ache?
- In the end, is the shoe snug?
