Sneakers or trainers

One of the most popular styles of shoe for people of all ages is the sneaker, known as a trainer in the UK.

The sneaker is traditionally a shoes that takes its styling from athletic foot wear and it has been around for several decades. In the USA alone somewhere between 300 million and 400 million sneakers are sold annually to a cross-generation consumer base.

The original sneakers were fabric based with a soft rubber outer sole and plenty of colour and they has a sporty image. Over the years this style of footwear has never diminished in popularity and it has changed and adapted as both sport and fashion have evolved. The result is that the sneaker now comes in many styles and guises, some highly fashionable and suited only to the younger generation, and others geared to a more conservative buyer.

Sneakers as orthopedic or healthy shoes

Sneakers can be very cheap or very expensive and, like everything else, you tend to get what you pay for.

Most sneakers in the medium price bracket should have a strong but flexible outer sole, a breathable fabric upper and plenty of inner padding and support. These shoes normally feel comfortable and they have good support for the arches and plenty of padding in areas like the throat. As a generalisation most offer pretty good support without constraining the feet or restricting them. With most sneakers it is easy to tell if they will be comfortable when you try them on because they do not require wearing in and very few have leather components that need time to become pliable and flexible.

The styles of sneaker that may not be quite so good are those at the height of any particular fashion or trend. These fashions tend to see the shape and design of the sneaker deviate from the traditional style. Examples include some of the sneakers that are around at the moment and that have wedge soles or platform soles. These shoes are not really sneakers at all, but they are capitalising the colourful design of the sneaker to create a marketable fashion shoe.

Because sneakers come in so many styles and because they have been around for so long there is generally a design that will suit (and that has a feel of ownership) for every generation. Furthermore, a sneaker that may be out of fashion now may well be the height of popularity in ten years time. The “plimsoll like” sneaker, one of the original styles, is now very much back in fashion with the younger generations.

Sneakers, at least the good ones, make ideal general walking shoes and they can even be worn in the home. Many people wear them as their general casual shoe , but they are often quite acceptable in a semi casual-semi formal setting.

Anyone wanting to participate in serious sporting activity will need to buy a sports shoe or proper training shoe. Most sports shoes are designed specifically for the sport in question and the characteristics of it use, e.g. tennis, squash, running etc, and these shoes have very different objectives to the general sneaker. The cross-trainer is a sports shoe that can be used for a number of different running based sporting activities.