Taking your footwear seriously is important. While we may forget how important our shoes are in day-to-day life, you’ll quickly realize how essential good-fitting hiking boots are when you’re out on the trail.
If you’re here, you want to learn more about hiking boots and why they are so important. That’s why we’ve gathered the things you probably don’t know about hiking boots, mainly specialized information about their materials and ergonomic design. We don’t think about those things much with our everyday shoes but, with hiking boots, you need to keep them in mind.
If you want to learn more about hiking boots, such as why they tend to look ugly by typical fashion standards, then check out places like https://happilyeverhiker.com/why-are-hiking-boots-so-ugly/.
The Perfect Fit Doesn’t Exist
Fit is very important when it comes to hiking boots and other hard-wearing footwear. Even then, there is no such thing as the perfect fit.
You can still find comfortable hiking boots that won’t give you any problems but, with how dynamic the foot can be when subjected to strenuous activity, you’ll never get the perfect fit. When subjected to pressure, our feet change in width, length, even volume, and this happens naturally throughout the day too. Manufacturers also need to cater to everybody, meaning their products will never cater to specifically your feet.
So, what is a good fit?
You’ll know a comfortable shoe when you feel it, though it should stay comfortable as you put it through its paces. Thicker, hike-appropriate socks should be accommodated within the shoe, as should the approximately 5% growth in size that happens to our feet during hiking.
When fitting, try both boots on and do it late in the day, when your feet will be at their largest. They should also be broken in before you take them out to your hike.
Hiking Boots Have Been Lightened
You can probably figure out that manufacturers put a look into their hiking boots. What many of us overlook is what they take away from the boots during the production process – weight.
Lightweight hiking shoes tend to be better, which can be counterintuitive to those who reach for the meanest, leatheriest-looking boot. While hardiness is invaluable in a hiking boot, it needs to be combined with easy, lightweight manipulation to work properly. You don’t want to hike with weights strapped to your feet, after all.
Manufacturers try to keep the boots as light as possible without sacrificing the durability, breathability, and general feel of the footwear. The main way they reduce weight is by selecting upper materials that have less cushioning, where it isn’t needed. Synthetic hiking boots are a great example of this, they can be sturdy without needing the cushioning that older leather hiking boots needed.
Shock Absorption Isn’t Everything
When it comes to how hiking boots are cushioned, you may see a lot of lip service in favor of shock absorption. When a shoe has shock-absorbing material in its midsole, the force hitting your body will still be the same.
While it may be more comfortable, shock absorption can give hikers and other serious wearers the false idea that they are protected from impact. Ironically, they then go on to report more injuries due to impacts that they thought the shoes could handle – they were wrong. Shock absorption does not make you invincible.
Traction Is Measured Backwards
You know what traction is when it comes to hiking boots – the way it interacts with the floor during contact, to make sure it doesn’t slip.
Traction can be difficult to measure. The best that manufacturers can do is test the shoes and see which materials hold up best, which is then selected to be the outsole of their footwear. The materials are typically just different variations of blown rubber because it’s simultaneously lightweight, durable, and it is naturally slip-resistant.
Slippage, however, comes in different forms. When we say that traction is measured backward, it’s because manufacturers most often look at push-off slippage. That’s where you take a step and, as you are applying forward movement to the boot, it slips backward. While startling, it’s easier to recover from than the alternative, where your foot slides forward, from under you.
Forward slippage is arguably more common and definitely more dangerous for the average hiker. Does that mean traction is worthless? Absolutely not, just that some material may have better slip resistance to backward slipping than forward. Any hiking boot will still have better traction than a pair of sneakers.