Having the best pair of shoes doesn’t make you stronger but they do alter your ability to physically express your strength. Practicing any kind of sports activity can be expensive and required specific gear and accessories.
If you’re wondering if can you lift weights in your boxing shoes and cut down your cost a little, here’re some of the things you need to read first:
So, Are Boxing Shoes good for Lifting?
As a general rule, boxing shoes should not be used for lifting because it demands extra protection, flexibility, and a lot more grip than boxing. Lifting shoes help you to evenly distribute weight and produce more force during heavy lifts which is not possible with a standard pair of boxing shoes.
Further in this article, I’ll dig more into the different aspects of boxing shoes and explain to you exactly why you should not wear your boxing shoes while lifting weights and also touch upon what to wear instead. Keep Reading:
Boxing Shoes vs Lifting Shoes: 5 Key Differences
Boxing shoes are different from lifting shoes in quite a lot of aspects including grip, types of material used, weight structure, support system, and even the design of the shoes.
Let me touch upon the core differences first:
1. Support System
Almost all the lifting shoes come with a low-top variation that provides freedom to your legs while lifting. On the other hand, boxing shoes also come with a high-top that compromises on your flexibility a little but provides you extra support and protection to your ankles.
You can easily detect a significant difference between a standard boxing shoes and weightlifting shoes in terms of their peak ankle flexion and erect posture.
That’s because lifting shoes comes with a hard sole that allows you to have better base and ample amount of support. Also, having a good level of grip allows them to provides better feedback response when screwing into the floor as you lift.
There is not doubt about the gripping power of boxing shoes on the indoor surfaces but lifting shoes are designed to provide added flexibility and come with midsole cushioning and arch support to prevent overuse injuries and joint pain.
2. Design of Shoes
Lifting shoes are specifically designed by keeping a weight lifter in the mind and that’s why they helps you to activate more muscles and recruit more fibers in the motion and provide significantly more power.
Lifting shoes are usually low profile that allows your feet to be closer to the floor and ultimately makes the weight lifting little bit easier for you. It helps you to feel sturdier and allows you to drive force through the heels during heavy squats, deadlifts, and any other free compound lift.
Other than This:
Both, boxing as well as lifting shoes mostly comes with a flat soles that provides wider surface area and thus helps you with a better stability as compared to traditional training shoes.
You might face the issue of ankle mobility in higher-top boxing shoes but they does offer you an enhanced support and protection to your ankles.
3. Balance
When it specifically comes to the exercises related to lifting weights, your feets are the only two point of contact between the floor and you.
That’s why you should never use a pair of shoes that have a padded soles because they doesn’t offer the required stability and make you vulnerable to the potential injury.
Usually, boxing shoes comes with a rubber soles that allows you to comfortable move you around the ring and find your balance point relatively quicker whereas lifting shoes provides more grip and have pretty hard and stiff sole.
Another key difference is their flexibility. Boxing shoes definitely provides you with a great flexibility but that is somewhat limited to the boxing movements only.
In contrast:
Lifting shoes typically offers you a lot more flexibility and helps you to evenly distribute weights across all directions provides enough traction. It potentially improves your overall stability and helps you with most of the free-weight exercises.
4. Material Used
Coming towards the material, I found a lot more similarities in boxing and lifting shoes than the differences. Both type of shoes are mostly designed with light materials in order to enable maximum free movement of your legs.
They are preferably made of mesh, leather, or suede material that stays tight around your feet while providing necessary support and thus are almost equally rough and durable.
But this single factor doesn’t make boxing shoes suitable for lifting weights. Even though, most boxing shoes provide you with more than enough grip but they won’t be able to offer lateral support which is quite important, especially for powerlifting.
That’s why if you try weight lifting in boxing shoes, you might expose yourself to a serious damage.
5. Padding
Boxing shoes mostly come with a thin padding layer because the main focus is to offer you grip and traction during your versatile footwork.
Boxing shoes with plenty of padding does not allow you to generate as much force as you could with a dedicated lifting shoe. That’s because, having a flexible bottom provides a room for your foot to wiggle around which directly affects your stability.
Also, having a soft cushioning around feets might cause the problem of uneven pressure when you try to push through your heels while lifting heavy weights.
This becomes even more important if you do lifting more than once a week. That’s why a good pair of shoes with a stiff and flat outersoul are required to make the overall lifting experience more protective and comfortable.
What Shoes are Best while Lifting?
Although weightlifting shoes does comes with a lots of benefits in terms of their support and protection, but if your budget does not allow you for a dedicated pair of shoes for lifting, I don’t think you should worry about them, especially if weightlifting is just one of the small part of your training.
Usually, wrestling shoes are considered as good alternative to lifting shoes. They not only offers you lot more flexibility as compared to boxing shoes but also has a tougher sole that stabilize you during weight lifting.
Can you Workout in Boxing Shoes?
You can do workout in boxing shoes as long as you’re inside the gym because they are more likely to get wear out due to extensive outdoor friction. Training shoes comes with the rigid build quality and offers you great support in terms of shock absorbance and better protection.
Should you Use Boxing Shoes for Lifting?
Though there are definitely quite a few similarities between boxing shoes and a dedicated lifting shoes, but that doesn’t make them suitable for weight lifting.
You should not do weightlifting in boxing shoes because they do not evenly distribute your weight and also restrict your ability to generate sufficient force. Lifting demands for extra protection and lateral support which can not fulfiled by a pair of boxing shoes.
While it’s not ideal, but it still makes sense for some people to use boxing shoes for casual weight lifting. But personally, I don’t recommend you to do so because both of these shoes are designed for completely different purposes.
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