Practicing any kind of sports activity can be expensive and required specific gear and accessories. If you’re wondering can you run 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 Running?
As a general rule, boxing shoes should not be used for running because they are usually lightweight and ensures flexibility on indoor platforms, whereas running shoes are made of relatively stronger material and comes with extra padding that absorb high-impact shocks and avoid potential injuries.
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 running:
Boxing Shoes Vs Running Shoes: 5 Main Differences
There are lots of aspects that make a pair of boxing shoes different from running shoes including grip, choice of materials, weight structure, support, and even design of the shoes, let’s start with the core differences:
1. Support System
Most of the running shoes come with a low-top variation that provides freedom to your legs while running. On the other hand, boxing shoes come with a high-top that provides extra support and protection to your ankles.
Considering the number of punching variations in boxing, continuous footwork drills, and pivoting variations, ankle support helps you to avoid sprain and injuries in that area, but that’s not the case with running.
Running shoes are designed to provide added flexibility and come with midsole cushioning and arch support to prevent overuse injuries and joint pain. That’s why boxing shoes are not great suited for running as it takes away the mobility of your feet.
2. Design of Shoes
Running shoes are designed to prevent injuries due to repetitive motion and come with specific design features that help you to easily move forward.
Also, most of the running shoes come with either a semi-rigid cup layered heel counter that provides support to your heels or have some sort of external wrap that performs a similar function.
Although these heel counters do not provide you with any kind of motion control but are proven to be helpful for stable landings and comfortable ankle motion while running.
On the flip side, boxing shoes are not designed to be used on rough surfaces and thus do not even come with enough cushioning for heel strikes. They are meant to be lightweight and might lead to a potential injury if used for running.
3. Balance
When running, you’re most like to run in the forward direction (unless you’re a freak 🙂 ) but during your boxing match, you need to continuously bounce around up and down.
That’s why boxing shoes come with rubber soles that ensure flexibility on indoor rings while allowing you to maneuver comfortably and find your balance point relatively quicker to play with different punching combinations.
But, running activities does not require a similar kind of balance. Most running shoes come with a groove under the ball of your foot that allows the shoe to flex and roll the way you’re foot wants to move while running.
It not only decrease your fatigue and pain after a run but also makes the overall running experience much more enjoyable for you.
4. Material Used
Boxing shoes are designed to be as lightweight as possible to allow for 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 protection.
On the other hand, running shoes are made up of rough, durable, and reliable materials like leather or synthetic fabrics that are strong enough to provide required support around pressure points and withstand heat and other weather conditions.
Boxing shoes usually provide you with better gripping power on the surface that allows for instant pivoting during fights. Whereas running shoes are supposed to provide shock absorption and should reduce the risk of injuries.
That’s why if you try to run in your boxing shoes, you’re most likely to wear them down pretty quickly and may not be able to get a comfortable running experience due to extensive outdoor friction.
5. Padding
Boxing shoes mostly come with a thin padding layer because the main focus is to offer you more lateral stability and traction during your footwork.
Whereas, almost all of the quality running shoes come with huge padding that again helps you to displace high-impact shocks from your legs and return the energy to propel you in the forward direction.
This padding becomes even more important for longer laps because it can be a quite taxing activity for your joints and proper cushioning is needed to protect your lower body and makes the overall running experience more comfortable.
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Can Boxing Shoes be Used for Running?
Boxing shoes should not be used for running outdoor because it’s more likely to wear them down. Running shoes comes with the different build quality and offers you great support in terms of shock absorbance and stable landing.
Boxing shoes are meant to be used on indoor platforms and are designed by keeping the needs of a boxer in mind. Although boxing shoes are relatively more lightweight and offer you more flexibility during movement but lack required support and protection.
While it’s not ideal, it makes sense for some people to use boxing shoes for small distance runs. 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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