Lifting Shoes vs Regular Sneakers: What you Need To Know 

I wear lifting shoes every training day other than for deadlifts. After trying it both ways, I much prefer no shoes when deadlifting. For me, nothing is more stable than my bare flat feet.

Spongy creates instability. This can be seen - albeit amplified - when physical therapists help very unstable people work on their balance by simply having them stand on a thick soft pad.

There are options in between "tennys" and elevated lifters. I compete in USAPL and amateur strongman, and manage to do it with good trainers.

When I first started lifting with my husband almost two years ago I would do it in bare feet. I have been reluctant to buy some shoes because I didn't think I would keep lifting but my husband keeps arguing with me that after 2 years I should get lifting shoes. I have really high arches and feet that point out like a duck and I have a tendency when I squat or deadlift really heavy that if my feet are not pointing out just right My knees cave in do you think lifting shoes would help with that?

Flat soles like Chuck Taylors or Vans are a good, cheap start for new lifters. Good on deadlift and press, stand on some plates if you need to for squats

i don't think these shoes are necessary for us that lift to be healthy, competitive lifting maybe a different story

Totally fine to lift without special shoes.

I have flat feet. I've long worn old school converse shoes for lifting. Seems to work for me.

This emphasis on wearing shoes for barbell training seems so inconsistent with the goals of barbell training. To strengthen the bones, joints, muscles and tendons in full range of motion movements using incremental increases in load and achieve a stress, recovery adaptation process to improve overall strength. The foot contains 26 bones, 33 joints, and over 100 tendons, muscles, and ligaments. The human foot is part of the kinetic chain when performing deadlifts, squats and presses. Constraining the natural movement of those 26 bones and 33 joints inside a shoe doesn’t seem like the best way to strengthen the foot and the ability of the foot to perform its many functions like balance and bipedal walking and running.

Once I started using lifting shoes, I couldn't go back. I use them for all lifts, not just squats.

Your ankles and feet are designed by nature to be shock absorbers to make humans good walkers and runners. But having shock absorbers when lifting is like having miniature bosu balls on your feet. Good lifting shoes basically defeat the shock absorbing feature of your ankles and feet. Good running shoes do pretty much the opposite.

You really only need lifting shoes if you have poor ankle mobility

Let's lift barefoot y'all

As if a SS squat wasn't short enough ROM, raise your heels excessively. If strength and longevity is the goal, then teaching people to further reduce dorsiflexion and overall hip/ankle mobility is antithetical 2:08 The quad involvement is a segmental proportions thing. Even a front squat with oly shoes will be disproportionately posterior dominant in someone that isn't built to stay more upright. You can maintain volitional control of torso angle if the weight is sufficiently submaximal, but near-maxes or maxes, your body is gonna end up wherever it has to be to lift the weight. Plus the SS squat is designed to remove the quads and even hips from the equation as much as possible 1:04 I don't know what this is, but it's not a The Press. Maybe it's Rippetoe's idea of a The Press, but this is just a dynamic lift that isn't useful if the goal is to build muscle. This kind of "upper-body-push press" using momentum and stretch reflex means that increasing the weight actually makes the lift _easier,_ which violates the most fundamental concept of strength training; progressive overload