Indoor soccer shoes for narrow but wide feet

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8/11/15
The new Champion brand 'Gusto' model shoes are fabulously comfortable, feel like the best shoes I ever had. They may be cheap and lacking in longevity but thats the way to go, because it gives you a welcome chance to make small adjustments in size when you get the next pair of shoes. When I walk outside my feet don't hurt for the first 1000 yards anymore. When I walk up the stairs, my feet don't hurt anymore. My calves don't hurt anymore because the pain in the feet is what led to the pain in the calves. Its such a weird feeling, its as if I'd forgotten what its like to to these things painlessly. I'd been mystified as to why, even after training hard to become fit doing things with the feet, there would be pain doing simple stuff like walking up the stairs.

I never experienced foot/calf pain until years after college, never was finicky about shoes. But I now weigh 50 lbs more than I did then when I weighed approx 140 lbs. Since I'm much faster now, the PSI type pressure hitting my feet when I run is greater than it used to be. I officially measure at size 10.5, width C narrow, and low-arched but not flat footed. Loosening up the shoelaces always reduced the pain. The confusion lay in the fact that I am very wide (7.4 cm)  at the point where the foot is the narrowest, yet narrow (9.4 cm) at the ball of the foot where the foot is the widest.

One woman had told me I had 'Plantar Fasciitis', but judging from what I knew re the are effected by such I thought she was wrong. Then a Y staffer thought I needed to roll the soles of my feet over things like big beer cans. I kept blaming the problem on a lack of conditioning and aging.

Now I understand, important points to remember: 1) as our bodies develop, our tolerance for misfit shoes can decrease; 2) looking at shoes, the officially designated width of the shoe means little, one needs to measure the shoe width at the base of the toes and at the narrowest part of the shoe; 3) measuring one's own feet, the official width measurement derived from the width of the foot at base of the toes means little, one also needs to know the width of the foot at the point where the f oot is the narrowest; 4: one needs to outline one's foot with a perpendicular pencil and then take measurements adjusting for the width of the pencil;

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8/2/15
My soccer shoes had not worn out but I had to get new ones. Because after 6 minutes running around on the indoor soccer court, the pain in the soles of my feet and my calves became debilitating. Whichever pair of shoes I tried for tennis or running, pain in the soles of the feet and the calves became disruptive. This problem had been going on for years. So I decided to pay serious attention to it, and buy a new pair of shoes. People were developing the misconception that I am a sluggish person who lacks energy.

So I measured my feet: 28 cm long, 9.7 cm wide at the ball of the foot the widest point, 8.4 cm wide at the midpoint between heel and toe; 7.4 cm wide at the narrowest point. Both feet were the same.

I found out that this classified me as a "narrow", size-C in width, which I could not understand, because I had noted that the pain in the feet/calves decreased whenever I loosened up the shoelaces as much as possible.

So off I went to the Arsenal & Watertown malls in Watertown to buy a pair of shoes to be used for indoor soccer. Shoes that work for indoor soccer can be used for tennis running basketball, but shoes that work for tennis running & basketball don't necessarily work for indoor soccer, because I play an aerial-game, & I need a low toe area so that I can flip the soccer ball into the air.

Looking at the shows featuring low-toes, I discovered that they were all too narrow for me at the longitudinal midpoint. Some shoes were labeled 'W' or '4E' indicating that they were extra-wide to some extent. I found that the ones labeled 'W' were too narrow at the longitudinal midpoint, and the ones labeled 4E were too wide at the ball of the foot point.

As I continued with the search, my focus shifted to finding shoes that were wide enough at the point where the foot is narrowest; seemed less than 5% of the shoes satisfied this criteria.

At Payless Shoes in the Watertown Mall, I told Joel, the salesman, that I was looking for wide shoes. Right away, displaying competence, he pointed me at the Champion 'Gustos'.  I was suprised because the shoes were not labeled 'wide'. He said they were shoes that were wide in their medium-width version. The Gustos were 7.4 cm wide at the narrowest point, exact same width as my feet at their narrowest point; they cost $25.

Moving on to the Arsenal Mall across the street, at the Reebok outlet I found two low-toed shoes that were approx wide enough at the narrowest point: the Reebok Zquick TR 2.0 (on clearance at $50, 7.0 cm wide at narrowest point, not labeled as 'wide'), & the Reebok Royal Simple (on clearance at $30, 7.0 cm wide at narrowest point, not labeled as 'wide'). Also somewhere I found the Nike 'Flex Experience', size 4E, which was approx wide enough at the narrowest point, low-toed, but which cost $65.

In the end I bought the Champion brand 'Gustos', size 11, because though I am a size 10.5, the Gustos run a half-size larger than normal. This because they were 7.4 cm wide at the narrowest point. But when I got home I was thinking, that maybe I should have bought one of the Reeboks because they had a lower toe.

Points to remember:

1. The fact that technically speaking one's feet are 'narrow' at the ball of the foot point is deceptive. The width at the ball of the foot is not the only width that should be taken into account. Previously I had gladly bought shoes without considering their width, simply because officially speaking, my feet are 'narrow'; but they ended up being a source of much torment.

2. Whether or not a shoe is officially labeled as an 'indoor soccer shoe', is beside the point. Any shoe that resembles an indoor soccer shoe and has a low front toe will do.

3. The fact that a shoe is inexpensive and has a reputation for not lasting, is not necessarily a negative. When finding a shoe that fits is tricky, a cheap shoe that doesn't last, could be an advantage.

4. Whether a shoe is labeled as 'wide' is not the issue. Some shoes are wide without being labeled as wide.

5. It can be dangerous to buy shoes online through the internet, especially when you don't know what the perfect brand/model is for you. Once I bought a soccer-ball online: it finally arrived very late, the company in Texas did not respond to emails, and when I got the ball, it did not hold air for more than a few minutes (good ol' Texas boys). The width of the shoe at various longitudinal points cannot be determined via the internet. One can end up surprised that a certain brand runs a half-size larger.

Relevant Links:

Wide Soccer Cleats
Everything But Nike: Champion Gusto Runner
Mens Gusto Runner | Champion | Payless Shoes
Amazon.com: Champion Men's Gusto Runner: Shoes

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