Tag: court shoes footer

Posted on by

Downside to Cheap Court Shoes

Asics Gel-Upcourt 2 GS

ASICS GEL-UPCOURT 6490At least once a week, we see adult men coming into our store to purchase Asics Gel-Upcourt court shoes. Everytime this happens, we issue a standard warning to buyers. While these shoes are attractively priced, there are good reasons why they are priced so unusually low.

Every court shoe company makes at least one model called a transitional model. They don’t always call them “transitional” models. Sometimes they call them “starter shoes” or “entry level shoes” or even “base models”, but regardless of what they call them, these shoes are all in the same category. They are lower quality shoes designed specifically for young players who will likely outgrow their shoes before they have a chance to wear them out.

Budget grade shoes like these are Godsend for some parents who have kids in short athletic programs and who require a specialized pair of shoes specifically for that activity. They know their child will only be wearing these shoes for a short period of time — perhaps only six or eight weeks — so they don’t want to buy something top-of-the-line. They know that even if their child loves the sport, by the time the calendar rolls around to the start time for that sport again next year, their child will have outgrown the shoes they purchased this year. So at best, these shoes will become hand-me-downs.

While awesome for parents of growing teens, budget shoes like these are problematic for a business like ours because adults who don’t know any better see that these shoes come in adult sizes (just like teen feet do) and think that they are a great deal for adults, too. Unforunately, shoes in this category are not built to last. They are not designed to worn over the long haul. So adults who buy them end up being disappointed. Instead of getting a good deal, they get a pair of shoes from which they can’t get their money’s worth.

Rarely is it a good idea for adults to buy budget shoes. Generally speaking budget athletic shoes are a bad deal that buyers end up regretting. In fact, the only time it makes sense to buy budget shoes is when you are trying a sport for the very first time. If chances are good that you will not be playing the sport eight weeks later, then it makes sense to buy shoes that are designed to last a short period of time. If, however, there is a good chance that you will be using the shoes for a extended period of time, then it makes sense to invest in a recreational grade shoe that is built to stand up to athletic punishment.

As with anything else in life, you get what you pay for. Court shoes that are designed for long term use cost more than court shoes that are designed for short term use. So if you buy a cheap pair of shoes, you should expect them to last a short period of time.

Posted on by

Extra Wide Pickleball Shoes For Men

YONEX POWER CUSHION 65Z WIDE

Racquet Network carries Calgary’s largest selection of extra wide pickleball shoes for men and women. In fact, we have the largest selection of court shoes of all kinds. Come in for a fitting with our experts and leave with the perfect fit for your feet. We are open 7 days a week. Monday to Friday 11:00am to 8:00pm. Saturday and Sunday 11:00am to 5:00pm.

Shoe Selector For a full list of shoes in this category, please check out our ONLINE SHOE SELECTOR. You can sort by sport, gender, brand, size, width and price.

Men’s Extra Wide Pickleball Shoes

Shoe Selector For a full list of shoes in this category, please check out our ONLINE SHOE SELECTOR. You can sort by sport, gender, brand, size, width and price.
Posted on by

Junior Court Shoes

YONEX SHB 35 WHITE ORANGE

Racquet Network carries Calgary’s largest selection of junior court shoes shoes. In fact, we have the largest selection of court shoes of all kinds. Come in for a fitting with our experts and leave with the perfect fit for your feet. We are open 7 days a week. Monday to Friday 11:00am to 8:00pm. Saturday and Sunday 11:00am to 5:00pm.

Shoe Selector For a full list of shoes in this category, please check out our ONLINE SHOE SELECTOR. You can sort by sport, gender, brand, size, width and price.

Junior Court Shoes

Shoe Selector For a full list of shoes in this category, please check out our ONLINE SHOE SELECTOR. You can sort by sport, gender, brand, size, width and price.
Posted on by

Help! My Toenails are Turning Black

Are one or more of your toenails turning black? Yes. Then your shoes are too small. Specifically, your shoes are too short for court sports.

Here at Racquet Network, our expert staff are constantly astonished at the number of stubborn people who come into our store to buy new shoes because the shoes they are wearing are damaging their feet and who end up buying exactly the same size, expecting a different result.

Here is how a typical conversation with one of these customer’s goes …

Staff: “Hi there. How can I help you?”

Customer: “I need some new shoes. The shoes I have are too small. They are making my toenails turn black.”

Staff: “Oh no. That’s not good. What size are they?”

Customer: “They are size 9.”

Staff: “OK. So would you like to try on something in a size 10?”

Customer: “No. Size 10 is too big. I wear a size 9.”

Staff: “I’m sorry. I must have misunderstood. I thought you said your size 9 shoes were causing your toenails to turn black.”

Customer: “Well these ones are. But I just need a different size 9. I am always a size 9.”

It is never good when a fitting starts this way, but this is exactly the way many fittings start. The customer has a number in their head and no amount of expert advice or actual evidence will sway them. So, they end up leaving with the wrong size in spite of our best efforts to convince them otherwise.

Fathers of teen-aged daughters can be especially frustrating for our shoe experts. Some of them seem to think that their daughters are less attractive if they wear shoes that actually fit, so they buy shoes that are too small and that end up causing injuries.

This not a joke. It’s not just a story we tell. This actually happens. We have seen teenaged girls leave our store in tears because they know that the shoes their fathers are buying for them are too small and will make their toenails fall off. We have had angry fathers storm out of the store because we demonstrated to them that their daughter’s feet are a size and half bigger than they used to be.

We’re not sure why but men in general rarely seem to know their shoe size. “What size are you?” we will often ask. “Size 10,” guys will say. “What size are those?” we ask, pointing at the shoes on their feet. When we check, we usually find out they are not even close to what they thought they were wearing.

Racquet Network staff are trained to fit people for court shoes. Our staff know that court shoes have to be longer than walking-around-shoes because players have to stop suddenly and change direction. When shoes are too short for this, toes bang against the end of the shoe causing toenails to blacken and fall off.

Our staff also understand that width is important. When a player’s feet are wider than the platform of the shoes they are wearing, they are prone to specific types of injuries that can lead to arthritis later in life.

Our experts want to see all customers leave our store with shoes that fit. They don’t have any preconceived ideas about that size the customer should wear or what size the customer (or their father) might want to wear. They only thing they are concerned about is what actually fits. For that to happen, the shoe must be long enough and it must be wide enough.

At the end of the day, though, they can’t force anybody to buy the right size. So they will always have to deal with the disappointment of customers who stubbornly resist their best advice and insist on buying shoes that are too short or too narrow just because that is the size they always buy.

Posted on by

How to Pick Court Shoes

YONEX POWER CUSHION AERUS 3R COURT SHOE BLACK

Just about every day, somebody who comes into our store to buy court shoes spends more time looking in the mirror than they do listening to our experts about court shoes. This is unfortunate. Court shoes are not about fashion. They are about performance. With that in mind, these are what your priorities should be when shopping for court shoes.

#1 Traction

Without question, the single most important factor to consider when purchasing a court shoe is traction. Court sports require sudden changes in direction. Sudden changes in direction require one thing above all else: traction. Mess this up and you could get seriously hurt.

Traction is also the most important consideration for our court shoe buyer. He understands that our players need shoes with excellent traction. So he examines every shoe we purchase carefully to ensure that it will serve our players well. If the brand or the model don’t offer sufficient traction, we don’t carry it.

#2 Fit

It may surprise you to learn that fit is actually a more flexible standard than most people think. In fact, most modern court shoes are designed in a way that permits players to wear their actual size or even one half-size bigger. When problems start to occur is when players try (and about half of our customers do) to cram their feet into shoes that are too narrow or too short for their feet.

Shoes are not skates. The rule is this: if you want to avoid foot problems when you are old, wear shoes that fit when you are young. Your toes cannot be crowded; they have to have room to move up and down and even spread out a little inside your shoe. Also important: your circulation should not be cut off, especially on the top of your foot. If you crank your laces like you do when you are tying skates or ski boots, you are cutting off circulation to your feet. A shoe should fit like a winter glove, not a pair of yoga pants.

#3 Function

Most court shoes are multi-functional. For example, badminton shoes can work for squash, volleyball, tennis or pickleball. However, not all court shoes work well for all sports. For example, there are almost no Mizuno volleyball shoes that our experts would recommend to squash, badminton or pickleball players.

In order to figure out which shoes are right for your sport, you really need to ask our experts. Once you pose the initial question, they will ask you a series of questions back. Once they have your answers, they will be able to help you narrow down your choices.

#4 Brand

Brand is almost, but not entirely, irrelevant when it comes to choosing court shoes. “Almost” because there are a few brands that do not make court shoes, or if they do, do not make them very well.

Our expert advice to customers is to ignore brand completely. The reason for this is simple. Too many customers get tunnel vision when it comes to brands. As a result, they end up buying shoes with inferior traction or shoes that don’t fit right or don’t function properly just because they want a particular brand. Teens and tweens are the worst for this. All too often, their top priority in court shoes is brand — not traction, not fit, not function.

#5 Style

Customers in our store often have the luxury of choice when it comes to style. Unless their feet are unusually large or unusually small, we will usually have plenty of shoes in stock that offer the right amount of traction in the right size and for the right sport. After that, it becomes a matter of choosing brands or styles to help narrow down their choices.

Unfortunately, customers with wide feet or other special needs, will never have the same style selection available to customers with “normal” feet. Wide court shoes are extremely hard to find and when our buyer does find them, they are usually bland. So if you have wide feet, focus on traction, fit and function only. Forget about brand and style. Those shouldn’t matter to you at all.