Superfeet Green Insoles
January 27, 2008
Superfeet. Super? Well….
For my daily caveat, allow me to state that I’ve used Superfeet insoles for years. YEARS. They are a staple of most of my boots. Usually, the first thing I do when I get new boots is to put Superfeet insoles into them to make them better.
However, I use Superfeet not because I think they’re the best, but because I think they’re better than what most boots come with. Yes, I’m settling. Then again, it’s not as if this is a lifetime commitment. I can quit this relationship anytime, so I continue to brazenly jump from footbed to footbed, always practicing safe – lacing? Er.
As footbeds go, they are fairly supportive, and take up a little volume in the footwear, which is nice when dealing with “unisex” or men’s boots that tend to be too roomy for women’s slender and delicate feet (ha! but seriously, they are too roomy). That said, Superfeet are made for people who overpronate. Look, the overpronating thing – maybe a bunch of you really do have this problem. Maybe all the buzz and hype and the fact that I can’t walk into a running shoe store and look at shoes without a sales-type pouncing on me and declaring with confident glee, “You an overpronator?” isn’t simply a result of the running shoe media equivalent to the Atkins diet. But look, manufacturers. NOT EVERYONE IS AN OVERPRONATOR. I, in fact, underpronate. I’ve got arches that hobbits can walk under, and I ask you, where are the footbeds for me? Superfeet’s product pamphlet states that their insoles are made primarily for those who overpronate. Sigh. That would be OK, if they had an option for those who don’t overpronate; those with normal feet or high arches or underpronating feet. But they don’t, so my poor overstressed arches have to make do with the same insoles that serve the billions and billions of overpronators out there, and how exactly does one insole solve two completely opposite problems?
I have read with significant skepticism all the stories on Superfeet’s web site from customers who allegedly couldn’t walk without falling to their knees in agony until angels from on high brought them Superfeet insoles, which have changed their lives and allowed them to immediately compete in ultramarathons without getting sore feet or blisters. I can’t imagine these insoles making that much of a difference. Those people must really have been in bad shape before trying Superfeet, and by that I mean they probably didn’t have any shoes at all. Yes, I have once again lapsed into my old standby of sarcastic hyperbole to get my point across. I don’t mean to be overly harsh or critical; Superfeet insoles don’t seem to cause me any problems that I wouldn’t have otherwise, and in most cases they seem to improve matters when compared to the manufacturer’s insoles that come with most boots. I even recommend them to my friends (especially those who OVERPRONATE). So, I continue to use the Superfeet, and continue to refer to them in my mind as “OKfeet” and “BetterThanNothingfeet.” To be truly Super, they’ll have to work a little harder.
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