The Monday Shakeout: Reflections on 2025 and Hopes for Footwear in 2026
By Matthew Klein
This week Matt talks about the big themes from 2025 in footwear and what he hopes for in 2026. While the footwear companies have already finished the designs of the footwear for 2026, there are lessons from 2025 that we hope both consumers and developers learn from.
2025 was a wild year for footwear. Super shoes got more aggressive (and expensive) than ever before. We had taller stack height shoes than ever before. Stability shoes got heavier, and all the lightweight ones were essentially discontinued. Yet, as some things continued to move forward at crazy speed, an air of change started to sweep through at the end of the year. This was evident at The Running Event (TRE), one of the largest running and outdoor footwear conventions in the world, debuted some interesting shoes. While I have yet to make it to a TRE, I (like everyone else) excitedly poured over all the social media influencers sharing products and stories. We at Doctors of Running were also fortunate enough to get to record some previews virtually with several companies and those videos should be out on Youtube shortly. This is a great time to reflect on what happened in 2025, prepare for 2026 and see what lessons we can learn and apply moving forward.
Reviewing 2025
One of the continued key themes from 2025 was that shoes continued to increase in stack height. Almost every shoe out there got taller. We saw new max stack height shoes from ASICS with the Megablast and Sonicblast, a complete and excellent update of the Salomon Aero Glide 3 (a favorite of mine this year), Nike trainers went nuts with the Vomero, Vomero Plus, Pegasus Plus and Vomero Premium hitting new heights, Mizuno somehow increased the Neo Vista 2's stack height, Brooks added stack height to most of their trainers and so on. Yet, these increases were not as drastic as in previous years. The biggest changes seemed to be the continued transition away from EVA foams, greater adoption of blends / PEBA foams and the increased use of APTU foams.
Racing shoes got lighter than ever, with many finally going under 6 oz (men's size 9), even for marathon racers. The racing shoes were the opposite of the training trend, where a few actually decreased in stack height, including the Nike Vaporfly 4, Adidas Adios 9, Nike Streakfly 2, etc. That didn't stop the foams from getting crazy, with Saucony proving that there are still ways to get softer with shoes like the Endorphin Elite 2. This has generally made shoes less stable, and we saw a complete loss of lightweight stability shoes. The Adidas Solution 2 sold out (version 3 is no longer lightweight), the Brooks Hyperion GTS series was officially discontinued and the Saucony Tempus 3 is only available in China. The lightest stability shoe on the US market is now the Hoka Arahi 8 at 9.3 oz. This has severely restricted the types of shoes runners with stability needs can use to run fast, as we also saw a decrease in stable neutral racers. Fortunately, the Saucony Endorphin Pro 4, Hoka Rocket X 3, and 361 Flame 4 exist, but that is all we have.
Shoe geometries are getting more aggressive and less stable, with things like the Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite 3 likely to become the norm. What that means for runners in 2026 and beyond remains to be seen. If the inherent instability that comes with those designs isn't adjusted for, I can guarantee I'm going to see a ton more running patients with posterior tibialis tendinopathy, piriformis/deep hip rotator irritations/tendinopathies, and medial tibia stress syndrome, among other pathologies.
What We Learned
The lessons from 2025 are that there are stack height limits, softer and more aggressive geometries are going to be inherently less stable, and the only way to get weight down is to lower the stack height AND experiment with new foams. There were a number of moderate stack height and lighter weight shoes shown off at TRE, with several new minimal shoes being debuted, companies like Mizuno debuting a superlight racing series (Hyperwarp) that do not have maximal stack heights and others like Brooks making more flexible shoes like the Glycerin Flex. A few companies are still pushing max stack height, with ASICS taking the Nimbus 28 and Superblast 3 even higher, but little word on what direction their other shoes are going. Companies like Saucony are attempting to balance out the softer and less stable shoes with the maintenance of the Saucony Endorphin Pro 5's geometry and the Endorphin Elite 3, looking more stable. Diadora was one of the few companies that was attempting to create a lighter stability shoe in the Vigore V, but time will tell how actually light it is. Hopefully, the Nike Structure Plus is good, but it is certainly not lightweight and just because it is lighter than the clunky Structure 26 does not make it a lighter-weight shoe (no matter how much ZoomX is in that shoe).
Looking Forward
What I hope brands don't forget as they continue with crazy designs is that they are developing these shoes for a variety of human beings, not robots with perfect form. No matter what AI tells you, acknowledgment of human variability is important, and not everyone is going to be able to or even should run in shoes that are at the extremes. I hope stack heights continue to stabilize and as companies think about dropping weight, they balance that with keeping shoes inherently stable while still being fun. I think I am going to give up on there ever being cool, lightweight stability shoes and certainly a stability racer is never going to appear. I just wish companies would just admit this rather than being in denial and trying to debut "light" stability shoes that are still over 10 ounces (it's honestly insulting). Maybe I'll finally give up and accept that you should just attempt to put orthotics in neutral shoes or I can start a series of videos on how to make your own arch support in shoes. I'm still hoping I'm wrong, but time will tell. As always, there is some exciting stuff for the new year. I just hope that the basics of biomechanics don't get lost in the hype.
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