The BEST Shoes For People With WIDE Feet – 2024

Last updated on August 29th, 2024 at 01:43 pm

Most shoes on the market are made for people with average feet. But what do you do if you have WIDE feet. If you are like me, you struggle for decades trying to find a shoe that fits, is affordable, aesthetic, and lasts. Today, I’ll share with you my struggles and the BEST Shoes For People With WIDE Feet.

Shoes For Regular People And Their Regular Feet

Today, if I’m looking for a shoe recommendation for a NORMAL human being, I’m going with As Many Reviews As Possible. He might own every pair of shoes made in the last decade. And he has an objective eye about shoes I personally hope to never acquire. This article will likely be the ONLY shoe review I ever do (unless they stop making them or I find a truly wide appropriate lifter). So keep that in mind as we go.

Why Wide Shoes

I put a mile a day on my feet, minimum, walking my dog. Most days I’m closer to two miles just around the neighborhood, let alone if I’m coaching soccer/basketball, or we go on a hike or something. Plus I ride my bike every morning. Every single step, every single peddle, everything involves your feet.

If you have messed up, locked up, weak feet, you are likely to have ankle problems, knee problems, hip problems, and more. After I fractured my calcaneus bone (the heel) in my left foot, I was left lopsided for multiple years. Until I got a proper heel lift, it translated into problems all the way up into my neck that I still deal with and have to address.

All of this adds up to the idea that mistreating your feet with tightly crammed shoes is very likely a problem that will cause upstream issues in a number of ways. Whether you are a lifter like myself, or just a person who doesn’t want to fall apart as they get older, proper shoe selection can be an important part of the puzzle. But for those of us with wide feet, it can be extra difficult. We can’t just grab any shoe out there.

Before We Proceed

There are a lot of crazy recommendations out there around barefoot, wide, minimilast shoes. Even going as far as saying to go without shoes for a lot of exercise. First, like with anything, don’t go from a big heel to nothing in a day. That is how you snap an achilles tendon. Take your time and prepare your feet for the new sensation of wider shoes with less overall support.

I’m also not saying that wearing these shoes are going to magically fix all of your ailments. They are simply a piece to the puzzle. Good movement patterns, strengthening the right things, stretching the other things, and in general being a well oiled machine is a comprehensive plan not solved by a simple Amazon purchase.

But if you are like me, and have been wearing these types of shoes for awhile but you simply need a good recommendation on the BEST wide shoes for people with ACTUAL wide feet… lets dig in.

History With Wide Shoes

I’ve worn Nike Frees and a number of New Balance Minimus styles. With both I found that their original designs were great, but as they got “smarter” in their builds, the shoes got worse. The Minimus was my go-to shoe for several years (black and red shoe below), until they outright made it a completely different shoe (black and white shoe below). It no longer was WIDE enough. The shoes went from being super minimalist, to some mashed up Crossfit attempt at a shoe. Mind you, not hate towards Crossfit, just that the shoes transformed to follow the Nike Metcon style and shape. This wasn’t what I bought them for.

I wore the OluKai Nohea Moku for several rounds, and still think these are one of the most comfortable and aesthetic WIDE shoes available. But they didn’t last. And at $120 a pair, I was burning through over $300 in shoes a year. The most frustrating thing was that 99% of the shoe was fine, but you’d have a hole in the toe or the stitching would fall apart. They have a good return window, but not enough to continue to repeat the process over and over.

I owned two or three pairs of the Strike MVMT shoes. I honestly REALLY liked these shoes. They fit well, they were SUPER good looking, but they didn’t last at all. I burnt through three pairs in well under a year. Again, at over $100 a piece, this was ROUGH.

I even owned a pair of NOBULLs WAY before they were big enough to sponsor the Crossfit games. We are talking when they had one color option available at a time in one design and style. I HATED them. They were rugged, looked solid, but fit like trash. My wife really enjoyed her pair, but she is a normal human being.

The next pair of shoes, which I actually still wear and use for certain occasions, was the WHITIN Men’s Minimalist Barefoot shoes. These were one of the first truly wide shoes I had found in quite some time. Plus the material was very forgiving, so you had plenty of room to move freely. The downside is that they look like water shoes, because they basically are water shoes. I wear them during the rainy times of the year to walk my dog, as well as on the soccer field when they’ve over watered the field.

But these things are one of the least aesthetic shoes on the market. To add to that, they have no laces. The strap is good for SOME use, but will break eventually. I’ve broken multiple straps. So not great for a gym shoe.

Amongst those purchases I tried others that I can’t find the specific names for at this point, some I wore for a bit and had similar problems (falling apart, too expensive, etc.). Some I returned the very first day (too tight). Ultimately, I just never found my Goldilocks “just right” shoe.

Struggles With WIDE Shoes ACTUALLY Being Wide

Over the years I reached out to a number of companies and I’ve found that most shoes that claim to be wide, are simply wider than normal shoes… they aren’t actually wide enough to fit WIDE feet. I get it, you make more money appealing to the masses than the niche. Just frustrating, and it made me cautious.

I contacted VIVO barefoot and they never provided actual measurements of their shoes. Their team was friendly, but I’ve had too many experiences that didn’t work out for me to shell out $150 for a pair of shoes that doesn’t fit.

I purchased a pair of MAXbarbell Deadlift Slippers, after talking directly to the owner about them being wide. They never made it onto my foot.

Even shoes made by lifters like the BearFoot shoes that partner with Duffin and the Kabuki team. The shoes are wide enough for the average person to feel free, but not for us wide footed monsters. Then TYR launched their wide heeled lifter, partnered with Squat University, and I thought “Hurray!” But after talking with As Many Reviews As Possible, he confirmed that the shoe was barely wider than a traditional lifter.

Still no Goldilocks shoe.

My Criteria For Wide Shoes

They Must Be WIDE

Absolutely critical, they must be WIDE. Not wide enough for normal feet to move around. Wide enough for wide feet to move around. This is the first and most crucial piece to the puzzle. You can see above that the average foot is 102 mm in width. While what they consider to be wide feet is a full 8mm wider, which for us Americans is over 1/4 of an inch. That is a pretty big difference. Then you have me who clocks in at an easy 111mm, and you can see where I start to have some problems fitting into shoes made for normal people.

Two Out Of The Three

Then I have three more criteria. My shoes should check at least two of these three boxes.

• Affordable – A lot of wide shoes break the bank clocking in at well over $100 a pair
• Aesthetic – For some reason wide shoes often come in hideous designs
• Durable – The thin sole in minimalist shoes often breaks down FAST

I’m alright with having to replace my shoes every six months if they are cheap and aesthetic. I’m ok with my shoes being ugly if they are cheap and last forever. And I can deal with my shoes being a little on the pricey side if they look great and last.

I’ll add that I am 6ft and ~250lbs, which definitely adds to the struggles of a shoe. Someone that weighs 150lbs is simply going to put less strain on their shoes than I do. #BigHumanProblems

What Are the BEST Shoes For People With WIDE Feet?

Alright, above I listed the criteria that my shoes need to check. Wide, with two out of the three other options. You know what though, the shoes I wear today for the majority of my day, every day, actually check all the boxes. The WHITIN Men’s Wide Minimalist Barefoot Sneakers are the best wide shoes for wide feet I’ve ever owned, and do everything I’d want in a shoe.

Key Note – I tend to buy 11.5 EE shoes. I buy size 11 for these, and they work well.

Wide

The WHITINs clock in at 122mm on the outside width. The material clocks in at just under 5mm a side. So you have about 112mm of inside room to play with.

Now what isn’t pictured here is that the shoes are so accomodating, that I can easily get them up to 140mm wide with just a little pressure to the sides. This means we have plenty of wiggle room. And for those of us that really don’t like feeling constricted, the laces and overall design is extremely loose in the best way possible. I can wear these as slip ons, or tighten them down for something where I need my shoes to stick on.

Check!

Affordable

I first purchased these shoes back in October of 2020 and they were $32.99 before tax. I just purchased a new pair in December of 2023, and they are $41.99 plus tax. While that roughly 30% price increase isn’t fun, it does align with the cost increase of everything else post-pandemic. Plus, we are still talking under $50 for a pair of shoes.

Check!

Aesthetic

I like a simple aesthetic. Clean, basic, nothing fancy. I find for my needs, that this works well. They can be worn in the gym, on a walk, or to the grocery store. I can wear them with gym shorts, cargo shorts, jeans, and more. The fact that I can grab a pair in 8+ colors is a nice touch as well, so if I decided to get fancy with my color combinations I could make that happen.

Compared to the previous selection of Vibram Five Finger shoes that were never a solid choice, these are welcomed. My wife doesn’t want to walk on the opposite side of the street as me. Now you aren’t going to win any awards for the look of these, but I’ve never had anyone specifically call them out for being anything but “shoes”.

Check!

Durable

I mentioned above that I put miles on my shoes each day. I also wear these shoes during my workouts which include dragging a sled, doing 500lb+ weighted carries, and deadlifting over 600lbs.

I also wear them on the basketball court, and 99% of the time on the soccer field, plus during my bike rides. Here are the dates of my repeat purchases:

• October 31st, 2020
• November 4th, 2022
• April 30th, 2023
• December 20th, 2023

The most recent purchase in December of 2023 is simply a pre-cautionary purchase. My shoes are still in tact, still working, and have no holes or other issues. I simply ordered a pair as I know they are on their way out in the nearish future (when they do kick the bucket, I’ll update this article).

In these pictures I did ZERO cleaning, alternations, nothing. These are fresh from the shoe closet after a day of wearing and abusing. You can see that the sides show a little wear and fraying, and the underside shows some wear on the toe pad. The toe pad is almost certainly going to be what breaks through FIRST.

You can see my first pair lasted a full two years. This is likely because I was still heavily wearing the original WHITIN minimalist shoes I mentioned. Once I transitioned to these are my main shoes, you can see that the life span is somewhere around 8 months or so, maybe a little more. If you are doing a bit less walking and craziness than I am, you might exceed a full year on your shoes. Which again, at under $50 a pair is absurd.

Update

My pair of WHITIN minimalist shoes finally died on me. You can see in the above picture that the front part of the sole is detaching from the upper portion of the shoe. On the bottom we are a few days away from a hole in the bottom of the shoe. They officially were retired on March 3rd, 2024. They were purchased on April 30th, 2023.

I could have worn these a few more weeks and really grasped at some extra life to hit that one year mark, but I think this is a realistic ending point. Remember that I use these as my EVERYTHING shoe. Weighted carries, sled work, basketball, and more. They’ve even been through the drying machine a few times in the past year after being worn during rainy days.

Other Offerings From WHITIN

As I mentioned, I wear the water shoe style from them, but I also own one other shoe from WHITIN. The WHITIN Men’s Wide Canvas Barefoot Sneakers. I do not recommend these. The way they sewed that front top section below the laces, that pairs with the laces themselves, REALLY constricts the width of the shoe. These are the same size 11 as my other shoe, and they fit no where near the same. These get VERY little use.

So pay close attention to the shoes from them. Not all are created equal. That said, WHITIN offers everything from kids shoes, trail shoes, house slippers, and more. So you might find a gem I haven’t found yet.

What About Socks?

While this is a SHOE review, I’d feel weird not mentioning socks. In the same issue as wide shoes, I have struggled with socks. Wrong fit, too expensive, break down fast. I’ve tried toe socks, thin socks, thick socks. I wore Gold Toe socks for awhile, but they were expensive and didn’t last. My wife and my mom have had great success wearing Bombas for years. I burnt through two DOZEN pairs in under a year and had to use my warranty twice before it ran out.

My current go to, which have lasted longer than anything else I’ve ever worn, fit well (as in, don’t take up too much space in my shoe), and aren’t breaking the bank, are the Saucony Men’s Multi-Pack Mesh Ventilating Comfort Fit Performance No-Show Socks.

I bought two sets of 6 in May of 2023 and I have only thrown one pair away so far. The elastic wore out and they kept slipping off. Otherwise, these get the same abuse as my shoes in terms of mileage, workouts, and more. And they are still holding up well.

When they finally start to fall apart, I’ll come back and add some details so we have an official timeline here. But almost 8 full months of regular use and we are looking pretty dang good especially at that price. $14.99 currently for a set of 6 pairs, compared to $13 PER PAIR for the Bombas I wore that weren’t half as good.

Update

I had to put in a new order on March 25th, 2024 for two more packs of socks. I still have about half of the original order, so the majority lasted just shy of a year, with a few exceeding that. Again, if you aren’t 260lbs and putting a mile or two a day plus workouts in on your socks, you might get much more. But for less than $30 for a 12 pack, I’ll take it. They even have an 18 pack for $39 as of posting this.

Wrap Up On the WHITIN Men’s Wide Minimalist Barefoot Sneakers

If you are like me and have wide feet, I feel your pain. Literally. The struggle is real. But luckily, over the course of the last decade or so, more focus has been placed on quality shoes. Unfortunately, most of that is for people with normal feet. But at least we have one good option that checks all the boxes.

💲Want a pair of WHITIN Men’s Wide Minimalist Barefoot Sneakers for yourself? Use this link.

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