Foot Shape and Climbing Shoes

Foot Shapes

What shoes fit which foot shapes would be some valuable information - so of course no one uses it when describing their shoe models.

I'm the middle one and lose my middle toenail a lot :)

Cool! I'm the third one.

Chris Rice wrote: What shoes fit which foot shapes would be some valuable information - so of course no one uses it when describing their shoe models.

This is more important than most people think it is. I'm the first one, which means that typically La Sportiva fit best. That is, until the new Five Ten Quantum came out. It seems Tommy Caldwell and Alex Huber both have feet shaped like mine. I've found that people with the 2nd and 3rd foot shapes fit Five Ten really well.

You also need to take in to account foot volume and heel size. Most Sportivas fit my foot amazingly from the arch forward, but the heel is always lacking. On the flip side, FiveTen fit my heels real well but not so much in the toes.

These are two oversimplified - I'm #1, but LS shoes are a hard fit - just too long. Maybe #1 but much, much wider. Scarpa Vapor V's for the win.

The foot is three-dimensional, and other major points this does cover is heal size and arch.

LongRanger wrote:These are two oversimplified - I'm #1, but LS shoes are a hard fit - just too long. Maybe #1 but much, much wider. Scarpa Vapor V's for the win. The foot is three-dimensional, and other major points this does cover is heal size and arch.

Very true - fitting is always complex but toe shape is something we can "see" and at least have a starting point.

I think no one uses them because no one can pronounce them

Ryan Hamilton wrote: I've found that people with the 2nd and 3rd foot shapes fit Five Ten really well.

I have the 3rd foot shape and I have yet to find a single 5.10 shoe that fits in the last 5 years. All the recent 5.10 lasts seem to at the very minimum expect the 2nd toe to be equal but not longer than the great toe.

The 3rd type is commonly referred to as "Morton's toe" or "Roman toe" in English. The more classic "symmetrical" toe box fits this foot shape the best in my experience, which unfortunately is a very small number of shoes in today's market. Other than very entry level shoes that do not perform well (i.e. MadRock Phoenix), the only shoes I'm currently aware of are the Mythos. Evolv used to make the DeMorto (2 versions, both now discontinued) and the Optimus Prime (also discontinued). For performance downturned shoe, the Optimus Prime was the only shoe I know of. Some of the smaller Euro brands may have a symmetric shoe but I'm not super familiar with them.

If anyone knows of more symmetrical toe box shoes, please do chime in.

you can also use
1 - egyptian
2 - peasants foot
3 - mortons toe

I'm 2 and I've had terrible luck finding shoes which fit my toes. I can normally get a model where the rest of the foot (forefoot, heel, arch) fits fairly well, but my only solution for agro shoes has been soft leather and downsizing to get the toes to fit.
anyone with a 2 foot have some shoe beta?

Max Forbes wrote:I think no one uses them because no one can pronounce them

They're really easy to pronounce in English, rather than German: Egyptian, Roman, and Greek.

I have the Greek toe and a super narrow heel compared to my forefoot. Anyone have the same shape and shoe beta for it?

One would think that climbing shoe companies would base their lasts off of these 3 foot structures, yet it seems, at least in the five ten line, that the main goal is to make different lasts widely different sizes. fyi I wear a 9 in verdes and couldn't make a 10.5 in the quantums work. oh i should add the purple quantums, as it seems five ten also likes to just recycle through as many names and ideas possible.

Hmm. Can't say that I've ever actually noticed a difference with this...I think my 2nd toe just gets a little more curled. I find overall foot volume and heel/forefoot fit to be much more important.

Linnaeus wrote: I have the 3rd foot shape and I have yet to find a single 5.10 shoe that fits in the last 5 years. All the recent 5.10 lasts seem to at the very minimum expect the 2nd toe to be equal but not longer than the great toe. The 3rd type is commonly referred to as "Morton's toe" or "Roman toe" in English. The more classic "symmetrical" toe box fits this foot shape the best in my experience, which unfortunately is a very small number of shoes in today's market. Other than very entry level shoes that do not perform well (i.e. MadRock Pheonix), the only shoes I'm currently aware of are the Mythos. Evolv used to make the DeMorto (2 versions, both now discontinued) and the Optimus Prime (also discontinued). For performance downturned shoe, the Optimus Prime was the only shoe I know of. Some of the smaller Euro brands may have a symmetric shoe but I'm not super familiar with them. If anyone knows of more symmetrical toe box shoes, please do chime in.

I'm 3 (Morton's toe). I use the Evolv Astroman shoe and find it excellent.

I'm a #1 with wide, meaty but somehow low-volume feet. It seems like my big toe is always too curled with dead space in front of my next two toes and no Velcro can cinch tight enough. Any freaks like me out there?

Pete Spri wrote: I'm 3 (Morton's toe). I use the Evolv Astroman shoe and find it excellent.

I've tried it, unfortunately I found it to run small and the size 48 didn't even come close to fitting my feet. It is semi-symmetrical; not as symmetric as a Mythos or DeMortoe. I was really hoping it would work.

daisy s wrote:I have the Greek toe and a super narrow heel compared to my forefoot. Anyone have the same shape and shoe beta for it?

Same here - Greek (Morton) toes, narrow heel. The Mythos fits great after it's broken in, but that's because the leather stretches to fit almost any foot perfectly. Right now I'm wearing a Miura VS, which fits OK (and performs better than the Mythos), but the toes are more painful than I'd like. I demo'd a pair of Tenayas that had great performance, but were just too painful to wear on anything longer than a boulder problem.

Linnaeus wrote: I've tried it, unfortunately I found it to run small and the size 48 didn't even come close to fitting my feet. It is semi-symmetrical; not as symmetric as a Mythos or DeMortoe. I was really hoping it would work.

Bummer. Yes, its not perfectly symmetrical, but must just fit my longer 2nd toe well. And my 2nd toe is long!

Evolve does tend to run more true to street shoe size, so if you downsized, you would definately be in trouble. I go same or 1/2 size larger with evolv.

Chris Rice wrote: What shoes fit which foot shapes would be some valuable information - so of course no one uses it when describing their shoe models. I'm the middle one and lose my middle toenail a lot :)

That info already exists. The left photo is called asymmetrical, center is semi-asymmetrical and the right is called symmetrical. Or at lease that is what Evolv calls it.

Huh. I always assumed that had to do with toe to arch width and that asymmetrical shoes were just scrunched (as many reviews imply).

Joshua, I seem to be the opposite. On tight fitting Moccasyms, I had a very weird situation where my 2nd and 3rd toes were both curled but my big toe was flat...had to stop using them because combined with the lack of support (softness), was starting to cause some pretty significant pain after long sessions.

You can get custom made shoes based on a tracing and photos of your feet. Expensive, but if I had the spare coin ....

Has anyone cut the tops off a pair of their old climbing shoes, to see how their feet fit into them?

One trick when buying running shoes is to take out in the insole, and put your foot on top of it, to see if the last works with your feet, or if you toes can splay - things like that.

Harder concept to do in a climbing shoe, when you're literally trying to wrap something around your foot, tightly.

If I try to scrunch up my feet in a way I think that they are in my climbing shoe, it doesn't match the shape of the shoe. Like at all.