All of Altra’s shoes are based on two key design principles that set them apart from a lot of other shoe company lineups. Their shoes all have a zero-drop heel-to-toe platform, and a wide, “foot-shaped” toe box. Many runners love this combo, but for people coming from shoes with higher heel-to-toe drops or narrower toe boxes, it may take some getting used to.
Since debuting their first shoe in 2011, Altra has gained popularity with both trail and road runners of all levels. The brand now offers shoes with a wide variety of cushioning, support, and traction.
As a general rule, Altra shoes have a wider and higher-volume fit than shoes from other brands. While this can cause problems for people with narrower feet, many runners love the comfort that Altra’s platform provides, particularly when it comes to letting your toes splay out.
All of their women’s shoes also feature the brand’s “Fit4Her” design, which essentially means that they modify the fit of the shoe to accommodate the slightly different shape of women’s feet.
Altra started out as a trail-running brand, but has expanded into the road-running world in the last few years.
In this Guide, we’ll present Altra’s road shoes and trail shoes separately, and will order these lineups from the most cushioned to least cushioned.
Love the fit on Altras, love the cushioning on Hokas. So depending on the current issue with my status, i pick one or the other.
I just listened to the podcast, and while the reviews could be useful in some ways, I do not feel like it is comprehensive or deep enough to make much of a splash. I was hoping to hear that you had someone helping with the reviews that actually fits people for shoes. You hit on it a bit, but I don’t think the people writing the reviews understand how important two factors are for people being comfortable in their shoes for activity. #1 what is the shape and volume of their feet #2 do they need pronation control. I would encourage you to collaborate with someone who sees these shoes on feet often to get more useful data.
Hi, Kimberly – thanks for the feedback. Just wanted to try to clarify a bit what we are — and what we are not — trying to accomplish here with these Guides.
Certainly, the goal of these Brand Guides is not Depth, it is Breadth. Our reviews of individual shoes is where we go deep and get very detailed.
The goal of these Brand Guides is to let people (a) quickly and easily get clearer on a massive number of shoes on the market, and (b) better understand where various shoes fit in a single brand’s own lineup. That’s a pretty specific aim, and we believe that it’s a useful one to help people home in on several shoes that might work well for them. Breadth.
So what you’re proposing makes total sense, it’s just a very different beast, I think.
And finally, “pronation control” is, of course, a very complicated topic, and I personally don’t believe that any person or shop should be telling runners that they “need pronation control.” (Or, as I am sure you’d agree, that would only be the conclusion of a *long* conversation, not the starting point of one.)
So we have no interest in directing people in that way, and doing so would definitely be far, far beyond the scope and intention of these Brand Guides. But we will definitely see how we can continue to evolve these Guides to make them better accomplish their intended purpose.
Just a quick note that this sort of plain-language guide is extremely helpful, as it’s surprisingly hard to otherwise understand a shoe company’s model line. As someone who knows which brands generally fit my feet and roughly what I’m looking for, I get a lot of value out of these guides. So, thanks!
Thank you, Goran! We’re very happy to hear this.
I will also say… this is _exactly_ what I was looking for to help me figure out what these shoes are for.
Very glad to hear this, Evan!