Athletic Shoes for Women

The Right Fit for the Right Sport

We all know that the sport decides the shoe. A netball shoe and a running shoe are designed to support completely different movements. Running shoes are built for forward motion, for repetitive, single-direction impact of the road or treadmill. They provide a cushioned heel, flexible forefoot, and minimal lateral support. But netball for example, isn’t just forward motion. It’s pivoting, sprinting, jumping, and even landing off-centre. The moment you step onto a court or into a gym, you need a design that is supporting you in every direction. The best athletic shoes, especially for women, aren’t one-size-fits-all. And they also have different lifespans.

How often should you replace running or athletic shoes?

Worn shoes don't always feel worn, that's the tricky part. The change happens gradually enough that you adjust without noticing, right up until something starts to niggle. There are a few checks that can be done, but they’re better to be assessed properly rather than eyeballed on the way out the door.

• The tread's smooth in patches, or one shoe's clearly more worn down than the other

• The midsole's gone stiff, or collapses too easily The upper's torn or stretched out, and your foot's moving around more than it used to

• The heel counter's gone soft, it should still feel firm when you press on it from the side

When you get a new running pair, log them in your Runnkeeper App so you can keep track of how many kilometres they have supported you through. 

Autumn to winter, netball and the football codes

Super Netball and the winter football codes both run through the cooler months, autumn into winter, and preseason training usually kicks off a few weeks before round one. Sorting boots early enough to wear them in during training means you already know how the studs handle a wet surface and how the fit holds up through a hard change of direction, well before it counts in a competition game. ASICS builds netball and football footwear for that exact stretch, the weeks before the season starts, not just for round one. Remember that womens football boots are designed with a women’s specific fit and last with slightly different shape both in the toebox and instep circumference. So head to the women’s section when testing them out.

Spring into summer, cricket's window

Cricket sits apart from the winter sports entirely, with the domestic Big Bash season landing in spring and early summer, just as everyone else's season winds down. It's also the one sport here that changes what it asks of a shoe mid match. Bowling puts real load through the front foot on landing, while batting and fielding call for something closer to an all rounder shoe, built for short sprints and quick changes of direction. ASICS has women’s specific cricket shoe options.

Tennis, the one that never really stops

Tennis doesn't follow the same swing. Club and social competitions run more or less year round, which makes it the outlier in this list, less about timing and more about the surface you're playing on. Hard court, clay, or grass, whatever your preference, each requires something slightly different from the sole. 

Running, training and gym, no clock at all

These don't take a season off either, and neither one needs a fixture to remind you they exist. Marathon training blocks tend to cluster around the cooler months, but plenty of running happens whenever there's a spare hour, day or night, no calendar required. Trail running follows the same rule. No real season, just rougher ground instead, which is why ASICS has built a dedicated trail range rather than expecting a road shoe to do a job it was never shaped for. 

None of this is about owning more shoes than you need. It's about matching each pair to the job it does most often. A court, a track and a gym floor all ask different things of your feet, so finding the best athletic shoe for you starts with the sport you play most. Some pairs will pull double duty, and others earn their place for a single season. If you're not sure where to start, a complimentary Foot-ID fitting in store is the quickest way to find out!