Cleats and the Outsole

The “outsole” is essentially the bottom of our shoe. If the outsole is “good”, we will have the desired traction for our sport application. A very funny example of using the wrong outsole for the wrong application would be to use basketball shoes for ballroom dancing; or on the opposite side, to use dress shoes with leather outsoles to play basketball. With the leather outsoles we will slide too much while playing basketball, and with the basketball outsoles we will have too much grab and traction to the floor to be able to turn, twist and slide while dancing.

In reference to our discussion about cleats, the outsole often has a plastic plate molded within the outsole. We are then able to attach and detach cleats (often of different sizes for different playing environments / fields) to the plastic plate. Below we have a direct picture of an outsole (the bottom) of a pair of cleats / football boots. These particular shoes have detachable cleats.

Outsoles are made from different materials depending upon the application, the manufacturer and the quality. For dress shoes a common outsole material is leather, although this seems to now be quickly changing to new breeds of polyurethanes (PU) and thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU).

For our discussion about cleats, we can have Carbon Rubber, Blown Rubber, TPU, PU, CMEVA, EVA, PVC, TPR, MD and various combinations of the above within the same outsole. It is also important to note that within the above categories there are hundreds of sub-types which have various advantages and disadvantages. Please note that most of the major brands (Puma, Adidas, etc...) have stopped using PVC material in their cleats and infact, for any of their products and clothes.

We might be able to say in general that Carbon Rubber is heavier and more durable than Blown Rubber. Therefore, sports shoe designers sometimes place Carbon Rubber in areas of the outsole where they expect high impact. Blown Rubber is lighter and more bouncy, but is less durable and therefore wears out faster. Therefore some designers will place Blown Rubber in areas where they do not expect as much impact. This helps make the shoe a bit lighter versus a complete Carbon Rubber Outsole. With TPU and PU we can make types of materials varying from heavy to very light, bouncy versus low bounce, durable versus not so durable. Examples of such types of material include Pebax ® (possibly the lightest of the TPUs) which is a polyether block amide.

Below, we provide many pictures with various types of outsoles... At this time we are unable to specific cleat outsole pictures, but these pictures will definitely help you understand the different materials...

Pictured above is a carbon rubber outsole with EVA (white material). The carbon rubber gives the traction and hardness, while the EVA will provide some cushion.

Pictured above is an outsole with EVA (white material), TPU (grey material) and a very thin layer of carbon rubber on the bottom. Also, if you look at the bottom of the shoe... you can see grey areas where there is TPU.

Cricket Outsole completely made from EVA. We wonder how long it will last???

Above using the materials... MD, TPU and Rubber.

Again, it is all very confusing when we try to determine what outsole will be best for us and our sport! And at this point we can not make any recommendations as to what type of material is best for what person and for which applications. We again recommend sports doctors, professional sports trainers and sports podiatrists to help you with these decisions if you are serious about injury prevention and top performance. We hope that the information will at least help you determine if the doctor / trainer is knowledgeable in the details of determining what type of cleats will help reduce injuries and will help increase performance.

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