If you plan on running through city streets, jumping over benches and scaling up walls, then you need a decent pair of parkour shoes. You need something that is flexible enough to allow your feet to adapt to surfaces on the fly. But you also need a shoe that is heavy duty enough to withstand everything will throw at it.
Here we take a look at the top 10 best parkour shoes and give a detailed review of our 3 top picks.
Consider This
Parkour is a great sport that is just becoming more popular here in the US. It’s still a very new activity so there are few shoes specifically made for parkour activities. However, martial arts shoes offer nearly all the same features as a well-designed parkour shoe.
Top 10 Parkour Shoes Complete Chart
| Picture | Name | Features | Price | Rating (1-5) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 1. Martial Arts Top One Feiyue Shoes for Kung Fu, Wushu, Tai Chi, Shaolin, Parkour | Ribbed sole, sticky rubber, highly flexible sole, lightweight | $ | 4.8 |
 | 2. Century Lightfoot Martial Arts Shoes | Lightweight, supported sole | $$ | 4.5 |
 | 3. Ringstar Fight Pro Martial Arts Shoe | Lightweight, supported sole, Velcro upper | $$$$ | 4.4 |
 | 4. KO Gen2 Parkour Shoe | Parkour shoe, flexible, lightweight, reinforced sole | $$ | 4.4 |
 | 5. Take Flight 1.0 Parkour & Training Shoe | Parkour shoe, dual sole, high traction | $$$ | 4.3 |
 | 6. UNOW Chinese Traditional Cloth Kung Fu Shoes,Black | Cloth shoe, minimal sole, lightweight | $ | 4.3 |
 | 7. ADIDAS SM II SHOES | Leather upper, supported sole | $$$ | 4.3 |
 | 8. Kung Fu Shoes -Cotton Sole | Cloth shoe, cotton sole, lightweight | $ | 4.3 |
 | 9. Tiger Claw Feiyue Martial Arts Shoes - White/Black | Ribbed sole, sticky rubber, highly flexible | $$ | 4.2 |
 | 10. adidas® KICK Shoes Martial Arts Sneaker White with Black Stripes | Flexible, lightweight | $$$ | 3.8 |
Buying Information
There are many things to keep in mind when purchasing the best parkour shoes. Here’s all the things you’ll need to consider before your next purchase:
- Flexible soles are great for users who have built up their foot strength through years of martial arts training. Shoes with a flexible sole will give you the most agility and balance during moves.
- Supported soles are better suited to beginning parkour users who do not have the foot strength yet. Foot strength takes years to build, but during that time you can still parkour with shoes that offer a little more support. Usually they have a plastic midsole and a slightly stiffer outer sole.
- Rubber grip is important. Your shoes should be able to stick to almost any surface. You want them to feel sticky during landings, so you can always stop exactly when you need to. The best parkour shoes have a very sticky sole.
- Shoes should be lightweight enough that you hardly even feel them on your feet. A light shoe will give you the confidence to jump further and go harder.
Keep calm, find the right shoes for you, and pretty soon you’ll be pulling some of these tricks too.
Top 3 Best Parkour Shoes Reviews
1. Martial Arts Top One Feiyue Shoes
These shoes are the gold standard for many martial arts dojos throughout the last 50 years. They have consistently proven to be a very popular and high quality shoe. The minimal design aids itself to a variety of uses and styles.
Feiyue shoes have a very flexible rubber sole that allows your feet to bend and cup over objects, such as hand rails and water pipes. The laces are cotton and make for a very tight fit when properly laced.
Sizing can be a little small as these shoes are designed mostly for the Asian market. If you will be using these shoes for parkour, then a tighter fit is best. However for more casual street wear go for a half size larger than normal.
Whilst wearing these shoes it’s hard to tell if you actually have them on. They are so lightweight and the rubber sole feels like it’s part of your foot.
The rubber sole has a unique ribbed design which mimics that of insect’s feet, this ribbing improves traction up, down and on surfaces. This ensures you’re always well balanced and ready to take the next leap into the unknown.
A fantastic unisex shoe that suits all ages and styles. This shoe will last you a long time.
2. Century Lightfoot Martial Arts Shoes
Designed to be lightweight and invisible underfoot, these are a great parkour shoe. For someone who is just starting out in parkour, these are a great shoe that will provide you with support and increased agility.
Unlike our top pick, this shoe has a sturdier sole. It has a plastic midsole which is great for protecting your foots arch from damage during landings. However for those that have performed martial arts or parkour for a while and whose feet are strong, this shoe will seem like more of a hindrance than a blessing.
The manufacturers included a pivot point in the front third of the sole which is great for in motion turns. High quality rubber has is used for the sole and this also gives great grip and balance during movements.
We were happy with the style of these shoes; they are modern and come in 3 colours. Black, white and pink (trim). Again these shoes are unisex, although even the pink shoes are in mens sizes, so ladies make sure you order 2 sizes down from your normal size for a proper fit.
3. Ringstar Fight Pro Martial Arts Shoe
The Ringstar is a very modern parkour shoe. Like our other top picks these are designed for martial arts fights, which generally have a lot of parkour type maneuvers in them. We loved the simplicity of this shoe. It’s clear that the designers have taken the time to think about how fighters will use this shoe on a daily basis.
Firstly there are no laces. Just a simple Velcro locking system and this provided more than enough support for all of our parkour needs. Now there are no laces to get in the way or potentially trip over during movements.
The ringstar also sports AAP which is ringstar’s own ankle protection system. It provides increased protection to your ankle to reduce incidents of falls and injuries. We also found that it increased the level of stability we had during landings.
The additional padding on the shoe is great. We found that the more agile our maneuvers became the more we needed to support our feet (we don’t have super strong feet just yet). And the padding provided great support for everything we wanted to do.
Overall these are one of the best parkour shoes for beginners and are very durable and stylish. They can be worn as casual wear as well as during martial arts fights (soles won’t mark mats).
