What You Should Know About Insoles And Orthotics In Badminton Shoes

Hey everyone, welcome to the sequel to my post, Exercises and Remedies To Treat Flat Feet For Badminton. Some people have asked me to make a follow-up post specifically about putting insoles/orthotics into athletic shoes such as badminton court shoes. So after testing out my insoles in my badminton shoes, I’m here to tell some things you should know about insoles and orthotics in badminton shoes.

Something To Note About Badminton Shoes

Before I get into what you should know about insoles inside badminton shoes, one of the first things I noticed more about badminton shoes were that they already had decent cushioning and some sort of arch support.

While the arch support inside the shoe wasn’t enough to entirely nullify the effects of my flat feet, it did get rid of all the sharp pains only leaving me with the unpleasant feelings that everybody gets after playing for a long time. Basically, with flat feet, I just develop blisters faster around my toes as compared to other people.

The main reason badminton shoes have really good cushioning and decent arch support is because of how badminton players play. With so much jumping, running, shuffling, and skipping around the court, it’s only reasonable that badminton shoes are designed to get rid of most of the aftershock from contact between your feet and the body.

If it didn’t, badminton players would get injuries all the time.

Currently, I’m sporting the Yonex Power Cushion Comfort Z badminton shoes which have really great cushioning and heel support, and they perform really well for someone with flat feet. But I found playing with my old badminton shoes as well as other sports shoes usually fine.

It’s because these sports shoes are all designed understanding who’s wearing them and thus have lots of cushioning and support. For example, basketball shoes have excellent ankle support because of how the game works.

And because badminton shoes perform so well for sports already, you may not even need an insole.

How Insoles Perform

This may come as a surprise to you, but when I put insoles in my badminton shoes and played with them, I had an extremely sharp pain on the outer edges of my feet that hindered me from playing. I was playing two games of badminton, and after the second one, the pain became unbearable, and I had to take the foot soles out of the shoes.

This is likely due to the combination of decent arch support in the badminton shoes and the insole which raised my inner foot area to the point that put immense pressure on the outer edges of my feet.

Another factor that’s involved is the shoes themselves.

In badminton, there are both shoes designed for people with narrow feet as well as people with wider feet. Wider feet do not necessarily mean lower arch and narrow feet do not necessarily mean higher arches, but flat footed people generally have wider feet.

That’s the case with me, and when I put on the Yonex Power Cushion Comfort Z badminton shoes, I do feel a little annoyed by the shoe rubbing against my small toes, but it’s generally not a significant problem. But when I combine the shoes with the insoles, the shoes are too narrow, and thus the outer side of my foot will feel a lot of pressure.

I talk about this problem because I know that there plenty of people who do find insoles performing well in their shoes. One of my friends, because he is still young and growing, found his feet actually correcting themselves because of his usage of insoles in badminton shoes. You definitely have to consider how your shoes and your feet are shaped.

Another issue regarding the shoes is the sizing. You might want shoes that are one or half a size bigger than your standard size because you may find that adding insoles to your badminton shoes may make the shoes much tighter and uncomfortable. It’s always a good idea to try insoles in shoes before purchasing the shoes if you know you need insoles.

Other than the pain on the side of the feet and the tightness of using insoles, adding insoles to badminton shoes did help especially around the heel. If I didn’t have the pain, it would feel like I was walking on clouds.

The Moving Insole Problem

One problem that someone brought up in the comment section of my last post on flat feet was that he found orthotics move around a lot and thus, didn’t like using them.

When I was younger, I also didn’t like using insoles because they moved around too much. It did become very annoying on multiple occasions, and I would always have to get down to fix it.

But recently, having got back to using insoles in my shoes, I found that they have never slipped since before!

The primary cause was getting new shoes and more specifically, how the area around the heel was shaped in the shoes. My badminton shoes, as well as everyday shoes, have excellent heel support meaning that they are developed to fit around your heel snugly. This also meant that the insoles were snugly fit within the shoe and thus they didn’t move.

Most insoles also come with a slight adhesive, and when combined with your weight, they should generally stick to the shoe enough that they don’t move at all the random times.

Recommendations

So, what do I think you should do if you have flat feet and want to use insoles for badminton or other sports in general. Well, you should go see a doctor or orthotics specialist to get recommendations on what you should do. This is because I’m not certified or a professional and everything I say is out of my own personal experience. Thus, I am not liable for any injury or problems caused by my recommendations.

That being said, I do believe there are some things I can tell you that may help you. First, you should understand what kind of feet you have. Do you have flat feet? Are your feet relatively wide or narrow? What the size of your feet? How low is your arch? Do you have any other foot problems?

These things are best found out through a doctor, but you can research and test for yourself as well. The second thing you should do is to go choose out your foot soles. The only brand of foot soles I have used is Dr. Scholl’s and thus can only testify for them. What I really like about Dr. Scholl’s is that they often have machines where you step onto them, and it’ll recommend what foot soles for you to get.

So although I have listed some insoles you could buy at Amazon, going to a place where you can find and use the machine is a great idea. I have often seen these recommenders in supermarkets and local pharmacies around the insole area.

Insoles you could try:

Then you should take those insoles and try them with your shoes. If they’re uncomfortable or even painful, your only options may be to stop using the insole or getting new shoes. When you’re getting new shoes, make sure you try them on with the insole and walk around, jump a little, and just generally test out how well they perform.

One thing that I want to note here is custom-tailored shoes. In my last post about flat feet, I talked about custom shoes as probably the best option for flat-footed people, but it is quite expensive. And in terms of sports, it’s even less worth it because you would have to pay an even more substantial premium to get shoes tailored to your own needs.

Definitely, don’t pay more than $300 for some badminton shoes unless you’re the type of person who can afford basically anything on the planet. It’s really not worth it when you only wear badminton shoes when you play badminton… at least I assume that’s the case.

Conclusion

I hope this article was helpful to anyone with flat feet and looking at getting insoles for their badminton shoes. All the tips and recommendations are solely based on my experience which may not be the same case for you because every person is different.

Comment down below if you have any questions or experiences you would like to share! I would gladly respond and do my best to help. As always, good luck in your games and have a great day!