I've been taking Zumba classes now for approximately the past six months. I never put much thought into my shoes. I have been dancing around inside the exact same pair of shoes from the first day. Actually that is not accurate. I had been dancing around in these shoes for almost certainly half a year before that too during my aerobics class. I took wonderful care of those shoes and simply dressed in them for dance class. The soles of the footwear in no way touched anything apart from the hardwood of a dance floor.
What I was clueless about was these shoes were actually very used up and hurting my feet. Hurting might not be the best word. At the end of a exercise routine my feet were weary and they were spent. All I wanted to do was keep off my feet and put them up on the ottoman following a zumba class.
Looking at the shoes now I understand the signs of a exhausted pair of shoes. Signs to watch out for before they begin to tire out my feet. When I put my hands in the shoes there are heavy, very strong, impressions where my toes, back heel and forefoot press into the shoe. The impact absorbing material had become extremely condensed and had been no longer doing its job of diffusing the impact from my zumba work out.
When I turned the shoes over there were other signs that I required a new pair of shoes there too. I naturally rotate my feet outward and am a heavy rearfoot striker. Due to this the heel of the shoes had broken down much faster versus the forefoot. On the outside edge of the rearfoot the shoe was so broken down that the rubber on the bottom was almost removed and the impact absorbing material had squeezed about twenty percent greater than anywhere else on the shoe.
I thought that these were signs of a properly broken in set of zumba shoes. Turns out I could not have been more incorrect. The shoes were well beyond broken in and were merely destroyed.
I purchased a couple new zumba dance costumes and two pairs of zumba shoes for my feet. The theory is that acquiring a couple of pairs of shoes might help them to each last a lot longer and that they will keep my thighs from becoming exhausted by becoming acquainted to a single set of shoes. My workouts are better now and I have the energy I need after zumba class to be on my feet.