subject: How do Volleyball Shoes get good grip? [print this page] I have written a number of times about how important it is to have good grip on a Volleyball Court. Being such a smooth surface if you have shoes that are standard sneakers your grip will be fairly average. This doesn't mean that you can't play Volleyball with standard sneakers or that you will slip over the moment that you walk onto the court, but it just emphasises how much better Volleyball Shoes are. The reason that they grip so well is purely because of the design of the soles. As an example, take a plastic ruler and slide it along a hard, flat surface. You should feel that there is barely any resistance between the two. If you imagine soles that are hard like Basketball and running shoes, you get the picture of how easy it is to slide around on the court.
Now, take an eraser and run it along a flat, smooth surface. You will notice that it has a lot more friction, and that it doesn't slip much at all. Even Cheap Volleyball Shoes are designed with soles that are incredibly soft and flexible (like a rubber) meaning that they grip very well on even the smoothest of surfaces. The compromise between the two different types of soles is that the soft soles wear out very quickly on rough surfaces. This is why you rarely see people walking around in Volleyball Shoes off the court.
Volleyball Shoe soles are the same for Mens Volleyball Shoes as it is for Womens. There are minor differences in shape, but you will occasionally see a Woman playing in Mens Volleyball Shoes. If you are in need of the extra grip on a Volleyball court, try to get shoes with very soft soles, and continuously wipe the dust off them during a game.
