7 Best Adidas Trainers in 2025

How we test Adidas trainers

The testing process that's implemented in our lab is what keeps us consistent, objective, and transparent. Here's how our protocol looks:

• We buy Adidas trainers with our own money because we want to keep publishing objective and bias-free reviews. We love having no sponsorships, contracts, or brand ambassadors on our team.
• We rock these trainers around the city until we are satisfied with assessing their comfort, fit, and performance.
• We take Adidas trainers to our lab to perform dozens of tests on them. This results in 30+ data points on traction, energy return, shock absorption, breathability, softness, etc. 
• We cut the trainers in half to look at all the midsole layers and upper stitching, to measure their stack heights and midsole softness, and into even more pieces for further testing.
• We publish all the results on our website where you can use all the lab data to compare trainers and find the one that's suits your criteria. 

Adidas trainers stood the test of time. There are many models that have been on the market for years or decades and their popularity is not declining. Our lab tests have questioned this and found many reasons for this to be true, from the trainers' quality, durability, comfort, and/or overall style. 

Even after the crisis in 2022, when Adidas terminated their Yeezy partnership, Adidas recovered and did so by leaning on the classic models like Samba and doing great in basketball. 

Most comfortable Adidas trainers 

Comfort is defined by 2 features and we are, of course, testing both in our lab. First, the midsole softness. When discussing comfort, the first thought in many minds is softness or the cloudy, plushy feel. Of course, we would not recommend wearing trainers that are as firm (hard) as concrete, but midsoles can be too soft, especially if you’re struggling with overpronation, flat feet, or simply need more stable platforms. 

If you are one of those people who prioritise softness, great, we will list the softest Adidas trainers here. But keep in mind that softness is only one piece of the puzzle. Too soft and too tall, and you may be dealing with unstable platforms.

However, when it comes to comfort that lasts, for example, when you want to wear the trainers all day, whether it's sightseeing, walking, or standing, you want to know about shock absorption. This feature tells us how protective the midsole is or how good it is at dampening the impact. 

Whenever you hit the ground with your heel, the sneaker has to absorb a lot of the impact forces. If it doesn’t do that job well, significantly more stress is sent to your legs. This is why, in some trainers, or those that are heavily worn out (midsole is “dead”), we get tired so quickly! 

It’s obvious now that looking for good shock absorption is imperative unless you plan to pose in your trainers for social media and not use them for activities. It’s also important to highlight that low-to-the-ground trainers can’t have high shock absorption. For the midsole to dampen the impact, it has to be thicker and not minimalist/barefoot style. 

Some trainers don’t have a midsole?

Wait, what?

What we mean is, many people are used to seeing the outsole, the foamy midsole, and the insole. However, some Adidas trainers do not deliver! Let’s have a look at the examples below. 

These trainers have lower shock absorption: on average, it's 48.8 SA, while the average for all Adidas trainers we've tested so far sits at 58.1 SA. 

Height-boosting or minimalist Adidas trainers?

OK, there’s some middle ground as well, it’s not like everyone is looking for platforms or barefoot trainers. So, what can Adidas deliver? It seems both: some lower-to-the-ground trainers and some high-stacked ones. 

Keep in mind that, if you’re looking for a height-boosting option, the midsole softness should be at least 18 HA. And, you may want to be mindful of the weight, given that chunkier trainers can be heavier as well. This may not seem like a big deal at first, but after a few hours, we all feel the extra chunk. 

And, if you prefer your Adidas trainers minimalist-looking and you also enjoy some ground feel, here are the lowest models we’ve tested so far. We have to add shock absorption here because, as mentioned above, you should be cautious when going for low-stacked trainers (below 25 mm at the heel); their shock absorption can be quite low. 

Is the leather real or fake?

Adidas has many trainers that are made of leather or at least look so. In order to find out whether the leather is real, and by default, whether the trainers are worthy of the investment (real leather costs more), we always perform the test to find out what material we’re dealing with. 

First, it’s good to look at the raw cut. Sometimes, it’s easy to notice that it’s a foamy material (fake leather) made to look like leather. We actually look for a grainy/hairy cut, which would indicate genuine materials. 

Then we perform a fire test. As seen above, fake leather bursts into flames and becomes gluey. 

Real leather, on the other hand, smells like burnt hair; it’s dry and easy to scratch (video above). It's also important to note that trainers, just like the one shown above, can be made of both real and fake leather. In our reviews, we note what the majority of the sneaker is made of (this case, real leather). 

Knowing this, you can always look up the test results in our reviews to find out what the trainers you’re considering are made of. 

Adidas trainers with the best traction

People don’t think of traction when buying trainers until they start slipping or sliding in their current pair and wonder, “How on Earth should I walk now?” In order for this to never happen again, you should look at the traction test results. 

In the lab, we test traction by pressing the sneaker at 500N against a wet surface at a 7-degree angle. This replicates the real-world conditions, and wet surfaces matter the most because we want to grab onto the handrail or the person next to us when the tiles or slick surfaces are wet

This is the best test because, thanks to it, we get one result. One number that tells us how good the sneaker performs in wet and dry conditions. The higher it is, the better! 

This test is also great because it takes other things out of the equation in terms of not having to analyse them all (even though all of them do matter). We’re talking about the hardness of the outsole, the overall thread design (are there any lugs, channels, grooves), and the rubber compound type 

No need to overthink or analyse the rubber compound or how many channels there are. We do one simple test, and we have our answer. 

FYI, anything higher than 0.45 is considered high traction, 0.25-0.45 moderate, and less than 0.25 low traction. 

When it comes to traction, durability also matters. It’s important to know how much of the grippy material is keeping you from exposed foam or other non-grippy materials. Because of this, look at the section on durability below.

Durability of Adidas trainers 

People usually care about the durability of a certain part of the sneaker and that’s the one they tend to destroy first. For some, it’s the outsole because they have severe overpronation or they sometimes hop on the skateboard. For others, it’s the toebox because their big toe is pointing up, or the inner lining behind the heel, because they don’t use a shoe horn or they prefer the looks so much they learn to live with the heel slipping (we do not recommend this). Whichever group you’re in, we’ve got you covered. 

First, we test the durability of the toebox. We apply a dremel to the surface and assess the damage on a 1-5 scale, where 1/5 is the least durable and 5/5 the most.

All our tests are standardised, and so are the dremel tests. This means that we apply the same protocol on all trainers (same force, same duration, same RPMs /rotations per minute). 

Then, we test the durability of the heel counter. Again, we assign each sneaker a 1-5 rating for the durability of this part (and 5/5 is the most durable).

The last test is the durability of the outsole. The only difference here is that we don’t have to assess the damage. Outsole is made of hard materials so we can use a tyre tread gauge to measure the depth of the dent with a 0.01 mm precision. 

And here’s how those damages can look like:

Adidas trainers with a wider toebox

Most trainers are made for people with average feet, and some for narrow. Rarely, we have those that work for wide footers. To find out which model works best for which feet, our lab team created a special gel formula that is used to create a gel mould if the sneaker’s interiors. 

This gel mould is then used to measure the width of the sneaker, the toebox width, and the toebox height. 

All of these measurements matter when you have non-average feet because you need more room where others don’t, whether it’s around the big toe, or above it (vertical clearance). 

Below, we list the widest Adidas trainers and those with the widest toeboxes. Keep in mind that all the measurements were done on US men’s size 9, regular width. You can always opt for a wide option, when that one is available. 

We consider trainers wide if their widest part is over 95 mm. 

When it comes to a wide toebox, keep in mind that we consider wide anything higher than 72 mm at the big toe.