Hands down, the most popular safety shoe is the athletic safety shoe. In a HYTEST market research group back in the early 1990’s, when asked what they would like to see available, a compelling number of research participants urged HYTEST to make a more comfortable safety shoe, like an athletic safety shoe.
Once they proved to meet safety standards, employers also liked them. So it was no surprise that once the O.T.’s (HYTEST’s athletic safety shoe brand) hit the market, they became a huge, overnight success; and competitors, like Lehigh and Iron Age joined in the fun. Offering working employees a variety of athletic safety shoes from which to choose.
Today there are four main companies who offer athletic safety shoes, and three technologies to consider when purchasing them.
Sketchers
Sketchers (formerly L.A. Gear) is the premiere athletic safety shoe company, especially in terms of introducing more styles and colors to the women’s athletic safety shoes market; as well as bringing the super comfortable memory foam insole to safety shoes.
Browse Sketchers Athletic Safety Shoes
Reebok
Reebok, licensed by the Warson Group (which formerly licensed the Converse brand) aggressively competes with Sketchers, and also offers a wide variety of colors and styles in athletic safety shoes. Warson Group uses more technology in their Reebok athletic safety shoes than Sketchers does, offering electrical hazard, static dissipating, and conductive athletic safety shoes for a wide variety of work environments. Reebok also uses more composite toes in their athletic safety shoes, which makes them lighter and more comfortable. In addition to Reebok, Warson Group also is the licensee for Rockport and Florsheim safety shoes.
Browse Reebok Athletic Safety Shoes
Nautilus
Nautilus athletic safety shoes are best known for their wide toe boxes, extra wide widths, and larger sizes, which not only make fitting athletic safety shoes easier, but offer maximum space for the foot, which keeps the foot comfortable during the work day. Nautilus athletic safety shoes use a combination of steel toes and lighter-weight, composite toes, as well as good slip-resistant soles. Nautilus shoes also have a combination of electrical hazard and static dissipating technologies, which are discussed further below.
Browse Nautilus Athletic Safety Shoes
HYTEST
HYTEST athletic safety shoes, which are a product of Wolverine World Wide and Wolverine Boots and Shoes, have recently introduced many, very nice styles of men’s and women’s athletic safety shoes, making HYTEST one of the best athletic safety shoe brands. Their athletic safety shoes have many technologies, including steel toe and composite safety toes and electrical hazard and static dissipating properties. Additionally, HYTEST has a history of using some of the best slip-resistant soles, which are very helpful in the many slippery industrial environments. Additionally, HYTEST has designed an athletic safety shoe that has an invisible metatarsal guard. Actually, it’s a Poron® XRD® internal metatarsal guard safety shoe, and they offer it in Men’s and Women’s.
Browse HYTEST Athletic Safety Shoes for Men
Browse HYTEST Athletic Safety Shoes for Women
There are clearly numerous advantages now offered in athletic safety shoes—not only do they have colorful and sporty styling, but they’re lighter weight and more comfortable, too. And athletic safety shoes offer most every protective feature, including Electrical Hazard, Conductive, and Static Dissipating properties; Composite and Steel Toes, and even an athletic metatarsal guard safety shoe in a men’s and women’s style. And because of their popularity with employers and employees alike, today SafeShoes.com offers a wide variety of choices in style, color, and features.