I’ve tested most of the current crop of CrossFit shoes, and whenever anyone asks for a top budget option I point them in the direction of the Puma Fuse 2.0. The shoe is exceptionally comfortable with a wide, stable base for lifting, and a responsive midsole for all your burpee and box jump needs.
With an MSRP of $100 it’s already great value, but with as much as 52% off in the Amazon Big Spring Sale it’s a total steal.
The women’s shoe can be picked up from $47.80, and you can find the men’s shoe for as little as $58.06 (costs vary as Amazon’s convoluted shoe-selling system changes the price depending on the style and size you go for).
The Puma Fuse 2.0 was comfortable straight out the box. My first time wearing it was at a Puma event hosted by WIT Fitness in London, where top CrossFit athletes Joshua Al-Chamaa and Chandler Smith subjected me to a pair of 15-minute AMRAPS.
After however many rounds of toes-to-bars, dumbbell clean and jerks, squats, push-ups, lunges and 400m runs, my feet felt remarkably fresh—the rest of my body, not so much.
The Fuse 2.0’s soft upper feels more like a sock than a shoe, molding to the shape of my foot and providing a locked-in fit around the heel.
It also has some nifty CrossFit-specific features such as raised rubber guards around the midfoot for rope climbs, a handstand push-up-proof TPU bumper on the heel and a wider forefoot for added balance during Olympic lifts.
It’s brilliantly springy too. The midsole proved responsive during plyometric exercises, helping me feel light on my feet during speedy metcons. So much so that my pair has now become my go-to shoe for padel.
As with most shoes, there are a couple of areas for improvement. There are better shoes out there for straight-up lifting: squats, deadlifts and cleans all felt good, although I experienced a bit of compression in the heel when shifting weights of 220lb and up.
I was also concerned about the shoe’s durability at first. Within a month of wearing them, the heel lining had worn through, however this hasn’t affected their performance and I’m still wearing them regularly one year on.
Overall this is a really easy-to-get-along-with CrossFit shoe at a very reasonable price—even more so now it’s been knocked down in the Amazon Big Spring Sale.
