A Test of Soccer Cleats Compared to Football Cleats during Football Speed and Agility Drills: Do Soccer Cleats Make You Faster or More Agile?

Abstract

Background: Football players have many options in cleat styles and designs today.  Skill position players especially may opt for soccer cleats over football cleats in the belief that the soccer cleats will help them run faster.  Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare soccer cleats to football cleats during common American football field drills.  Methods: Sixteen young adult males performed a circuit of four American football speed and agility drills (forty yd-dash, ladder drill, 5-10-5-drill, and six-route route tree) in both soccer and football cleats.  Performance measures (such as time or steps) were recorded for each drill.  Subjects were asked to score the shoes in terms of comfort, heaviness, stability, and traction at various times.  Results: Two significant differences were found as a result of this study. Out route times (seconds) were significantly different between football cleats and soccer cleats. The other significant difference occurred in the perceived heaviness of each cleat.  Conclusion: This study found minimal difference between football and soccer cleats in performance and perception. Participants in this study showed split preferences as to which cleat was better for performance. Of four studied perceptual outcomes, only the heaviness perception was significantly different. This was further backed by performance data that had only one significant difference among seventeen performance-associated measurements.