Cleat Blog Posts

Cleats, or studs, are protrusions on the sole of a shoe — or on an external attachment to a shoe — that provide additional traction on a soft or slippery surface. Athletes wear them for football, soccer, baseball and other sports that require good traction, and cleats are a finely defined segment of the footwear industry. This page is the blog post index for the topic on Apparel Search: it collects the cleat posts from the fashion blog and links the cleats term and the types of shoes page at the top.

Cleat Blog Posts

About Cleats

Three posts sit in this index. How to Choose the Perfect Stud is the buying guide post: stud length, shape and material are matched to the playing surface — short molded studs for firm ground, longer screw-in studs for soft wet fields, and low-profile turf patterns for artificial surfaces. Nike 3-D Printed Cleat Plate covers the manufacturing end, a cleat plate prototyped and produced by 3-D printing so plate geometry can be tuned to an individual athlete. New Balance Soccer Shoes is the brand entry post, covering the company's move into cleated soccer footwear.

Cleat design divides by sport because the traction problem differs. Soccer cleats are low-cut and light, with conical or bladed studs arranged for running and turning. Baseball and softball cleats add a toe stud for the batting and pitching push-off, and metal spikes are standard on dirt. American football cleats rise higher at the ankle and space studs for straight-line drive. Playing on the wrong stud pattern is both a performance and a safety issue — too much grip on a hard surface locks the foot and stresses knees — which is why the choosing-a-stud post leads this index. The guides in the topic block below cover men's and women's cleats for soccer, baseball and softball.

Materials have moved the category: uppers are now synthetic microfibers rather than leather at the performance end, plates are nylon or composite, and studs are molded, screw-in metal or hybrid. None of that changes the fitting basics — cleats are sized close, with minimal heel slip, because the shoe is an instrument of traction rather than comfort over distance. Readers comparing cleats with ordinary athletic shoes will find the sneakers definition and the kids' sneakers guide among the links below.