If you need extra wide men’s shoes, it’s rarely more noticeable than when you actually need workboots to support you and protect your feet. Whether you rely on the protection of a faithful pair of workboots every day on the job or you only periodically break out a pair of boots for yard work, a proper fit is critical. While a proper fit is important to preventing injury, an improper fit can actually be the cause of it. Here are some things to consider.
While a pair of shoes that are too narrow is never going to be a comfortable experience, most shoes will just squeeze your feet uncomfortably. Now we’re going to change up the situation for a moment and swap out those shoes with a pair of steel or composite toe work boots. A shoe will constrict your feet, but your toes have absolutely nowhere else to go inside of a steel or composite toe box. Only a few minutes of labor grating up against a toe box and you’ll wish you weren’t wearing boots at all.
A pair of boots that are too narrow will also rob you of any or all of the insulative benefits of the boot. Yes, boots do rely on their insulative proper to trap heat within their space, but if they constrict your foot they will be preventing heat from getting there in the first place. It’s a bad combination.
There’s also the fact that workboots that are too narrow are not going to support you properly, so over the course of a day of work, you will slowly experience the growing effects of discomfort. When you’re on your feet all day or just for a prolonged period, there’s little worse than a pair of boots that don’t fit. So if you want to get the protective benefits of workboots without the discomfort of toes rubbed raw and cold feet, make sure you get extra wide men’s shoes or boots in the first place. Here are a few great picks for different situations.
Dunham Lawrence Steel Toe




