You always see big sports brand names being flashed on TV during huge sporting events. Usually, the star sports person wears a brand new pair of branded shoes to compete in the event. The results are usually quite impressive. After all, these are professional athletes. Impressed with the results, you go out and buy similar shoes, thinking that perhaps they will help you achieve better results.

This is a common mistake made by many inexperienced sports people. The shoes that are worn by professional athletes during competitive events are usually special shoes. In many cases, these shoes are tailor made for the athletes. Major sports companies can afford to do so because they are sponsoring the athletes. One good result from the athlete is probably better than a hundred advertisements. At the end of the day, results do sell. That is a fact of life.

But sports people also need to understand that results don't just come from shiny shoes. Technology plays a part, but it's just one part of the puzzle. The other part of the puzzle is training. And that's where you will spend the majority of your time - training and preparing for the upcoming sports event.

Imagine having to train five to six times per week for a competitive event. Each training session can take anywhere from 3 to 6 hours, depending on the intensity of the training. For this reason, you definitely need to have the right sports shoes to help you sustain the level of intensity.

The actual sports event could be sprinting 400 meters, or running a 10 Km marathon. But bear in mind that when you are training for an event, not every training session is a 400 meter sprint or a 10 km run. You will likely be involved in a program that requires you to build muscle, endurance, etc.

In other words, being prepared means having the right shoes for various training purposes. In the market today, there are all kinds of specialized shoes - running shoes, sprinting shoes, street shoes, indoor court shoes, basket ball shoes, and more. You need to choose the appropriate shoe for the training program that you are engaged in. For instance, if your training program involves 2 sessions of weight training, 1 session of endurance training (jogging), and an additional 1 session of sprinting training, you will probably need 3 pairs of shoes. One pair of gym shoes, one pair of jogging shoes, and one pair of spiked shoes (for sprinting).

If you find it too much of a hassle to wear different shoes for different training sessions, an alternative would be to consider wearing all purpose shoes such as cross trainers. Cross trainers allow you to have a wider range of movements - forward, backwards, and lateral. So you can wear them to play different sports. But bear in mind that the comfort level and the performance of cross trainers will not be as good when compared to wearing specialized shoes.

Training wise, perhaps that is acceptable. For the actual event, you definitely need to wear a pair of specialized shoes for greater competitiveness.