I bought these to replace some 1+ year old Spenco's (the cushions) in some sneakers which were great sneakers besides that they lacked arch support. The Spenco's were still doing their job, but were less than perfect even out of the box and the insole in my right shoe would move slightly out of place every so often. I wanted to spend more to find a better solution.
I expected these to be 'arch support insoles' they are 3/4 insoles and "orthotic arch" is in the title. Note that too my knowledge, I have normal arches. I had the Spenco's positioned perfectly otherwise they would have provided too much arch support. I haven't left many reviews and hate to leave a poor review for a product that might work better with someone else's shoes/feet, but I can't help it here.
My first observation: the 'graphite arch' (the entire red and black section) seems completely rigid. Maybe that should have been obvious. I never thought about it. Not what I was hoping for, but figured I'd give it a shot nonetheless.
Second observation: these aren't really 3/4 length insoles. They took up closer to 9/10 of my size 9.5 Nikes (which run about a 1/2 size large, I purchased the 8-10.5 insoles). I would say that they were meant to be labeled larger but they fit the shape of my foot.
While the sorbothane can be cut to size as desired, the graphite arch cannot. Stepping on top of these, if positioned right, these fit my arch and would seem capable of providing solid arch support. Two problems, though. One: the graphite insert is too large, even positioned perfectly the edges extend from my heel to the tip of my ball, lifting my ball and heel very slightly, undermining the moderate arch support slightly and preventing me from taking advantage of a broken-in shoe. The edges are not thinned to reduce potential discomfort, either.
The second-problem: they seemed to flatten a bit on each step rather than keeping your arch up. In a sense there are advantages to semi-rigid verses flat out rigid, but the arch support was moderate to begin with and I felt like I was getting the disadvantages of a rigid insole without any of the advantages. Keep in mind I weigh around 150 and was walking and these insoles did not seem to provide sufficient arch support if you weigh 200+ and are running I assume these 'arches' will flatten as much as possible on every step.
Now the sorbothane itself seemed okay it felt high-end enough for me to give the benefit of the doubt regarding shock absorption and longevity. At the same time, the material was very flimsy (not easy to fit properly in a shoe), and the support was less responsive than you would get in a cheap gel insert (though better than you would get with foam).
If there is any advantage here it's that the graphite arch is not glued extremely well to the sorbothane, so you can separate the insert from the sorbothane and use both separately as desired. I experimented with this (the graphite arch in one pair of shoes and the sorbo in another), but in both cases it just didn't work better than my original set up.
you win some, you lose some, but you don't know without trying...I gave two stars as these insoles could work fine for someone else's shoes/feet as far as I know...
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