I used to judge a shoe's midsole mostly by the first few steps. If it felt soft going on, I figured it was comfortable. After wearing more and more shoes built on supercritical foam, that started to change because the difference I actually feel isn't really in those first few minutes. It's a few hours later.

A normal workday is commute, walking, sitting, standing back up, a meeting, then more walking. First thing in the morning, a well made regular foam shoe can feel just as good some even feel softer on that first step. But after a few hours straight, I start noticing things. A lot of the regular foam midsoles I've worn feel flatter by the afternoon than they did in the morning, and the bounce isn't as obvious as when I first put them on. The supercritical foam shoes I've worn, honestly, gave me the opposite impression: the foot feel doesn't change as much from morning to evening. Not especially soft, not some crazy exaggerated bounce just a midsole that still feels close to how it did in the morning after hours on your feet.

So I slowly stopped asking "which one's softer?" and started asking "how much does the feel change after wearing it for hours?"

It's something I've been paying close attention to lately. But I don't think "supercritical" on the label automatically means better. The material itself, the density, the midsole shape, the outsole, the whole structure of the shoe all of it changes what you actually feel underfoot.

So I'd rather hear from people who've actually worn both. If you've spent real time in both supercritical and regular foam midsoles, what's the biggest difference you actually felt? Weight, bounce, softness, how it holds up after hours or honestly, was the difference smaller than you expected?

What I actually notice between a supercritical midsole and a conventional one