Nike Metcon Turbo 2: The Best Shoe for Jump Training

Nike is filling a hole in their training shoe department with the Metcon Turbo 2. When you’re shopping for gym shoes, you need to keep in mind what kind of training you’ll be doing. If you mostly do plyometrics, HIIT, agility work, etc., you’ll want shoes with good cushioning and mobility. If weight lifting is more your thing, shoes with a stable base and maybe even a lifted heel are more appropriate.

A good training program for sports, and especially jump training, involves both styles of training. This means your shoe needs to be able to do both. Nike attempts to bridge that gap with the Nike Metcon Turbo 2. Despite a few small issues, they succeeded in making the best shoes for jump training (to increase your vertical).

The Metcon Turbo 2 was good enough to make our Best Cross Training Shoes, Best for Jumping, Best CrossFit Shoes, and Best Basketball Training Shoes lists.

Pros

Cushioning

The Nike Metcon Turbo 2 is a middle ground for Nike between the Metcon Line and the SuperRep line. Where the Metcon models are built for lifting and the SuperReps are built for plyometric exercises, the Metcon Turbo line is meant to handle both. This means it needs some cushion and bounce for plyos and jump/speed training. All of the magic for this sneaker resides in the drop-in midsole: a React foam midsole with a Zoom Air unit built right into the forefoot. The React foam does enough for impact protection, and the Zoom Turbo unit has some noticeable bounce. It doesn’t exactly feel like the KD 15, but it does the trick. For plyometric exercises, and especially jump training, the Metcon Turbo 2 is an excellent choice.

Stability

The next great feature of the Metcon Turbo 2 is an essential one: its wide, stable base. This is a training shoe, which means on top of plyometrics, you need to be able to lift in it. The heel of the shoe is wide, flat, and very solid. Because of the drop-in midsole, the outsole can be sturdy and supportive. It doesn’t have the heel lift of something like the Nike Metcon line, but it still feels good to squat in. The flatter heel can even be a benefit for things like deadlifts. The Zoom Air unit and React foam could have been an issue during lifts, but whether due to good caging or just the outsole stability, it wasn’t a problem.

Traction

Traction is always important, and the Nike Metcon Turbo 2 has enough of it. Training shoes need to be used on a wide variety of surfaces. The traction is excellent on rubber mat flooring, wooden platforms, and wooden court surfaces. On turf, it wasn’t perfect, but not many training shoes shine on the turf. I still didn’t slip besides some heavier sled pushes. Since you aren’t playing a sport in these, good traction is traction you don’t even notice. That’s the case with the Metcon Turbo 2 – the traction gets the job done.

Cons

Heel Drop

This first con was touched upon earlier, but it does need mentioning. The Metcon Turbo 2 doesn’t have the lifted heel of many lifting shoes as the standard Metcon line does. The heel lift is important for some exercises, primarily squatting. It does make a difference, and it’s the only thing I would change about the shoe. That being said, it might not be possible to change. The Metcon Turbo 2 has way better heel cushioning than the Metcon line, and I would assume that that wouldn’t work with the solid, lifted heel. The tradeoff here is the shoe is slightly less ideal for squats, but much better for plyometrics and jump training.

Lockdown

The lockdown isn’t terrible, but there was some sliding. The shoe fits true to size with a snug fit all the way around. But when landing on jumps, occasionally, my toes would slide forward and push further into the toe of the shoe, which could cause some discomfort. Just be sure to tie them a little tighter if you are doing a lot of jumping.

Support

The construction of this shoe is unique. If you remove the drop-in midsole, the shoe can easily fold in half. This means that all arch and torsional support needs to come from a midsole made entirely of React foam with a small, flat plastic plate in the arch. It’s a little stiffer with the midsole in, but it isn’t great. The support through the arch of the foot leaves a lot to be desired and could cause problems for people with plantar fasciitis issues. You can’t fix this with a custom insole because the drop-in is the shoe’s midsole. If you don’t have these issues already, these shoes should be fine.

Nike Metcon Turbo 2 Summary

The design philosophy behind the Nike Metcon Turbo 2 is clearly to find a balance between HIIT/plyometric training shoes and weightlifting shoes. The result is a jack-of-all-trades training shoe that feels bouncy when you’re doing drop jumps but stable and solid when you’re squatting. These aren’t the best shoes for plyometrics or weightlifting, but if you pick one shoe to do both, there’s no better choice. The Nike Metcon Turbo 2 is the best shoe for jump training, and if that’s your primary training goal, I recommend giving them a try.