Sports Specific Applications

Sports Specific Applications

Sports-specific socks were pioneered by ThorLo in the early 1980s. Soon, all major sock manufacturers followed with socks packaged and presumably designed for specific sports, i.e., tennis, golf, running, etc. What began as functional differentiation for a few key sports has led to a bevy of sock packaging techniques and marketing hype with products designed for every conceivable activity. In reality, there is very little technical difference within any particular company in the design of their hosiery products for various individual sports. In the end, however, the zeal of the American public to purchase socks specific for each sport has spawned a $250,000,000 industry.

Socks should be designed specific to the shoe, rather than the sport itself. The biomechanical movement and stresses of recreational and competitive sporting activities vary greatly. Designing a sock to mitigate those stresses has resulted in very similar features, despite the varieties of foot stresses found in each sport. What carries more variation are the shoe designs and the environmental challenges of the sport. Here, sock design in the upper and fiber composition can be varied greatly to meet the demands peculiar to the sport.

The following table gives examples of sock design and fiber variations as well as the sports applications that are best suited.