Do NOBULL, Nike, Under Armour and Brooks Run Big? Eleven Pairs Measured in a 14 and a 15

I wear a 14 in NOBULL and a 15 in Under Armour. For years I assumed that was me being awkward about shoes. It is not. It is that the number on the box is a brand’s opinion, and the one measurement that decides whether a shoe fits a long foot is published by nobody.

So I pulled the insole out of eleven pairs I own and measured it. Nike, NOBULL, Under Armour and Brooks. Here is what they actually measure inside.

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My feet, so the numbers mean something

12 inches long on the left, 11.5 on the right. Ball width 4 and an eighth, and 4. Half an inch apart, which is far more common than people admit. I fit the left and deal with the right — the bigger foot is the one that has to work.

What eleven pairs measure inside

A 14 was 12.50 inches every single time. A 15 was anything from 12.75 to 13.

Every pair labelled 14 measured 12.50 — all three, across two brands. Every pair labelled 15 measured 12.75 or 13.00. That is a quarter inch of spread hiding inside one number on the box.

The 14 is the more honest label. The 15 is a range pretending to be a size.

Does NOBULL run big?

Yes, slightly — and I can prove it, because I own the NOBULL Ripstop 365 in both a 14 and a 15.

• 14 — insole 12.50. Fits.
• 15 — insole 12.75. Fits, but loose.

One full size step bought a quarter of an inch. Not the half inch you would expect. What it bought was slop, which is why the 15 slides and the 14 does not. If you are between sizes in NOBULL, take the smaller one.

NOBULL is the lower-cushion option here, firm rather than soft. What it buys you is life — the outer fabric is why mine keep going long after I expected them to be finished. They also make them in colours nobody else is brave enough to.

The other NOBULLs I own and measured:

The Outwork in a 15 measures 12.75 and still fits, because it is cut closer. The Drive 2 in a 14 measures 12.50, same as the Ripstop.

Does Under Armour run big?

In shoes, yes — and more than NOBULL does. All four Under Armour pairs I own are labelled 15, and three of the four are loose on me.

• HOVR Sonic 6 — insole 13.00. Loose.
• Charged Surge 4 — insole 13.00. Loose.
• Charged Breeze 2 — insole 13.00. Fits, and it is the one UA pair that does.
• Essential Runner — insole 12.75. Fits.

If a 13.00 insole is loose on a 12 inch foot, a labelled 15 in Under Armour is more shoe than I need. On this evidence I should be buying their 14.

Worth knowing before you order: the Charged Breeze 2, the Charged Surge 4 and the Essential Runner all have insoles that do not come out, so there is no adjusting them. The HOVR Sonic 6 does.

The other Under Armour pairs I measured:

The Nike Run Defy is the best value here

Insole 12.50 in a labelled 14, and it fits. Good cushioning — genuinely good, not just adequate — and it sits in the economical tier rather than the expensive one. The insole comes out if you need the depth.

Brooks: good shoes, and they are running shoes

Both pairs are loose on me. The Glycerin 23 measures 12.75, the Launch 8 13.00, and both are labelled 15.

That is not a mark against them. They are running shoes and they are built like running shoes. I prefer the firmer NOBULL feel for everything that is not running, which is a preference and not a verdict.

The Launch figures above were taken on a Launch 8. Brooks now sells this model as the Launch 12, which is what that link goes to — the numbers will be close, but it is not the pair I taped.

Ignore the outsole. It is design, not fit.

Three pairs measure 12.50 inside. Their outsoles are 13.50, 14.00 and 14.00. Four pairs measure 13.00 inside. Their outsoles are 13.75, 14.00, 14.00 and 14.50.

The outsole swings three quarters of an inch at identical fit. It is the only dimension you can judge from a product photo, and it tells you nothing about whether the shoe will fit.

Two things no spec sheet gives you

A heavily padded collar buys you fit. A thickly padded collar grips your heel and holds the foot back in the shoe, so a pair that measures slightly long still works. With two different sized feet that padding is doing real work on the smaller side. Nobody publishes it, so you have to feel for it.

A removable insole is adjustable depth. Take it out and a shoe that pinched across the top of the foot suddenly fits. For a big foot that often buys more usable room than going up a size, and going up from a 15 mostly just gives you a longer shoe to trip over. Eight of these eleven come out.

The number to shop for

Not a size. An insole of about 12.5 inches, for a 12 inch foot. Measure yours once — heel against a wall, full weight on it, mark the longest toe — and from then on you are shopping for a measurement instead of guessing at a label.

The honest caveat: all eleven of these fit me and none went back. Four I have marked loose, and I still wear them. At this foot size a slightly long shoe is a compromise you live with rather than a failure. It is worth knowing which compromise you are making before you pay for it.

Which shoe shape and colour to pick is a different question, and I wrote about that in the mistake most tall men keep making with shoes. Every figure above is in the Tall Sizing Database, and what is currently worth buying is on Tall Deals.