La Sportiva Theory

Because 2020 was supposed to be the year everyone went gaga over the Olympics and indoor climbing and blah blah blah, just about every climbing company released products intended piggyback of this expectant stoke for parkouring across volumes and sprinting up speed climbs. The La Sportiva Theory, the Solution Comp (stay tuned for review), and the 4.99 (a nod to breaking the elusive 5 second barrier in speed climbing) were all new super-soft 2020 additions to the Italian shoemaker’s line-up that were designed to cater to this trend.

Unfortunately gyms have been all but closed over the past year, people have forgotten that the Olympics is even a thing, and most people have been sneaking outside and carefully traveling to crags and trying not to spread their covid germs to local populations. It’s been a revival of outdoor climbing—or an influx that has overrun crags, depending on how you want to look at it.

Fortunately for me, an outdoor climber, I prefer very soft shoes for most (not all) routes and boulders, and the La Sportiva Theory has been my go-to over the past 6 months of testing.

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Specifications

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Upper material: microfiber, leather.

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Vibram XS Grip2 (2 – 3.5mm). Very thin!

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Downturned toe, aggressively assymetrical last. Unlined, so it will stretch a bit.

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True to size. Choose your normal Sportiva shoe size.

Fit

I have a medium-wide foot, and in general, Sportiva shoes feel a bit too narrow for me to really love them. People with narrower feet, of course, will prefer the Sportiva. I found the heel in the Theory to fit me perfectly, which makes me wonder if the typical narrow-footed climber might find it a bit baggy(?). My toes were bunched up in the toe box, not because I had the wrong size but because the shoe is a bit narrow for my feet. However because because the shoe is so soft, it was never painful as long as I got my toes wiggled in the right way.

Design

A single Velcro strap is almost superfluous because the shoe has such a good suction-cup fit, but it adds a bit of additional security, especially on heel hooks so that your heel doesn’t pop out.

Performance

“In theory, I shouldn’t fall, right?” I said, he he he, to my belayer as I cast off a project I was preparing to hang on no fewer than 20 times. This was the first time I was wearing the Theory and I had high hopes. That little line cursed me, however, because my foot popped off a smear unexpectedly in a place I normally would never slip.

“An inauspicious start,” I muttered to myself, dangling at the end of the rope.

It’s hard to talk about a “break in period” for a shoe that is so soft you could stuff it in the pocket of your cargo shorts, if, god forbid, you wear such things. And yet that seemed to be the case. It took a few pitches for the shoe to conform to my foot and give me that sense of confidence of really feeling what I’m standing on, which is what I love about softer shoes.

The toe has a bit of a point to it, though perhaps not quite as pronounced as the Testarossa, which gives a feeling of precision. The Theory really excels on toe hooks thanks to a thin patch of textured rubber on the top of your foot, which really helps you bite into bicycles or toe hooks.

I recently took these for a spin on a new 40-meter 5.12d near my house—a gently overhanging, very footwork intensive route. These were not the right shoes for that. If you’re climbing routes that force you to be doing a lot of standing on your feet, you’ll almost certainly want more support.

However, for shorter and more overhanging routes, for boulder problems, for Moon Boarding, and of course, for doing parkour tricks on indoor comp problems, the Theory are excellent option.