The Top 5 Soft & Bouncy Daily Trainers in 2025
Looking for a soft and bouncy daily trainer? We've put each of these shoes through the paces to help you find the shoes that will provide the most energetic, fun, and cushioned ride for all of your daily miles. Our list includes the Mizuno Neo Zen, Salomon Aero Glide 3, New Balance Balos, Adidas Adizero SL2, and the Asics GlideRide Max.
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Here are our TOP 5 soft and bouncy daily trainers to help you stack the miles in supreme comfort while also providing a fun, soft, pillowy, cushioned ride.
Mizuno Neo Zen: Overall best for its energetic bounce and pillowy soft feel
The Mizuno Neo Zen is the pinnacle when it comes to soft and bouncy daily trainers. What makes the Neo Zen so great is its midsole. It has a super-tall (46 mm heel / 40 mm forefoot) stack of ENERZY NXT—a nitrogen-infused TPU foam that is extremely bouncy and surprisingly lightweight. Unlike the Novablast 5 or even the AeroGlide 3, the rocker geometry on the Neo Zen is just about perfect.
At $150, the Neo Zen provides off-the-charts levels of comfort, softness, and energy return—and holds its own against shoes priced $30–50 higher, like the ASICS Superblast 2, Brooks Glycerin Max, and Puma Magnify Max. The Neo Zen is truly the ultimate in marshmallowy comfort packaged into a bouncy and energetic foam—a combination of qualities that is hard to do just right.
Mizuno Neo Zen
Salomon Aero Glide 3: Top pick for its versatility, cushion, and comfort
Salomon made waves back in 2023, when Rihanna sported them during her Super Bowl LVII halftime performance—but that still wasn’t enough to secure wide adoption of the brand’s running shoe line. Since then, Salomon has been relatively quiet, releasing a few models that never gained much traction. With the release of the AeroGlide 3 back in March (a.k.a. Aero GOAT 3), however, it quickly skyrocketed to being our favorite daily trainer of 2025.
That said, the AeroGlide 3 is not the squishiest (sink-in) shoe on this list, but it offers plenty of soft comfort and bounce. This quality makes for a shoe that never gives us that “fighting against the foam” feel and is just so easy to run in—it doesn’t force you to run in any particular way.
Our only demerit, which has come to light at the 100-mile mark, is that the rubber outsole in the heel seems to be wearing down more quickly than some other daily trainers. If you’re looking for a replacement for your Novablast 4 or 5 and enjoyed Adidas’ Boost foam (beaded TPU), we highly recommend taking a look at the Salomon Aero GOAT 3.
Sizing note: The consensus from community members on the Supwell App is that the AeroGlide 3 runs a half size too long. Some of our female members have noted that the women’s sizing might be even more off—some having to go down a full size. If you’re interested in the shoe, we recommend using our link at Running Warehouse so that you can get free 90-day returns in case you need to go down a half size.
Salomon Aero Glide 3
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New Balance Balos: A great choice for both walking and running
New Balance launched the all-new Balos line hoping it would be their answer to the ASICS Superblast 2, Brooks Glycerin Max, and Puma Magnify Max. However, the Balos didn’t garner nearly as much hype as the aforementioned shoes—likely because of the steep price point ($200).
Now that you can find the Balos on sale, the value proposition becomes a lot more attractive. From a ride perspective—like the Neo Zen—the Balos has an awesome rocker that feels great while running but can also double as a walking shoe. This is the only shoe on our list that features a ground-contact EVA outsole, which makes the shoe feel even softer and improves the smoothness of the ride; however, durability might be more of a concern here.
While not quite as exuberantly bouncy as the Neo Zen or as capable of picking up the pace as the AeroGlide or the SL2, it comes with a very comfortable, padded upper and the distinctive sink-in feel that we loved in the New Balance 1080 v13.
New Balance Fresh Foam X Balos v1
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Adidas Adizero SL2: Affordable daily trainer with a fun and streamlined feel
The Adidas SL2 was one of our top five daily trainers of 2024. We’ve found it to be a super fun, versatile, and durable daily trainer—able to withstand our high-mileage testing in the North Carolina summer heat.
The SL2 is the most streamlined and flexible shoe on this list, making it a great do-it-all option for pace pick-ups, strides, and fartlek-style workouts. The core of Lightstrike Pro—Adidas’ racing foam—really comes alive at faster paces and is also a super comfortable compound.
Priced at $130 MSRP (and often found for under $100 at Adidas or DSG), the Adidas SL2 offers great bounce in a budget-friendly package without feeling like an inferior product. Kudos to Adidas on this one.
Adidas Adizero SL2
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ASICS GlideRide Max: Bouncy daily trainer with the protection of a super max stack shoe
To round out the list, we’ve got another high-stack daily trainer from ASICS. Like the Superblast, the GlideRide Max is another long-run option from ASICS. However, it leans more toward soft comfort than fast and firm.
The GlideRide comes with 46 mm of FF BLAST MAX foam (as seen in the Novablast 5) on top and FF BLAST PLUS ECO (from the Nimbus 27) on the bottom—all sandwiched around a third-quarter-length EVA plate.
In our testing, we found that the GlideRide Max delivers more of a soft, sink-in feel underfoot, without the energy return that we get from some of the other shoes on this list—namely the Neo Zen, AeroGlide 3, or even the SL2. But if you’re looking for a shoe with comfort dialed up to the max—and if you've historically liked other ASICS models—you won’t be disappointed with the GlideRide Max.
Asics GlideRide Max
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