ASICS SUPERBLAST 3 Review

The ASICS SUPERBLAST 3 is for you if...

You're looking for a shoe with an especially bouncy and energetic midsole.

You want a soft shoe that still offers good energy return.

You prefer a lightweight, but highly cushioned running experience.

What is the ASICS SUPERBLAST 3 made for?

Before the triumph of the MEGABLAST, there was the SUPERBLAST. The ASICS shoe that showed us that heaping stacks of bouncy midsole foams could be fun, comfortable, and fast, the SUPERBLAST 2 was a revolution. An incredible midsole, comfortable upper, and effective outsole made the SUPERBLAST 2 our (and many others') Shoe of the Year in 2024.

Then, last year, the MEGABLAST arrived, bringing the same sort of dynamic, fun energy to our feet with a stack full of ASICS' new FF TURBO2 superfoam. In many ways, it felt like the next evolution in what the SUPERBLAST 2 had achieved, and raised the question...what will the SUPERBLAST 3 do to one-up this?

Well, the answer is here. With a top layer of FF LEAP foam, a bottom layer of FF BLAST+ foam, trampoline pods, more upper fine-tuning, and much, much more under the hood, we've finally gotten to slip these shoes on our own feet. Let's see if this is yet another step up for ASICS in a great category they're already dominating, or if the SUPERBLAST is going to be outshined by the MEGABLAST. In our opinion, it's going to depend on your use case for the shoes.

Comfort

The underfoot feel is really nice. The FF LEAP foam compresses nicely underfoot, delivering a feeling on the softer side, but there's enough rebound to keep you moving forward. The midsole foam feels bouncy and energetic, with the perfect amount of cushioning--not too soft and not too firm. Overall, the midsole provides a highly cushioned experience that is relatively stable at uptempo paces.

The upper is more concerned with low weight than luxurious comfort. It's a trade-off that would be fine if the shoe was a bit quicker, but since the ride has started to lean more towards a general trainer, we found ourselves wishing that focus had shifted above our foot also, where we wanted a bit more plushness for the upper.

Performance

Ranking the performance of this shoe is tough, because on the one hand, the shoe functions very well as a long run or long workout shoe. We rarely noticed the weight of the shoe during our testing and could bound through our training runs with ease. But moving outside of that range, towards the two ends of the speed spectrum, we found the shoe starts to lose its confidence.

When running too slow, the shoe began to feel unstable, and we felt our strides rolling towards the shoe's medial side a bit. But then, when picking up the pace and getting on our toes some more (negating the medial tipping), we found that the foam combinations weren't as speed-ready as the SUPERBLAST 2. That versatility that the SUPERBLAST 2 offered--to take things easy, or to bust out a speed workout--seems to be missing here. Instead, this 3rd model seems more exclusively catered for quick daily mileage or tempo runs. 

Fit

We found that the toe box of the ASICS SUPERBLAST 3 had a good amount of room, with the midfoot offering us a solid fit that didn't feel too snug. It's a standard fit that should work well for a lot of foot types, although we did note a little looseness in the heel. Even so, this did not create any uncomfortable hotspots or rubbing.

To top it off, the thin, perforated tongue allows for an adaptable fit without getting in the way. Overall, we found that the fit of this shoe will be suitable for a wide range of runners.