When Asics launched the first Novablast back in 2020, it changed the way a lot of runners thought about the brand. Asics may be considered a legacy running company, but its tried-and-true styles lacked some of the excitement other brands were generating with carbon plates and super bouncy foams.
Enter: The Novablast. It was a lightweight, reasonably affordable daily trainer with an eye-catching design. And with each iteration, Asics has refined this shoe until it’s become — in our opinion — one of the best daily running shoes on the market. Daily trainers like this are meant to be durable, comfortable and versatile. If you were only going to buy a single pair of running shoes, it should be this type of shoe.
The Novablast 4 isn’t a major revamp, like we’ve seen Asics release recently for staples like the GEL-Nimbus 25 or the GEL-Cumulus 25. Instead, the company fine-tuned a fan favorite, playing up comfort and cushioning for an even smoother ride. We put these to test in our final weeks of training before the New York City Marathon — here’s what we thought.
The Novablast 4 is the next iteration of Asic's line of classic running shoes and it concentrates of cushioning and comfort. Its roomier upper is great for those with wider feet, but you may want to consider sizing down if your foot runs on the narrower side.
What we liked about it
The new full-length FF Blast Eco Cushion
Shoe companies are in their maximal cushioning era, and Asics is no exception. In the Novablast 4, the Flytefoam Blast+ midsole was swapped out for one made entirely of Flytefoam Blast+ Eco, the brand’s lightest and most energetic foam. It’s also the brand’s most sustainable cushioning, made with 20 percent bio content. We found it to be noticeably softer than the Novablast 3 right from step-in. There’s still an 8-millimeter height difference — AKA drop — from heel to toe, but there’s a tiny bit more foam underfoot all around, bringing the stack height up to around 40 millimeters in the heel and 33 in the forefoot. Overall, it felt much cushier, and we loved how it felt during an easy four-miler as well as a 10-mile long run the week before the New York City Marathon (we’ve logged about 30 total miles so far).
The improved outsole
We didn’t personally experience any issues with the rubber outsole on the Novablast 3, but Asics made some tweaks based on input it received from other runners. Instead of AHAR rubber, the designers used AHAR Lo, which the company says is lower density to improve durability and traction. Our 10-mile long run took place during Denver’s first snowstorm, and we felt very sure-footed, even in slushy conditions. When you flip the shoe over and look at the geometry of the outsole, you can see that the design is more pronounced than in the Novablast 3 — that’s what gives the shoe its trampoline effect. The way midsole and the outsole work together allows both the heel striking zone and forefoot area to capture and return more energy. Translation: You get a bouncier ride overall.
What we didn’t like about it
The woven knit upper
It’s not that we didn’t like the upper, but it was the one area of the shoe we felt kind of meh about. The Novablast 3 had a mesh upper that wasn’t necessarily accommodating to wider feet; that was replaced with a softer, woven fabric — and the way the tongue is constructed allows for more stretch, too. That does bode well for those with a wider foot, but we had a little too much wiggle room. (Asics says the new material is more durable and breathable; we never had an issue on either front with the 3, and the 4 still felt great in cooler temperatures).
We generally wear a size 10 in running shoes, and while that size still fit length-wise in the Novablast 4, the roomier upper caused the shoe to lose some of the snappiness we loved in the previous version. It could be that sizing down would fix that but we didn’t have a chance to test this theory. We could still pick up the pace, but this iteration felt like it leans a little more towards comfort than performance for us.
How it compares
The Novablast is one of the most versatile daily trainers you can get right now. Compared to the Asics lineup, we felt it was more akin to maximally cushioned Superblast than the previous Novablast (although those two are very complementary shoes, so the 4 feels like a happy medium between the two).
As far as other daily trainers go, it’s significantly softer than Nike’s Pegasus ($140), and the Boston 12 from Adidas ($160). While it’s not quite as light as the Hoka Mach 5 ($140), it’s softer and more comfortable for higher mileage, and we found the Novablast to be more responsive than the uber-popular Brooks Ghost 16 ($140). Of course, every runner is going to have different preferences for the shoe they run most of their miles in, but we’ve found ourselves regularly recommending the Novablast 3 and 4 to runners, and it always seems to satisfy.
Bottom line
What we like most about the Novablast as a style is its dependability. This is a shoe we return to whenever we get little niggles in our legs, because it’s soft, supportive, and stable — everything you’d want from a daily trainer. We did feel like the updates to the latest iteration sacrificed a bit on the performance we really enjoyed in the Novablast 3, but we have plenty of other shoes to run fast in. Overall, the tweaks to the Novablast 4 are minimal enough that it still feels like the shoe we know and love — and one we can still trust to go the distance with us.
