New “Super Shoe” Research Data

JamesD2 wrote:

Flat Stanley wrote:

My instinct would be 6 minute miles are too slow to test the shoes properly...

Too slow for anyone or just for you? Not being snarky; I've seen a lot of people say that super shoes mainly help at paces faster than X, but I assume that X varies from person to person and what they really mean is that the shoes help more once you get closer to, say, marathon race pace. The test subjects were 16:00 (+/- 0:40) 5K runners, so 6-minute miles may have been closer to their race paces than to yours.

Just saw this. You said what I said, more politely and concisely.

Hey, thanks for the interest in our study. Tried to address a lot of the comments that have come up already. As for other insights...I have some thoughts both as a runner and and as a researcher. Sometimes have to be deliberate about separating those things.

-I went into the study knowing there would be at least 1 or 2 duds based on some pilot testing we had. As far as surprises, on an anecdotal level (not really scientific based hypothesis) I thought the Endorphin Pro would have performed better. Not from experience running it, but just from some things I had heard Jared Ward say in a podcast about personal testing he had done.

-I've heard a lot of talk about how some super shoes may be better for certain people than others and the best shoe for everyone might be super individualized. Outside of the top 3 shoes in our study, that was decidedly not the case. Every one of the 12 subjects most economical shoe was one of those top 3 (Nike AF, Nike VF2, or Asics MS). I'm not disregarding the role of shoe preference and comfort. But in terms of running economy improvements, those were the 3 that rose to the top regardless of individual.

-Things I'd do different. Move the SFA campus in rural Nacogdoches, TX to a major metropolitan area! Went all out to recruit 12 guys who could run sub 6 pace at LT who wore a size 10-11. Most of our subjects traveled around 3-4 hours round trip for each lab visit so props to them. If I had a ton of local people, probably would have had another 2 visits to test at more speeds. Just wasn't feasible. Wanted to test 16kph for current study since that is most common in previous lit for comparison sake.

-Probably have a lot more thoughts, but will stop there for now. I'll try to check back and answer other questions that come up. Been a letsrun lurker since my HS/college running days. Cheers!

-Got a lot of future stuff planned if y'all want to keep up with me on instagram. Shameless self promotion:

https://www.instagram.com/labratrundown/

Seems to me one explanation for this is that 6 minute miles are too slow for you to personally notice how hard you're working. Most athletes are pretty attuned to their speed and effort when they're approaching the edge, but at easier paces, they're just not as aware. Ask me to run a 72 second quarter without a watch, and I'll hit it within half a second. Ask me to run 95 seconds, and I will be lucky to get within five seconds.

Thanks for posting lab rat! It would be super interesting to see a study with people running hard for 2+ hours to see if the delta between the super shoes and traditional shoes gets wider. Could also check for CK and other biomarkers of muscle damage.

800 dude wrote:

Thanks for posting lab rat! It would be super interesting to see a study with people running hard for 2+ hours to see if the delta between the super shoes and traditional shoes gets wider. Could also check for CK and other biomarkers of muscle damage.

Great thoughts! Those are two follow up studies I have planned. The economy differences pre and post long run will be easy since I already have the shoes. Will need to secure a little funding for the bloodwork. I'm not sure if there is a full paper out on the muscle damage stuff, but there is this conference presentation/abstract:

On a personal level, I find it insane the efforts I can put in on my old man calves in my Alphaflys with little to no residual effects with DOMs. One beautiful thing about the good super shoes, aside from all the bickering about records, fairness, and which ones are best, is they let you run faster which is just fun and my guess is they will let me do that longer and more often.

lab rat rundown wrote:

In reality though, the goal of this project wasn't necessarily to test every possible shoe, it's not feasible and it's an ever changing environment. We wanted to know across the broad landscape of the shoe industry have the rest of the crowd leveled up. We can say with some confidence now that is unlikely.

For sure! I think in retrospect it makes some of the Hoka/Saucony athletes' accomplishments more impressive. I do think Sally Kipyego was less deserving than Des Linden to make the team, and I think in equal shoes she probably doesn't make it.

People were pretty excited about the Saucony shoes so I think that's the biggest disappointment to see them a step down. Hoka/Brooks/New Balance shoes it feels like have widely been thought of as not as good.

Interested in how Adidas will test if you get your hands on them but I suspect right around Asics and clearly in the same tier.

You should post your paper on Reddit RunningShoesGeeks. It would be greatly appreciated by this community

Agreed, Walmsley in Hoka and Linden in Brooks look even more impressive now. I do wonder if the plated shoes in general, regardless of running economy beneficial foams, help with the eccentric muscle damage. This is something I plan to incorporate into the post long run study.

Don't have much experience with reddit, but from what some friends sent me I think it's already posted there. TBH the comments/interpretations there were a little off the wall so haven't decided to jump into that conversation just yet.

lab rat rundown wrote:

Agreed, Walmsley in Hoka and Linden in Brooks look even more impressive now. I do wonder if the plated shoes in general, regardless of running economy beneficial foams, help with the eccentric muscle damage. This is something I plan to incorporate into the post long run study.

This would be great to see! My experience with several carbon plated models from different brands is that they didn't make me much faster but, they certainly extended time to fatigue at LT velocity (I suspect this to be a huge advantage at marathon pace) and I recover from hard efforts much faster. Long runs in super shoes are great. I am ready to roll the following day rather than having to recover 48 hours before feeling like doing any quality work.

Thanks for posting here, I find this subject pretty interesting, especially with regard to individual responses. I know there isn't enough evidence yet to prove whether running form effects effeciency gains but anecdotally people I know with high cadence don't find the shoes as natural as more bouncy runners, even though everyone seems to run faster.

As someone who is likely a low responder to super shoes and is currently racing in next percents (180 cadence easy, 195 Marathon pace, 200 at Half pace), I wonder if I would run faster in ASICS "cadence" shoe, metaspeed edge rather than the next percents- I haven't seen any pros run in the edge yet, seems like everyone in Tokyo chose the sky.

I also wonder if low responders did a lot of workouts in super shoes, the body would eventually learn how to run more efficiently in them.

I found the Saucony endorphin pro better than your study. Actually fast than the Metaspeed Sky.

r3sp0nders wrote:

Thanks for posting here, I find this subject pretty interesting, especially with regard to individual responses. I know there isn't enough evidence yet to prove whether running form effects effeciency gains but anecdotally people I know with high cadence don't find the shoes as natural as more bouncy runners, even though everyone seems to run faster.

As someone who is likely a low responder to super shoes and is currently racing in next percents (180 cadence easy, 195 Marathon pace, 200 at Half pace), I wonder if I would run faster in ASICS "cadence" shoe, metaspeed edge rather than the next percents- I haven't seen any pros run in the edge yet, seems like everyone in Tokyo chose the sky.

I also wonder if low responders did a lot of workouts in super shoes, the body would eventually learn how to run more efficiently in them.

When the ASICS first came out with the concept of 2 models with one being for high cadence runners I was intrigued. But then saw that the heel-toe drop was much higher in that model I lost interest. I prefer a 4mm-6mm drop

ATEA4RE wrote:

Raggedman wrote:

Interesting read. If you go beyond the charts and tables you see that the low and non-responders are those who are already more efficient runners. The person who had the highest cadence and lowest vertical oscillation had no increase in RE in the Alphafly.

With N=12 I wouldn't make too much of the results re: non/responders.

I was just going to write this. Extremely low power study.

nES wrote:

ATEA4RE wrote:

With N=12 I wouldn't make too much of the results re: non/responders.

I was just going to write this. Extremely low power study.

The study is adequately powered to compare the shoes (see their stats paragraph in the paper); it wasn’t designed to compare the (12) subjects. tHaT’s aLL I wAs sAyINg. :)

Don Juan wrote:

LOL at Stephan F Austin University and anything coming out of there.

SFA made the hypothesis that the shoes would miss the ground.

Your comment "It is very much about the foam. " puts a significant dent in all the ranting about Nike's "super spikes," which are supposedly faster (and therefore "super") because of the carbon plate, but don't contain nearly as much cushioning as the super road shoes.

I don't think it's psychological, but I've noticed (or at least think) that my legs are far less beat up after long runs (up to around 45-50 miles) in my plated shoes than even in my most-cushioned "normal" shoes (Hoka Bondi). I've done 40+-milers in my plated shoes and felt fine running the next day, which never has happened in regular shoes. Again, maybe mental, but I have this feeling it's not. My plated shoes are Hoka Carbon X2 and Saucony Endorphin Speed (obviously not both carbon, but also not "normal").

Cool research. I heard about the paper today on IG, but haven't had a chance to consider in depth.

Great study. Amazing. My god this is basically what I wanted to run or have Geoff Burns do myself.

So we still have mechanical doping going on.

Let's fill in the shoe sponsors of the recent Olympic top 10 finishers in the marathon. Here are my guesses. Let me know if you see any mistakes.

1 Eliud Kipchoge KEN 2:08:38 - Nike

2 Abdi Nageeye NED 2:09:58 - Nike

3 Bashir Abdi BEL 2:10:00 - Nike

4 Lawrence Cherono KEN 2:10:02 - Nike

5 Ayad Lamdassem ESP 2:10:16 - Nike

6 Suguru Osako JPN 2:10:41 - Nike

7 Alphonce Felix TAN 2:11:35 - adidas

8 Galen Rupp USA 2:11:41 - Nike

9 Othmane El Goumri MAR 2:11:58 - Nike

10 Koen Naert BEL 2:12:13 - asics

Well I guess in some ways, it's a good think the top 6 was all nike as we at least don't think shoes made a big difference in their relative order.

What about the women?

1 Peres Jepchirchir KEN 2:27:20 - adidas

2 Brigid Kosgei KEN 2:27:36 - Nike

3 Molly Seidel USA 2:27:46 - Puma

4 Roza Dereje ETH 2:28:38 - Nike

5 Volha Mazuronak BLR 2:29:06 - adidas

6 Melat Kejeta GER 2:29:16 - adidas

7 Eunice Chumba BRN 2:29:36 - Nike

8 Mao Ichiyama JPN 2:30:13 - Nike?

9 Malindi Elmore CAN 2:30:59 - Saucony

10 Sinead Diver AUS 2:31:14 - Nike

Dustin, I'd like to chat with you and write an article about it on Friday (my son is out off school tmw so I"m playing Mr. Mom). Can you email me your phone # and a good time to call on Friday morning?

robert@letsrun.com

Thanks rojo, sent you an email.

dj