Are the super shoes allowing athletes to train harder and recover quicker

By anecdotal, personal experience I'd say yes. The next day I don't get soreness after hard sessions in my Vaporflys.

yes

Another anecdotal post but I have 2 pair of old Vapor Flies lying around that I never really used. I've now been using the orange pair for my speed work to get the use out of them and I have noticed that I generally feel much better the day after a workout than I have in the past. I hadn't thought about it until I saw this post but maybe this is the reason why.

AnotherHobbyJogger wrote:

Another anecdotal post but I have 2 pair of old Vapor Flies lying around that I never really used. I've now been using the orange pair for my speed work to get the use out of them and I have noticed that I generally feel much better the day after a workout than I have in the past. I hadn't thought about it until I saw this post but maybe this is the reason why.

Thus in reality if you can train harder you can race faster. That is generally how adaptation works if you have a good coach and train with the super shoes!

"Less muscle damage and impact"? So, you're saying that athletes should not adapt to the rigors of their sport. You're saying that with less strain to deal with, they can recover quicker. And, what you are saying, in effect, is that the athlete will be required to run only in those "super shoes" from now on, since they never adapt to the rigors of running in regular shoes.

Mucker wrote:

"Less muscle damage and impact"? So, you're saying that athletes should not adapt to the rigors of their sport. You're saying that with less strain to deal with, they can recover quicker. And, what you are saying, in effect, is that the athlete will be required to run only in those "super shoes" from now on, since they never adapt to the rigors of running in regular shoes.

Sorry you may be somewhat lost. When training for performance you are somewhat limited by the time that it takes you to recover from one hard session to the next. With these shoes you are able to train hard but in roughly a 48-72 hour window you are able to push hard again. For elite athletes this is the golden egg. They can push the envelope and recover thus the performances we are seeing.

coahc wrote:

Everyone now knows about the performance benefit of the super shoes in races but IMO the real benefit is that you can train in these shoes and recover quicker due to less muscle damage and impact. All coaches know that the quicker an athlete can recover from a hard session means the sooner you can stress an athlete with hard training in the next session.

Sure.

What I am most interested in is the super spikes.

Please offer your assessment, possibly from your informal interactions with high quality track athletes, as to the per lap benefit of the super spikes. Carbon-plated or otherwise, I am really noticing a difference in runners' spring with each stride during a race.

I just watched video of Steve Scott in a dream mile, and another video of a mile when Sebastian Coe ran 3:48.4 to beat Ovett's mile record. That looked normal to me, especially how tired Coe was coming up the straightaway and just after the race.

That tiredness was not seen in PED runners.

What you're basically talking about is the principles of trehsold running like the ingebrigtsens does. Double threshold.

Meaning: two days with threshold workouts morning and evening. Easier than the American regular style of one harder, but you recover faster, gets less injuries and in time improves more. Include vaporflys and you can train ridiculous amounts of quality with little to no risk.

There's another rarely discussed benefit. Athletes can carry a few extra pounds.

It's no longer just their limited limbs returning the energy, the watts aren't lost as easily as conventional shoes. A few extra pounds used to mean you'd be a few seconds slower per mile but no more.

This can be a positive thing as there is less paranoia about the scale as long as they don't get too carried away. That aspect can also mean less injury and bone fractures.

Also means big (tall) 6+ foot guys can now run harder without overheating as much at distance, they don't need massive shoes with much more heavy foam to carry/protect that weight.

Lets just go back to tying a 2x4 to our feet with some straw laces. Technology allows us to train harder run faster. Why does it matter so much. The athlete is still traveling the distance. Records are meant to be broken. Champions live forever. You probably get all in a tizzy when the track has no rails.

coahc wrote:

Everyone now knows about the performance benefit of the super shoes in races but IMO the real benefit is that you can train in these shoes and recover quicker due to less muscle damage and impact. All coaches know that the quicker an athlete can recover from a hard session means the sooner you can stress an athlete with hard training in the next session.

Kids these days are lazy and don't train that hard, that's what the geezer on this board say anyway

Interesting thread and I can certainly see how it allows athletes to train harder, but recover faster? I find that a bit difficult to believe.

Let's say I run an all-out 5K. In regular trainers I run, say, 15:00. In VF's the shoes make me a little faster and I run 14:55. In both instances I've gone all-out max effort and am exhausted, so how could it be that I'd recover faster from the VF run? I have been running at an effort for 5 seconds less but that tiny difference is negligible. Surely I would require the same recovery time?

The whole point of training is to stress the body. By wearing super shoes you do not receive an equivalent stimulus unless pace/intensity is adjusted, and when intensity is increased, you receive the same stress to the body as in regular trainers.

British Guy wrote:

Interesting thread and I can certainly see how it allows athletes to train harder, but recover faster? I find that a bit difficult to believe.

Let's say I run an all-out 5K. In regular trainers I run, say, 15:00. In VF's the shoes make me a little faster and I run 14:55. In both instances I've gone all-out max effort and am exhausted, so how could it be that I'd recover faster from the VF run? I have been running at an effort for 5 seconds less but that tiny difference is negligible. Surely I would require the same recovery time?

less hemolysis during running

Its all anecdotal that doesn't actually stand up to the physics of what's happening.

I'll start running in spikes then.

No

judicious wrote:

The whole point of training is to stress the body. By wearing super shoes you do not receive an equivalent stimulus unless pace/intensity is adjusted, and when intensity is increased, you receive the same stress to the body as in regular trainers.

But "the body" is not just one thing that is stressed in one way. Take this for what little it's worth (I know next to nothing about the subject), but if the super shoes reduce the stress on your legs, then the faster running they allow may put the same stress on your legs and more on your lungs, allowing more improvement. Or the faster recovery they allow me let you stress your lungs more often. I'm sure it's a lot more complicated than just legs vs. lungs, but you get the idea.

JamesD2 wrote:

judicious wrote:

The whole point of training is to stress the body. By wearing super shoes you do not receive an equivalent stimulus unless pace/intensity is adjusted, and when intensity is increased, you receive the same stress to the body as in regular trainers.

But "the body" is not just one thing that is stressed in one way. Take this for what little it's worth (I know next to nothing about the subject), but if the super shoes reduce the stress on your legs, then the faster running they allow may put the same stress on your legs and more on your lungs, allowing more improvement. Or the faster recovery they allow me let you stress your lungs more often. I'm sure it's a lot more complicated than just legs vs. lungs, but you get the idea.

It’s the one thing time the people against the 4% fail to understand because they don’t want to understand. You can either ran the same effort in a shoe that provides a better economy, aka faster or less effort to run the same time/pace less efficient shoe otherwise the impact is the same.

The difference here that you could train in fast shoes, typically lightweight, which were really racing flats that beat you up more or train in, typically heavier, cushioned shoes which were slower that left you more fresh. Couple that with changes in training methods, despite 80/20 easy/hard there is still a lot of time at threshold for elite at 100+ miles per week.

Now we have foams which are both lightweight (fast) and cushioned (less impact) our performance improves in both training and races. This is no difference comparatively to training in racing flat on a track but instead we can do it on the road.

Some “older” runners complain really should of run in different shoes and they would have been faster. Others complain because they did not have this “technology” and others still become of a lack of understanding on the subject and economy improvement, read 4% = run 4% faster, great marketing but almost forgot that the streak is 5% more efficient than the Pegasus anyway.

In my experience wearing carbon shoes in practice made recovery worse. They kill my hamstrings and my forefoot gets sore (toes go numb). I have talked to several runners that have also experienced hamstring pain from wearing v-fly’s.

Anyone else experience this?