Super shoes & Oscar Pistorius

2016 calling... I mean five years ago all the history was sorted out

some kind of plates have been in shoes since at least 1984

but they barely worked, 1% at best and they had a huge downside with ankle stress and injury, they were heavy and the weight cost was too high

then in 2003 Adidas made one that worked slightly better made from carbon fiber

then Haile Gebrselassie used them to break the marathon WR by 30 seconds (before boost tpu)

then three researchers over three generations later, plates got much much better, too better, more lost-energy captured, almost no less ankle-stress

Benno Nigg -> Darren Stefanyshyn -> Geng Luo

now as far as the "politics" and IAAF allowing assisting technology in shoes to become dominant, in 2006/2007 they tried to ban then

that's when Pistorius sued them and got the rule undone

then Nike drove a freight-train through that loophole right to the bank like every other rule loophole they take advantage of, win at any price

https://www.worldathletics.org/news/news/iaaf-council-introduces-rule-regarding-techni

https://i.imgur.com/71dHkeu.jpg

https://imgur.com/a/jdlN3mB

thanks for the info

Just because a sports federation bans something doesn't mean it ever worked.

Blade runner blades didn't make anyone fast because of "energy return" beyond what was necessary to achieve a sustainable footstrike without tripping. There is nothing in those blades or in any shoe that propels you forward.

Look again at Pistorius racing and you'll see why a blade runner can go so fast without being fit: higher cadence. A lower leg weighs more than a blade and accelerates less from a given amount of applied force. It really is that simple.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Just because a sports federation bans something doesn't mean it ever worked.

Blade runner blades didn't make anyone fast because of "energy return" beyond what was necessary to achieve a sustainable footstrike without tripping. There is nothing in those blades or in any shoe that propels you forward.

Look again at Pistorius racing and you'll see why a blade runner can go so fast without being fit: higher cadence. A lower leg weighs more than a blade and accelerates less from a given amount of applied force. It really is that simple.

Are you crazy, or trolling? Those blades are springs, no question.

Bad Wigins wrote:

There is nothing in those blades or in any shoe that propels you forward.

You may want to double-check how ridiculous that sounds

You realize HE DOESN'T HAVE LEGS OR FEET BELOW THE KNEE to propel anything, duh

wtf do you think is propelling him forward? the blades

They are taking previously lost energy elsewhere in his up/down movement and small upper leg swing and translating it to forward energy (rather efficiently too).

Exactly what the shoes are doing on a smaller scale, less dramatically because a fraction of the size and they rely on the human ankle not material but still same function.

Previously lost energy now returned to forward momentum.

I really cannot believe we are doing this flat-earth nonsense years later, it's like a cult of denial.

You can argue it's acceptable because the athlete provided the energy in the first place (even though they did nothing extra on their own to achieve that gain) but you can't argue that's not what is happening, that's just not reality.

Wow, thank you for this run-down. The point that really jumps out at me is your take on Adidas and Gebrselassie. I remember some 10 years ago, I was watching videos of running form, first being put up on utube. I was made aware of the blather regarding desired 'low vertical oscillation', etc. And then I watched a video of the side profile of Gebrselassie as he was running a road marathon, and I was shocked at how much he was bouncing up and down with huge strides. I was wondering if there was something in his shoes at the time, it was so stunning!

shoo smoo wrote:

I really cannot believe we are doing this flat-earth nonsense years later, it's like a cult of denial.

You can argue it's acceptable because the athlete provided the energy in the first place (even though they did nothing extra on their own to achieve that gain) but you can't argue that's not what is happening, that's just not reality.

I think some of the shoe-denial 'nonsense' is intended deflection and obfuscation by corporate shills purposely trying to stoke confusion and keep a lid on reality.

At this point, my take on the spring shoes is that they are fine, but there should not be any restrictions, except a height restriction. In essence, this is Geoff Burns position as well. Are you familiar with Burns and his line of reasoning? Do you agree? If not, why not?

Didn't Nike literally build the carbon fiber blades for Oscar?

Then it's no coincendence that they also built the Vaporflies

On another note: Nike sure knows how to pick crappy representatives.

King Tiger wrote:

On another note: Nike sure knows how to pick crappy representatives.

This is true.