Supershoe calculation

Is it 3% regardless of speed, or is it a more or less percentage at slower times. Can I just take 3% of my fastest time prior to super shoes and subtract from that time to see what I would have run in supershoes, or do I have to use that entire long equation you wrote?

runscotchsleep wrote:

Is it 3% regardless of speed, or is it a more or less percentage at slower times. Can I just take 3% of my fastest time prior to super shoes and subtract from that time to see what I would have run in supershoes, or do I have to use that entire long equation you wrote?

Paper B, measures the runninc economy at 16 km/h.

My calculation assumes running economy improvement is linear applicable also for higher speeds. For lower speeds <16 km/h this is maybe not true.

Based on paper B, there is a difference between carbon plated shoes. Not all supershoes are equal good. Asics and Nike seems to have the best at the moment based on that study.

If you choose one of the best carbon plated shoes you can take 3% away of your fastest road race times, run with non-plates shoe, yes.

This paper addresses converting metabolic savings in lab to performance improvements for various speeds/distances. If you click on the supplementary materials link you can download and excel document that will do the calculations for you.

lab rat rundown wrote:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2019.00079/full

This paper addresses converting metabolic savings in lab to performance improvements for various speeds/distances. If you click on the supplementary materials link you can download and excel document that will do the calculations for you.

Thanks a lot, nice read.

There is something which is not adressed in this paper:

Even for elite runners there is a difference in running economy at a certain running pace.

Those VO2 fitting formulas are fitted by the average of an elite group. For a more efficient professional, the gain by the shoe is therefore even less, as the percentage change of the Vo2 is smaller. Therfore i would assume that for Kipchoge the gain is even smaller.

Interesting in this paper is also the discussion about the small muscle damages because of the impact of running within a race and the aspect of cushioning. (see also disqualification of Leonard Langat by using a 50mm stack shoe during Vienna City-Marathon 2021)

SFA did the calculation for you: "a 3% improvement in RE would be expected to improve performance by ~3% at 14 km‧hr-1 and ~2.6% at 20 km‧hr-1. " This is less than your calculation of 3.2% at 16 km/hr.

Your calculation also assumes that everyone is a responder. According to the SFA paper, step 1, before your calculation, is to answer this question: "is the runner a responder?" If not, your calculations won't hold. Or maybe it's a factor by which you multiply the whole improvement math. If the person is a nonresponder, that factor approaches zero, and the improvement does, too.

Makes Paper wrote:

SFA did the calculation for you: "a 3% improvement in RE would be expected to improve performance by ~3% at 14 km‧hr-1 and ~2.6% at 20 km‧hr-1. " This is less than your calculation of 3.2% at 16 km/hr.

Your calculation also assumes that everyone is a responder. According to the SFA paper, step 1, before your calculation, is to answer this question: "is the runner a responder?" If not, your calculations won't hold. Or maybe it's a factor by which you multiply the whole improvement math. If the person is a nonresponder, that factor approaches zero, and the improvement does, too.

Regardless the responder vs so called non responder, this is just how efficient a person runs, a very efficient runner would be a “non responder” was someone with poorer efficiency would be a responder.

It’s this why we keep hearing the statement, runners I use to beat easily are now faster than me?

The testing alway at marathon pace and with the same shoe size/weight, whereas it the studies should look at changes in shoe size on efficiency and at different speeds

I am more a practical man, and did not want to write a master thesis about it.

However, although i did my calculation fast and as an estimation, i seems to be accurate enough to get a feeling about it, and to know the ballpark.

In a lot of sports the material plays a major role. Why should that different in running?

I realized that the shoe-test paper B, mentioned in my first post, has a huge drawback:

The biggest competitor Adidas is not mentioned there! It is excluded.

So i confronted now the writer of this paper about that (send E-Mail), and i am curious about the 'excuse' why Adidas was excluded. (If i get any response)

How can you exclude the biggest competitor to Nike in a paper like this?

The whole paper could possibly be bought by Nike and this is very suspicious. It looks not good.

If you had followed the original thread about that study on here on these boards, you wouldn’t have had to “confront” him as he contributed to the thread and answered plenty of questions.

The answer is that it was a matter of availability. They wanted to include the Adios Pro but couldn’t get any in the right sizes in the right time frame.

Raggedman wrote:

If you had followed the original thread about that study on here on these boards, you wouldn’t have had to “confront” him as he contributed to the thread and answered plenty of questions.

The answer is that it was a matter of availability. They wanted to include the Adios Pro but couldn’t get any in the right sizes in the right time frame.

Dont know that thread.

And LOL about , 'he could not get the shoe in time'.

As Adidas was removed on purpose, why should i trust any data??

Moderators pleases remove this thread, as paper B is a marketing gag. It has no value.

I’ve read his responses here and heard him interviewed on a couple of podcasts/YouTube channels and there is no bias against Adidas in the study.

It’s a small college doing a study funded by a small internal grant. At the time the study was being stood up the first version of the Adios Pro was sold out and the second version wasn’t released yet.

If the study was truly funded by and biased toward Nike then I doubt the results would’ve shown the Metaspeed Sky as being on the same level as the Alphafly and Vaporfly.

Raggedman wrote:

If the study was truly funded by and biased toward Nike then I doubt the results would’ve shown the Metaspeed Sky as being on the same level as the Alphafly and Vaporfly.

This

How much does the improvement differ between runners and technique?

And there will also be a difference in drag with increasing speed. It´s not linear, it quadruples with speed.

The faster you go the more important it will be. The elite runs at speeds where it does start to have a clear effect.

If the shoes are 3% better at 16km/h it will be less at 20km/h. At least in terms of running time.

And I get the impression that the 3% improvement was shown on a treadmill? They are softer than asfalt or a modern championship track for that matter.

And maybe there are better normal shoes on the market than those tested?

You also have zero drag when running on a treadmill. It is still a very significant improvent but you can´t just subtract 3% from the time.

And then we have turns and sometimes ups and downs.

I think your calculations are interesting but will show too great an effect. But they are good enough to show the shoes make a clear difference. At least 1%. That is very much at top level competition.

Raggedman wrote:

If the study was truly funded by and biased toward Nike then I doubt the results would’ve shown the Metaspeed Sky as being on the same level as the Alphafly and Vaporfly.

Asics is no competition to Nike, as Nike sells much more sport article next to running shoes. And there is always a second best shoe ...

Adidas is by far the strongest competitor to Nike about the world market.

I would be also suspicious if there is a study with Adidas shoes comming up first and no Nike shoe is included. Same.

Any good scientist should know about that problematic, that is a zero brainer. Thats just a bad setup of a study, nothing else.

lexel wrote:

Raggedman wrote:

If the study was truly funded by and biased toward Nike then I doubt the results would’ve shown the Metaspeed Sky as being on the same level as the Alphafly and Vaporfly.

Asics is no competition to Nike, as Nike sells much more sport article next to running shoes. And there is always a second best shoe ...

Adidas is by far the strongest competitor to Nike about the world market.

I would be also suspicious if there is a study with Adidas shoes comming up first and no Nike shoe is included. Same.

Any good scientist should know about that problematic, that is a zero brainer. Thats just a bad setup of a study, nothing else.

You've staked out a position that doesn't make sense, and it's leading you to say dumb things. Just let it go; it's okay to be wrong sometimes.

Yes treadmill.

I did several estimations:

a) I took the running economy improvement between Asics – Hyperspeed (no carbon plate) and Nike shoe (carbon plated): around 1.5 mml/kg/min. If you have a more heavy non-plated shoe as Asics – Hyperspeed that improvement is maybe even more. Unfortunately they did not include a standard running shoe in this study.

b) Running economy improvement is the same for higher speeds. As discussed before, not exactly correct, however if you run around 16km/h than good enough.

c) Running economy of the runner is average compared to VO2 formula. If you have a worse running economy than average, you could possibly gain even more with such a shoe.

d) Running economy on treadmill is same as running on roads. Not all papers indicate that. And then there are runners who are more familiar with running on treadmill, some not.

Somewhere i read that Kipchoges running economy is not so good on the mill as on the road.