Super Shoes and Spikes are over hyped?

OVER RATED. Kudos to sports marketing teams for the super shoes hype. We've been hearing since the 90s,

"It's gotta be the shoes!"-Mars Blackmon Nike

Everyone has smart phones now. You can video yourself running and see what your mechanics are. Then you can improve your weaknesses.

I conducted a n=1 experiment with a pair of fake and real VPirflies. I had a friend mark which was which (so I’d be able to tell the normal one after) but he blinded me to it. They felt wuite similar so I couldn’t tell which was which.

The real ones boosted pace by about 2% for the same effort (measured by HR), while the fake ones helped by under 0.5%.

Conducted at 4:56 vs 5:01 pace for a tempo. My RHR was the same on both mornings and my training the day prior was the same.

Childish. Pacing for same HR differs everyday because of sleep, temperature, stress, time of day, but also a few million processes in your body, traffic lights, amongst many other factors. It’s not just the shoes baby. N=1 is not the problem here

It’s a big piece of it.

Yes, 50+ people just got a little mindset adjustment this year! The mindset PhDs have worked tirelessly on it! Watch out for more mindset breakthroughs in the next couple of months!

I think it's lazy (& a disservice to the sport/fast times) to only mention super shoes as causation for a fast time. That's what this website does whenever there's a good performance & it's supposed to drop the time down a peg in our minds. We know that the spikes are not as good as the road racing flats (not going to go there but you still need a slew of factors in road racing- weather/fueling/pacing/etc to get your best result).

I think you need to add in all of the other factors that lead to fast times if you want to talk about shoes in this context.

How about BU's fast track? How about everyone traveling to the same meets (instead of going to local/regional meets) to chase times in paced races? Look at the entries at BU over the weekend & where those runners are from. Decades ago you didn't have college runners from Oregon/Michigan/UCLA/BYU/etc flying to a meet in Boston. You didn't have pros jumping in college meets like this. Context matters. We're not supposed to be excited about sub-4's anymore but the conditions to chase the time are better than ever. It's not simply the shoes. It's having a pro pace you at BU and 5 heats of 12-15 guys getting after it. Talent is up in the sport. Time trials in perfect conditions are up. Training is better than ever.

I agree. Also every single runner, from high school to college to pros, is trained better now than the same set was 15 years ago. We have gained a lot of knowledge across the board in that time. That gives more runners the chance to excel, and the field from which to rise is at a higher level, so you have to improve a lot to get to that level and beyond.

shoes,and perhaps increased drug use.USA has the most sophisticated doping regime on earth,with a win at all costs mentality,as well as the money and influence to hide it.

There are probably some people better responding to the supershoes/spikes than others. I am pretty confident that the effect is considerably higher for road races and longer distances but it could be about 1 sec. in a ~ 4:00 mile and maybe 3 secs. in a 3000m and a bit more in the 5000m.

So I've posted many times on this topic with the same point of view.

Road running product pretty substantial impact but ultimately a massive spectrum of "benefit" dependent on the runner. Surface run on (hard and non compliant) and distance of race (typically much longer than track) compound the benefits making them "greater".

Track product still a massive unknown. Probably why no brand has made quantifiable claims like they did for road racing product. Compliant track surface and in general much shorter events mean the benefits most likely come from reduction in impact fatigue during workouts/preparation on the track. Still a benefit but not even close to the same level as on the road.

And of course, end of the day, none of these products are generating anything (force, ability, potential) - they are simply helping athletes more effectively reach their ultimate and inherent potentials. I mean technology jumps in other sports such as cycling (steel bikes through to now ultralite carbon etc) and golf (hickory shafted clubs with wooden heads through to now graphite shafts with titanium/carbon fiber heads) have had far greater performance impacts.

The problem in running is that it's such a unique sport in that it's one where you can measure yourself across the course of time because the field of competition is by in large consistent across that course of time (tracks, marathon courses etc) and this is where the "furore" comes from.

My theory for it is pretty simple. Runners and in particular distance runners have interesting mindsets. We always think we could have run faster than we did (in most cases that's the case) and we hate to think that others might do so based on anything other than the same type of hard work we put in. The only reason we get to this is because unlike many other sports, the only variable in performance is our own personal shape and a pair of shoes we put on our feet - that's it. Runners hate thinking that people train harder than they did or that people are simply more talented for a number of reasons - some learn to accept it and let go but many can't. I think this is why the community is so resistant to technology helping on any level. It's seen as "dirtying" the purity of the sport which we hold onto as a reflection of our efforts (sometimes careers) in it. I don't even believe we are in an era of the biggest innovation/tech jump in running (I believe going from leather and PU shoes to knitted textiles and EVA was far bigger) but people love picking and choosing the parts of the evidence and facts to support their agendas.

And I know this is the case because I once too was fresh off a competitive career and almost felt myself rooting against people running faster than I did based on my own disappointments/what-ifs/insecurities but that passed a long time ago. I love seeing this new "plateau" of performance - it's good to see and good for the sport. I also laugh at the fallacies I hear about "super" things such as "spring plates" and "magical carbon fibers" etc etc, mostly because I am fortunate enough to have some intricate knowledge on how this actually all works because of my career.

Long live the "super shoes" and congrats to those taking advantage of (finally) some new innovation and tech in this sport and industry.

You're not competitive if you don't wear them. The advantage isn't overstated.

By the way 2 seconds makes a big difference in the mile.

Arne Andersson 4:01.6 in 1944 . Roger Bannister 3:59.4 in 1954.

Are they over rated? I am not sure they are. I've done a lot of research on Mens D1 Indoor Mile performances from 2010-2021. Super spikes came out in 2019 and were not widely used yet, and hard to get. The bulk of sub 4 guys from this time span were about 35 per year. 2022 super spikes become easier to get, more people have them (watch the footage of the BU race and tell me how many have them). 2022 sub 4's skyrocketed to 90 indoors. Now look at 2023. How much faster are they, i'm not totally sure, i think it may be hard to know for sure, but one thing i'm certain of is they are faster and do make a difference. IF they didn't, then run the BU meet all over again and everyone is in spikes from 2018 (so no super spikes), lets see what the outcome is. I think you'll for sure have a good bit of sub 4's due to the rabbits, lots of quality guys racing on a fast track, with an amped up atmosphere, but IDK, I don't think it will be as many.

I say give it another 2-3 years, and as long as there are no more significant improvements in the shoe technology, there will be a plateau again of records being broken and I don't think the mile performance lists will keep growing. Look back through 2010-2021 and compare to 2022-2023. What used to be 4:00 is now 3:55-3:56. 4-5 seconds may not seem like much, but that's a significant drop in time in a mile.

It's all the above. Better equipment, better tracks, better racing setups, better training (philosophies and benefits from better shoe tech) and a better mindset. To dismiss the spikes completely would be silly, but if it was solely the spikes the elite end of the sport would be changed more. The limiting factors for fast times in college are just gone. Gone are the days where I'd expect a collegiate to improve 3 seconds outdoors if they went to Europe for a fast race. Races are engineered perfectly on windless indoor tracks with ideal pacemaking and fearless running. You see this outdoors too, and Americans are doing it better (Fisher/Ahmed 10K) than foreign athletes with the exception of Cheptegei's records in 2020.

It's the shoes.

I do think some of it is better training, but i think that means more kids are doing a high level of training. I'm not so sure the training ideas and philosophies are huge difference maker. Mostly the same college coaches from 2010 until now except for a few. It'd be interesting to hear from the college coaches on this topic. How much have you changed your training, or do you just have better / more buy in from larger number of athletes in the training?
The science behind training isn't that difficult, it's the art of putting it together. I mean, the Michigan workout has been around for how long now. Michigan pretty regularly has talented athletes, and some of the top runners.

this is the worst take in the history of lets run dot com

There was a rash of high school sub-4 guys before the spikes. I think kids come into college in better position to succeed and there are a lot of bright, young coaches. And yes the spikes/supershoes help a lot.

The shoes are worth 3 seconds a mile. . The training and the pacing etc are worth the extra 3-4 seconds per mile we are seeing in high school and college improvements.

Wait, So Jakob is actually just a 3.49.5 miler and only a 12.58/9 5000m guy?

God dammit man - what a fraud this all is.