Honest question about training in super shoes

Good question

I don't think there's much scientific consensus on this subject, if any at all. So everything I say below is really just my kind of informed thoughts coming from a guy who knows a little bit about sports science and anatomy.

I think the big concern is that the shoes are a little unstable and they take a lot of load off your lower leg. So you're at risk for two things, acute injuries and weird imbalance/stress injuries. An example of an acute injury would be rolling your ankle on a curb because the stack is so high and they're so squishy. The only things you can do about this is be careful and have strong and flexible lower legs. The other issues are more like overuse/imbalance problems. To mitigate those, you'd probably want to make sure that all those smaller muscles get some stimulus. You can accomplish this lots of ways: jump roping, drills on a grass field, ankle exercises, etc.

That's a great question and I can only say, from my perspective, that I've done workouts in them and I think I've benefited more from running faster and recovering quicker and not feeling the workout in my legs.

Once, my legs were feeling kind of tired, I planned on just a recovery day, but I had just gotten the shoes and wanted to see if I noticed a difference.

My legs felt fine.

It's tempting to wear them often in training, but I avoid it.

I HAVE noticed that if I do a workout in my regular shoes (Saucony Ride 16 or Glide 15) my legs feel it the rest of the day into the next day.

When I wear my Endorphin Pro 3's my legs feel fine.

What makes your shoes super? Invisibility? Super strength? I think that abilities such as this are not sanctioned by world athletics.

Cheers!

One reason often mentioned for faster times nowadays is that elites train harder or recover better because of super shoes.

That means they're training in them.

It's unusual to see a pro runner in a video wearing anything other than the top-of-the-line racing shoe. Like, I would have thought a Saucony runner would wear the Speed in a marathon-specific workout. Maybe the Pro only in 1 or 2 of them. Or some version of the adidas Boston or Prime for most of them instead of always the Pro. That's what I would have guessed before watching much YouTube. But that's rare.

NAZ runners are an exception to this and will appear in the Mach X for a hard workout. It's not exclusively the Rocket X in every single vid. I don't really see the equivalent for other runners, though. Nearly always, it's the brand's absolute pinnacle shoe and not a detuned training version of it like asics Magic Speed or whatever.

Now, I will give the benefit of the doubt that they wear something we all would consider normal on easy recovery runs and such. Of course, that may or may not be the case and those types of runs aren't really filmed as they aren't terribly interesting or exciting. I think there might be footage of NAZ in Cliftons somewhere. So I figure it's got to be 1 of 2 scenarios going on as far as pro runners in general with a variety of sponsors.

1. They wear the latest super shoe for almost all their running.

Or

2. They wear them only for key race-specific workouts - maybe 10 times or less before racing in them - and very conventional trainers for 90% of their mileage.

I have to think it's 1 of these 2.

Super shoes = Spikes

I run track workouts (3-10k Pace) in them, this is my speed / race specific work.

Tempo, FL, long and easy runs I run in flats on trails.

Jump to about 3:40 to hear Ben True's thoughts. Worth a listen.

I think its #2

I trained in racing "flats" all though high school (Nike Elite Classic, Nike Magnum, Nike Air Mariah) and would do so now if I wasn't running now and then at this point.

I find for myself, there is a balance. I like to lean towards the side of using a super shoe very rarely in training. For a marathon build with a big 20+ miler with a large chunk of it in marathon effort, I'll put them on. But if it's an 800m track workout I'd rather wear something light and responsive and not worry about the leg turn over.

For me it comes down to the lower leg, specifically the Achilles. I experimented with this and ran a lot of my workouts in super shoes for a couple of weeks. My Achilles and feet were killing me. Perhaps it's just how I'm built, but that was enough for me to only want to take them out for races and the most important long workouts

I am in the similar mindset as you. I will use my "super" shoes for racing and if I need to prep for a long race like the marathon, then I will ensure my body does already in the race shoes by using them in a few key workouts. Otherwise, I like to use my variety of training shoes on either easy days or just moderate/hill days.

I also will echo what you said about feeling even more beat up after a race in super shoes. I think they do allow me to push the pace more efficiently overall relative to other shoes, but it takes its toll in a different way.

Everyone is different so there seems to be no right or wrong answer. Observing the pros should always be taken with a grain of salt. Their living is based on their performance and they spend the majority of their time fine tuning their body for racing. Us everyday scrappers don't have the luxury usually.

Why did you incorrectly use "myself," but then correctly use "me" two times later?

I know people have to try to cram the word "myself" into everything, and it's usually incorrect, but this seems kind of odd.

I would always do some training in the shoes you plan to race in. Just makes sense to acclimate your feet and legs to those shoes as you increase your risk of injury if you don't. That's basically what happened to me when I ran a half marathon in super shoes after not training in them at all. My footstrike must have been slightly different in them, and it really messed up one of my calf muscles.

My own opinion/reasoning is that it would make sense to do workouts that are somewhat similar to what your race is going to be like in your super shoes. So if you're training for the 1500m, do your faster stuff in super shoes. If you're training for a half marathon, do your thresholds or even a long run here and there in super shoes. Ideally anyway. Might get a little expensive as I imagine these shoes wear out pretty quickly.

Did you know you're supposed to ask the question in the thread title? Writing “I have a question” and then never asking it is the easiest way for people to skip your thread.

1. That usage is perfectly fine. Myself is a reflexive pronoun, and they said "I find for myself, ...". Usually it's used as the direct object ("I hurt myself") but I don't think there's any rule against it being used as the indirect object. It can also be used to emphasize yourself as the subject of the sentence: "I myself find that..."

2. Shut up nerd

In my experience, the use of super shoes in training is very beneficial with the quick muscle recovery, however, this lets you "fake" fitness too. When I'm running 120 miles per week and feeling very fit, I can wear streak 6's (minimal racing flat) for a 20 miler at 6 min/mi and feel ready to go by Tuesday for a workout. When I'm ego running and not quite hitting my mileage and just not quite as fit, I can run that same long run pace at a very similar intensity in vaporflys, however, I cannot run an effective workout on Tuesday, I'm way too tired or sore.

Even though the effort was the same, my legs were not as "fit" to handle the workload and recover. This is more of an extreme example, but I think it shows that it is easier to overtrain because you "felt good" and assume you'll recover fine, but if the intensity was way too much, you could be digging yourself into a hole where you wonder why you're injured all of a sudden.

Overall, I think they're very beneficial, but like always, you have to be self aware when you're overdoing anything in training (which is easier the fitter you are aerobically)

That was me you responded to. I have to say I also lean toward #2. Since Sweat Elite or Flotrak don't film anything other than exciting race-specific stuff where they can show us split times, it seems like the Endo. Elite, Vaporfly, etc. is all they wear. But there must be a lot of running - like the next 2 days after the workout you just watched - which involve another shoe. But maybe not. We don't see the easy 6 miler.

So why bring up people who make it onto YouTube? That's not really all of us. Because the orignal question was about training in them. Like, what about daily training and wearing them exclusively. It certainly looks like that's what's going on if you're watching videos. If the fastest run only in these things, maybe it's best for us to do the same. Again, I suspect it's #2 and they wear mostly normal, old-school shoes. We only see the 3 times they broke in their new race shoe. But it looks like that's all they wear.

FWIW I believe Kipchoge said he wears them for workouts and long runs. So essentially 3 days a week at minimum. Jakob has also mentioned his preference to train in Alphaflys