Can someone explain "Supershoes" to me?

Foam with good bouncy energy return, and a stiff plate between foot and foam so that the foam is not compressed in different places at different times as the foot makes contact, but rather compressed in more of a uniform manner under that plate. It works as a better spring than shoes without the plate. More spring, less damping action.

Jump on a trampoline. Same effect

Yes, there's a pretty dominant opinion now that what you're describing is the case.

Super shoes give nike super profits.

Go grab your 90s spikes (if you still have them) and then pull up a photo of super spikes and you will immediately notice a huge difference. Your 90s spikes have more in common with spikes from the 50s than they do with super spikes.

I do still have them. I have the yellow Kennedy's and bright pink & white El Dorets.

Isn't this what the plantar human fascia is supposed to do naturally?

I'd be curious to see how times would change if for like 1month current pros and collegiates had to race in shoes that came out in 2014. They can even be nike. It would be interesting to see the difference.

Those’ll work. Compare those to the nike victory 2. For a 29:00-30:00 10000m runner, there’s 30 to 40 seconds difference between those to shoes. If I had an athlete in the 29:30 range that had only raced in 90s era spikes and traded them out for a pair of super spikes, I’d have them go out at 29:00 pace.

Are you sure about that?

1950:

Image:i.ebayimg.com/images/g/5vAAAOSwQjllNCb...

1990:

Image:blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R2...

2025:

Image:static.nike.com/a/images/t_PDP_936_v1/...

Yes.

No one can tell you what super shoes are, you must experience them first hand to truly understand.

Then I can assure you that you have no idea what you are talking out.

pretty rich coming from you

So they have spiky things therefore they're the same?

Does an F35 have a lot in common with a Spitfire because it has wings?

I dont think people think about supershoes correctly. It's more about training than racing.

Take a college guy who ran 3:59 in today's spikes and make him come back the next weekend and race in Zoom Victory spikes from 2013 he would might run a second or two slower all things being equal. Supershoes impact on actual race times increases on a percentage basis the longer the race is, hence absurd half marathon and marathon times these days, and for the 800/mile it is probably a smaller percentage than people expect.

That said, the REAL benefits from supershoes come from the compounding impact of training with them for many months. With new footwear college guys who would have been hard stuck at 60 miles per week can now get up to 80+ with more intensity because injury risk is lower and recovery times are shorter. And since this is almost training approach agnostic, it can explain why so many college runners from different types of programs started to see rapid improvements 2-ish years after the shoes were released. There is also the effect of simply realizing that 4:00 isn't as threatening of a barrier as it use to be. It's like Tony Hawk landing the 900 on a skateboard, nobody thought it was possible, he did it, then everybody started doing it-- but the shoes are still the main catalyst here.

If you are a 4:00 guy in Victorys and you throw on Dragonflys you might become a 3:59/3:58 guy, maybe. But, you can probably become the 3:55 guy you were unlikely to be by training in supershoes for several years

For 10+ years there were maybe 30 guys breaking 4 in the NCAA. These shoes were released, and suddenly we are seeing nearly 200 under that threshold. If it was something other than footwear then we should wonder why this rapid improvement curve seems exclusive to middle distance and distance running and not other events and sports in general.

they are shoes and they help you run super fast.

What percentage of miles would you say are ran in super shoes? Or is it just the benefit of doing workouts in them? I just got my first pair and can definitely feel the benefits after a workout but I thought most people didn't run most miles in them but I'm old and out of touch.