How much faster do you run with spike shoes on track ?

it depends which event you're doing, and how good you are.

if you're a jumper, it makes a difference, and the high jump in training shoes is very hard for folk who know what they're doing. sprinters also notice a difference, and sprint hurdlers find it hard to race in flats. generally, the better you are, the more difference it makes. if you can't break 12 flat for the hundred, spikes are not going to make you a superstar.

for the 400m, I suspect it is largely psychological, but spikes will help in the acceleration phase and at the close, but by how much is hard to say. if you're not that quick anyway, spikes are not going to make any difference.

at distances over that, they make, essentially, zero difference. last year I had a slight calf injury that went on all season and to avoid making it worse I did all my training and racing in training shoes and set pb's at all my distances except the 5km. there is a very small weight difference and if you get into really tight finishes they might help at the close but if you don't have spikes this is not something you should lose any sleep over.

cheers.

Cottonshirt wrote:

at distances over that, they make, essentially, zero difference.

Clearly you need to live a bit more, Cotton. Spikes make you between 1-2 sec faster per lap. That is a fact weather Cotton wants to admit it or not. I say this as a guy who has run for 30+ years at all levels and coached as well. A 54 sec 400 guy in flats will run 52 or under in spikes. A 5:00 1600 guy will run close to 4:50 in spikes. That's just the way it is.

What? Are You Cray Cotten? said: I say this as a guy who has run for 30+ years at all levels and coached as well.

in your coaching, did you ever come across the concept of telling an athlete what he needs to hear?

cheers.

Cottonshirt wrote:

What? Are You Cray Cotten? said: I say this as a guy who has run for 30+ years at all levels and coached as well.

in your coaching, did you ever come across the concept of telling an athlete what he needs to hear?

cheers.

I have, actually. It's often called the truth. Spikes make you faster. Why would you ever tell a kid otherwise?

Why would you ever tell a kid otherwise?

because he said he didn't have access to a decent running track, and asked whether spikes make any difference. to me, this says that he doesn't have any spikes. so I told him not to worry about not having spikes because, in his situation, it makes more sense to concentrate on the things he can control and stay focused on his training.

if you tell him, "yeah, spikes are super important and make a huge amount of difference," he gets despondent because he has no facilities, no equipment, and he walks away from the sport to try something else. and it simply beggars belief that this has to be explained in words of one syllable to a person who calls himself a coach.

cheers.

If you even pick up 1- 1.5 sec per lap, that could be a nice gap and the difference between placing or being an also ran. Spike up.

Most convoluted non-sense I have ever heard. No matter what the situation, spikes will make you faster. And that is regardless of the track surface. And I know shoe stores that have piles of old spike they can't give away because rich snotty spoiled suburban kids won't wear anything except this year's model. You can literally get a free or very-low-cost pair of spike anywhere in the world.

OP - spikes make a difference. Find a pair (even if they are used or borrowed or old) and race yourself to new PRs.

Yep. Zero difference in the distances. That's why all the pros wear just flats 1500m and up. Cheers.

What? Are You Cray Cotten? wrote:

Most convoluted non-sense I have ever heard. No matter what the situation, spikes will make you faster. And that is regardless of the track surface. And I know shoe stores that have piles of old spike they can't give away because rich snotty spoiled suburban kids won't wear anything except this year's model. You can literally get a free or very-low-cost pair of spike anywhere in the world.

OP - spikes make a difference. Find a pair (even if they are used or borrowed or old) and race yourself to new PRs.

But if you can't train in spikes, because there's no track nearby, will you race faster in spikes? I always take a few weeks to get used to them before track season.

Yeah generally there is something like a 1%/3 oz improvement between shoe weights from what I understand which would mean that going from 9 oz trainers to 3 oz spikes would mean 2% difference ignoring the benefit of a spike plate and the spikes adding traction. There is an added benefit in events 1500 and below with the effectiveness of the spike plate in getting the athlete on their toes and in better sprinting form.

I normally have turn up the treadmill a few notches when I run in spikes vs trainers

look at our little three dimensional chess player we've got here

Cottonshirt wrote:

Why would you ever tell a kid otherwise?

because he said he didn't have access to a decent running track, and asked whether spikes make any difference. to me, this says that he doesn't have any spikes. so I told him not to worry about not having spikes because, in his situation, it makes more sense to concentrate on the things he can control and stay focused on his training.

if you tell him, "yeah, spikes are super important and make a huge amount of difference," he gets despondent because he has no facilities, no equipment, and he walks away from the sport to try something else. and it simply beggars belief that this has to be explained in words of one syllable to a person who calls himself a coach.

cheers.

Most convoluted non-sense I have ever heard.

there are classes you can take to help improve your reading comprehension.

cheers.

Maybe I am just not used to running in Dpikes anymore but when I tried the Zoom Victory 3 spikes and the Zoom Streak LT3 Racing flat on a track I was way faster in the LT3’s.. running laps at low-5 pace with the LT3 whole running low-6 pace in the Victory 3 with similar perceived effort.

Bruin1996 wrote:

Maybe I am just not used to running in Dpikes anymore but when I tried the Zoom Victory 3 spikes and the Zoom Streak LT3 Racing flat on a track I was way faster in the LT3’s.. running laps at low-5 pace with the LT3 whole running low-6 pace in the Victory 3 with similar perceived effort.

Same for me, I can't run in spikes anymore but I did a 1km time trial on path running through a public park in 2:41 about a month ago with a stuffed achilles in lt3s. I can't run around bends anymore.

Had a friend carry this out as part of a university dissertation.

Trainers made the tested athletes run 0.5s slower on average over a 60m sprint. Unfortunately I dont have a copy of the paper but this was carried out very well, not just some blokes lets run opinion.

Cottonshirt wrote:

there are classes you can take to help improve your reading comprehension.

cheers.

My reading comprehension is fine, brah. Your logic, however, is not.

slow man wrote:

Had a friend carry this out as part of a university dissertation.

Trainers made the tested athletes run 0.5s slower on average over a 60m sprint. Unfortunately I dont have a copy of the paper but this was carried out very well, not just some blokes lets run opinion.

Hmmm. So that's like a scientific study that shows a 3.3 sec improvement per lap when using spikes. Interesting. I guess I was wrong, Cotton. I only figured 1-2 sec improvement per lap.

But really, in the long run, spikes make no difference. (wink wink)