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Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

nytimes.com

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Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#211

Post by sopooneo »

slg wrote: post #164
gascan wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We seem to take it very much case by case. Running efficiency augments are controversial. Drugs are verboten. But better bicycles are OK, and football players can wear eyeblack and grip-enhancing gloves. The closer a sport is to pure human performance, though, the more sensitive we seem to be about it. Perhaps out of a sense of continuity through the ages. Yeah, we train better than Athenian athletes. But we still ru…

Swimming had this exact same issue a few years ago with the new full body suits that reduce drag too much. Each sports handles this differently and most decisions seem completely arbitrary with the biggest deciding factor simply being tradition. For example, no one cares that swimmers have always shaved their entire body and/or worn a cap to prevent drag. However the new suits just provided too big of a single jump t…

One point that surprised me about those banned suits is that the drag reduction they provide is largely indirect. Instead, they're buoyant. They make the swimmers float higher in the water leaving less of them in the pool to be dragged on. So for roughly the same reason you can't compete in the freestyle paddling on a surfboard, you can't use those suits.

Apparently they worked by other mechanisms as well, but the floaty aspect alone seems a reasonable justification for the ban.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-ban-full-body-olympics-swi...

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#212

Post by sgc »

retsibsi wrote: post #210
ccmonnett wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People train months (and years) to take minutes off their time, especially as their times get lower and the returns diminish. 4% of 3 hours is more than 7 minutes! That could be equivalent to tens of hours on the road. $250 is a _great_ investment at that rate. This is the "Why go to that expensive restaurant?" argument all over again. When it's your hobby, and it's important to you, the thought process behind the pu…

But surely the reason people value a 7 minute reduction so highly is because of what it represents -- a successful effort to get fitter and/or mentally tougher. If you're simply 'buying' that reduction, what is the point, unless you're at the level where other benefits (public glory, sponsorship) are within reach?

I don't run competitively, but in the gym I feel like spending on better shoes takes away a false limit due to inappropriate technology. Unless you are running barefoot, I can see how a runner might feel the slower number is just false due to an arbitrary limitation. There is a decent chance, if you can afford it, that these shoes might help you progress faster as well. In the end it's all about how effectively your effort is translated into movement.

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#213

Post by retsibsi »

sgc wrote: post #212
retsibsi wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But surely the reason people value a 7 minute reduction so highly is because of what it represents -- a successful effort to get fitter and/or mentally tougher. If you're simply 'buying' that reduction, what is the point, unless you're at the level where other benefits (public glory, sponsorship) are within reach?

I don't run competitively, but in the gym I feel like spending on better shoes takes away a false limit due to inappropriate technology. Unless you are running barefoot, I can see how a runner might feel the slower number is just false due to an arbitrary limitation. There is a decent chance, if you can afford it, that these shoes might help you progress faster as well. In the end it's all about how effectively your…

Good point, and I can understand that mindset in some cases. But even though the line between removing an obstacle and gaining artificial assistance is hard to draw sharply, the way these shoes are described makes me think they're clearly in the second category:

> Unlike most running shoes, they have a carbon-fiber plate in the midsole, which stores and releases energy with each stride and is meant to act as a kind of slingshot, or catapult, to propel runners forward.

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#215

Post by ada1981 »

retsibsi wrote: post #210
ccmonnett wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People train months (and years) to take minutes off their time, especially as their times get lower and the returns diminish. 4% of 3 hours is more than 7 minutes! That could be equivalent to tens of hours on the road. $250 is a _great_ investment at that rate. This is the "Why go to that expensive restaurant?" argument all over again. When it's your hobby, and it's important to you, the thought process behind the pu…

But surely the reason people value a 7 minute reduction so highly is because of what it represents -- a successful effort to get fitter and/or mentally tougher. If you're simply 'buying' that reduction, what is the point, unless you're at the level where other benefits (public glory, sponsorship) are within reach?

Most people don’t think like this. They’ll take the quick one time dopamine hit and then stay addicted to the shoes lest they lose the 7%.

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#216

Post by retsibsi »

QML wrote: post #139
httpz wrote: post #96

When cleats were first introduced to soccer decades ago people had the same debate. I think technological advancements changing a sport is inevitable. What if Adidas makes a similar shoes that makes you 3% faster? 2% 1%? where do you draw the line?

Why not make pro football players wear standardized shoes during a game? The issue with customized shoes I see is wealthier teams will have better equipment.

> Why not make pro football players wear standardized shoes during a game?

I don't know whether this image is accurate, but: https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/es-footb...

Really though, standardised boots would probably not kill this market. In cricket, for example, it's common for players to use a bat that is dressed up to look like the product of their sponsor, while actually being manufactured by someone else entirely. This is a bit of an open secret, so I guess that footwear companies would also be willing to pay good money to have 'their' boots worn by the big stars, even if the public knew that they weren't allowed to be meaningfully different from the boots everyone else was wearing.

A genuinely good reason not to force standardised boots is just how different everyone's needs are. Feet don't just differ in size, but in shape (in three dimensions), not to mention all the other things that can affect a person's natural gait, weight distribution and so on. I think it would be hard to write regulations tight enough to preclude an unfair advantage for richer teams, without also forcing some players into boots that would be not only sub-optimal but even dangerous (in the sense of increasing the risk of injury).

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#217

Post by WillPostForFood »

Swizec wrote: post #174
seiferteric wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair they have some shady practices. They were forcing you to call to cancel for example. I am sure this works well for them to act as a deterrent, but it's still shady I think.

Yeah that’s annoying, but going so far as them losing all credibility over that seems extreme.

Maybe crediblity isn’t quite the right word, would you go for losing all good will?

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#218

Post by jonknee »

jartelt wrote: post #148
einarfd wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a runner I want shoes to get more efficient and better. What is about todays running shoe that makes them acceptable, and that anything better is some form of cheating? I don't agree with what they did in swimming, those body suits where amazing, and that they got banned was really sad. But even if you agree with banning them. Shoes in running are a not comparable to full body swimming suits. Shoes are an central…

Because the sport is better for everyone if you aren't required to buy $250 shoes to have a chance to win. It's the same with the swim suits. If a new piece of equipment comes out that makes you 5% more efficient, then anyone who wants a chance to actually compete needs to buy it. It's just like a tax on competitors. Otherwise running and swimming would just turn into cycling where you are basically forced to buy an…

No one other than a small group of elite athletes is ever expected to win a marathon, it's mainly a race against yourself.

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#219

Post by bo1024 »

GatorD42 wrote: post #102

The aggressive opinion on regulating these shoes seems over the top to me, the next best shoes, the relatively unheralded Nike Streak, provided a 3% performance improvement, and more runners achieved a personal best with those shoes. And improvements with the vapor fly 4% were smaller for faster runners. Also many runners choose shoes based on injury prevention and comfort - if a shoe gets you to the starting line un…

If it were just "the shoes make you faster" there would be nothing to discuss. The debate centers around a qualitative difference: "The shoes have a 'spring' in them that make you faster."

It's similar to a mini version of prosthetics such as Pistorius's that were banned from Olympic competition, as they are basically big metal springs on the end of your legs. The Vaporfly was explicitly designed to use this spring principle, i.e. store mechanical energy in a carbon fiber plate and release it back on toe-off.

So some, like me, feel that shoes for competition should not be allowed to mechanically assist the runner. It's not about percentages, it's a simple binary criterion.

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#220

Post by chriscampbell »

SurrealSoul wrote: post #54

Articles like this make me want to get a NYTimes sub, excellent reporting on something mundane with enough statistics to make it worth the read. If we ban shoes now, will we ban other augments in the future? Will this stunt the progression of such human performance augmentations?

I bought a NYT sub with Sunday delivery for $20 a month, worth the price. Lots of great in depth investigations and articles.
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