Running shoes are funny things. Due to the fact that they are basically a weight at the end of a long fulcrum, the heavier they are the slower you will go. Plus they are full of padding which messes up the natural springs you already have built into your feet. It is not surprising someone invented a shoe that is somewhat lighter which makes it faster. I find the spring idea somewhat dubious but maybe they do give you…
Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster
181–190 of 304 posts
Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster
#182Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster
#183Earlier 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…
As another example of equipment that is banned because its technological advancements are deemed to give an unfair advantage, take a look at golf. Equipment manufacturers need to get their products tested & approved by the USGA in order to be allowed in many tournaments. Clubs or balls that fly too far when you hit them do not get the required approval.
Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster
#184Earlier 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…
As another example of equipment that is banned because its technological advancements are deemed to give an unfair advantage, take a look at golf. Equipment manufacturers need to get their products tested & approved by the USGA in order to be allowed in many tournaments. Clubs or balls that fly too far when you hit them do not get the required approval.
Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster
#185Earlier 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…
> But better bicycles are OK UCI has lots of rules around the size, geometry, and weight of equipment that can limit how much better you can make a bike. They even explicitly don't allow new innovations without their prior approval. Manufacturers find ways around the rules but to a large degree better bikes are actually not OK.
Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster
#186Articles 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?
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…
The principle is very consistent: You can't do something that gives you an unfair advantage over other competitors. Everything banned basically falls into one of three categories:
- It would be prohibitively expensive for others to adopt the technology. This is why you have weight minimums for bikes, boats, etc.
- Others would have to risk their health to compete. This is why you have bans of performance enhancing drugs, blood doping, etc.
- Others would have to break the law to compete. This is why you have bans on illegal drugs, even if they're not necessarily performance enhancing.
Occasionally things are also banned to preserve comparability to current records or to preserve the aesthetic sense of the sport, but for the most part when something is banned it's for one of the three enumerated reasons.
Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster
#187Articles 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'd love to get a NYT sub but they operate like SiriusXM when it comes to cancellations. You have to talk to a human, during business hours, and you have to fight with them for 15 minutes to get cancelled (meanwhile they offer you continually cheaper rates to stay on, so if you pay rack rates you're clearly overpaying in the first place). If they offered a way to self-manage a subscription that I could cancel at any…
https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cance...
In this article, it specifically mentions how difficult it is to cancel a NYT subscription.
Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster
#188Earlier 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…
> But better bicycles are OK UCI has lots of rules around the size, geometry, and weight of equipment that can limit how much better you can make a bike. They even explicitly don't allow new innovations without their prior approval. Manufacturers find ways around the rules but to a large degree better bikes are actually not OK.
(I don't feel strongly about this personally, just listing some of the counterpoints)
Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster
#189Articles 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?
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…
There were limits then and there have been limits since. No fairings. How long your helmet can be. I have a vague recollection about them banning inserts in your clothes (no teardrops for your calves, no articulated helmets or dorsal fins).
[edit: and apparently disc brakes were just approved last season]
These days Lemond is watchdogging for electric motors hidden in the bikes. Which is a side effect of trying to fix two other problems. First, PEDs aka doping. Second, paying to win.
The exotic materials some teams could afford resulted in light bikes that other teams couldn’t approach. They set a minimum weight for bikes, which meant you either put heavier equipment on the bike (eg, torque gauges in the rear hub) or you loaded weights into it. Or you hid a flashlight battery and a tiny 20 watt motor in the bottom bracket...
Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster
#190The 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…
Being 3 or 4% more efficient on race day is a HUGE advantage. Maybe not every elite runner wants to have to wear these shoes to compete?