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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

#221

Post by ekianjo »

Alex3917 wrote: post #186
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…

> We seem to take it very much case by case. 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…

"unfair advantage" is particularly hard to define. We are not born equals, so there are already folks among us who have unfair advantage due to their genes, their upbringing, their social background, etc... I would say the definition is still blur. What if you have a medical condition that impairs you in some ways but make you stronger for doing one type of tasks? Is that unfair?

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

#222

Post by ekianjo »

hinkley wrote: post #189
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…

When aero gear was introduced to cycling there was quite a bit of turmoil. Not the least of which was the fact that Greg Lemond used it to demolish Laurent Fignon in the last time trail, and jump what seemed to be a comfortable gap and win the Tour. By six seconds. I can still picture Fignon laying on the ground at the finish line, hands clenched in fists wondering where it all went wrong. There were limits then and…

The easiest way to remedy all the cheating with bikes and equipment in cycling would be to PROVIDE official bikes the equipment every single day, and make it rotate randomly. Otherwise, you are always playing catching up to discover the latest tricks they devised.

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

#224

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

einarfd wrote: post #83
fhood wrote: post #6

If these shoes really can provide a measurable improvement in times they probably should be banned. Otherwise it will go the way of swimming, where a bunch of world records got set before they ended up banning those full body suits.

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…

What's the whole point of sports competition in the first place if the thing that makes the difference is a simple layout of $250?

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

#225

Post by mirkules »

bmj wrote: post #201
mathgladiator wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is strange to me and basically says the engineers are not allowed to compete...

This is similar to the limit imposed on various motorsports. It's not that engineers aren't allowed to compete (they most definitely do, within the limitations imposed by the sport's governing body)--the rules exist to level the playing the field a bit between teams and companies with radically different budgets.

My favorite example of forbidden ingenuity is the "sucker car" (Chapparal 2J) which used a plastic skirt to seal the car to the ground, and pump that sucked the air from underneath the car, producing an insane amount of downforce. It was outlawed of course after blowing away the competition.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral_Cars#2J

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

#226

Post by nradov »

ekianjo wrote: post #222
hinkley wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When aero gear was introduced to cycling there was quite a bit of turmoil. Not the least of which was the fact that Greg Lemond used it to demolish Laurent Fignon in the last time trail, and jump what seemed to be a comfortable gap and win the Tour. By six seconds. I can still picture Fignon laying on the ground at the finish line, hands clenched in fists wondering where it all went wrong. There were limits then and…

The easiest way to remedy all the cheating with bikes and equipment in cycling would be to PROVIDE official bikes the equipment every single day, and make it rotate randomly. Otherwise, you are always playing catching up to discover the latest tricks they devised.

That would wreck the economics of pro cycling because most of the teams are partly sponsored by bike manufactures. Those manufacturers want to be exclusively associated with particular winning teams for marketing purposes.

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

#227

Post by hahajk »

ekianjo wrote: post #221
Alex3917 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We seem to take it very much case by case. 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…

"unfair advantage" is particularly hard to define. We are not born equals, so there are already folks among us who have unfair advantage due to their genes, their upbringing, their social background, etc... I would say the definition is still blur. What if you have a medical condition that impairs you in some ways but make you stronger for doing one type of tasks? Is that unfair?

It's reasonable that amputees with prosthetic legs would be banned from normal competitions because they weren't born with those legs; they were manufactured. But what if it was discovered that people born without an appendix somehow performed better? Would they be banned? It would seem unfair to ban them. But it could lead to competitors surgically removing their organs, which would go against the spirit of the sport. But allowing them to compete might also create a class of appendix-less "mutants" who dominate a sport.

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

#228

Post by thret »

ekianjo wrote: post #221
Alex3917 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We seem to take it very much case by case. 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…

"unfair advantage" is particularly hard to define. We are not born equals, so there are already folks among us who have unfair advantage due to their genes, their upbringing, their social background, etc... I would say the definition is still blur. What if you have a medical condition that impairs you in some ways but make you stronger for doing one type of tasks? Is that unfair?

Genetic advantage is what we're testing for in these running experiments though. It isn't an unfair advantage, it's the whole point.

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

#229

Post by nradov »

mirkules wrote: post #225
bmj wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is similar to the limit imposed on various motorsports. It's not that engineers aren't allowed to compete (they most definitely do, within the limitations imposed by the sport's governing body)--the rules exist to level the playing the field a bit between teams and companies with radically different budgets.

My favorite example of forbidden ingenuity is the "sucker car" (Chapparal 2J) which used a plastic skirt to seal the car to the ground, and pump that sucked the air from underneath the car, producing an insane amount of downforce. It was outlawed of course after blowing away the competition. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral_Cars#2J

There is a legitimate safety concern with active aero systems. If they fail in the middle of turn the car is likely to slide off the track, endangering everyone on the track.

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

#230

Post by nradov »

bo1024 wrote: post #219
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 p…

Even regular foam soles have at least a little bit of springiness.
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