How Much Faster Will You Run in Nike Vaporflys? Mike Haischer Has the Data
Run to the Top Podcast | The Ultimate Guide to Running
RunnersConnect: Coaching Community, Running Experts, Inspiring Runners, No Fluff Blog
4.5 • 936 Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2021
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Will running a marathon in high-tech super shoes help you run faster?
Nike made huge headlines when they came out with the Vaporfly series in 2017. Featuring a new kind of foam and a flexible carbon plate, Nike promised that their expensive new shoes would improve a marathoner's running economy by 4%.
With elites and recreational runners doing everything they could to improve by just one percent, these magic new shoes were pretty tantalizing.
But with all new technology comes controversy. Nike had already been supplying its best runners with Vaporflies as early as 2016, which was an Olympic year. Other athletes sponsored by other companies would be at a clear disadvantage if the 4% improvement numbers were really true and they complained to the governing bodies of the sport.
Rules changed and the copycats followed Nikes lead. Now in 2021, most of the major running shoe companies have some version of high-tech foam and carbon plate shoes and all of them need to be available to the public before they can be used in competition.
So what does this all mean for you? How much do high-tech shoes matter in your running and racing? I wanted to find out so I invited Michael Haischer on the Run to the Top to tell us what he found.
Mike is a doctoral student and lab manager at the Athletic and Human Performance Research Center at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI, which just so happens to be my alma mater.
Mike and his team wanted to better understand the potential performance-enhancing effects of technological advancements in marathon racing shoes. So they examined the finishing times of the top 50 male and 50 female runners from all the World Marathon Major series in the past decade, both before and after the introduction of new Nike shoe models.
Did the Nikes make a difference? And if so, what implications does that have on the rest of us, who are not in the top 50?
We are about to find out.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Mike Heissure and you're listening to the Run to the top podcast. Hi there, my running friend, this is Coach Claire Bartholic, the planted runner, |
| 0:22.0 | and this is the run to the Top Podcast, one of the first and only |
| 0:25.6 | running podcast dedicated to making you a better runner with each and every episode. |
| 0:30.8 | We are created and produced by the expert team of running coaches at runnersconnect.net where you can find the best running information on the internet as well as running coaching plans to fit every runner and every budget. |
| 0:44.0 | One of the beautiful things about running is that you can just put on a pair of shoes |
| 0:52.4 | and go. But wouldn't it be |
| 0:54.5 | even better if the shoes that you chose made you just a little faster? Yes, yes it |
| 1:00.0 | would. If you're a running shoe junkie like I am, you already know that advances in shoe technology can help make running easier, which will likely make you faster. |
| 1:10.0 | Nike, in particular, made a huge headlines when they came out with the vapor fly series in 2017 |
| 1:17.2 | featuring a new kind of foam and a flexible carbon plate Nike promised that their expensive new shoes would improve |
| 1:25.0 | a marathoner's running economy by 4%. With elites and recreational runners |
| 1:30.5 | doing everything they can to improve by just 1% these magic shoes were |
| 1:35.7 | pretty tantalizing. But with all new technology comes controversy. Nike had |
| 1:41.6 | already been supplying its best runners with vapor flies as early as 2016, which was an Olympic year. |
| 1:49.0 | Other athletes sponsored by other companies would be at a clear disadvantage if the 4% improvement |
| 1:54.4 | numbers were really true and they complained to the governing bodies of the sport. |
| 1:58.8 | Rules changed and the copycats followed Nike's lead. Now in 2021 most of the major running |
| 2:06.4 | shoe companies have some version of high-tech foam and carbon plate shoes and all of them need to be available to the public before they can be used in |
| 2:16.6 | competition. So what does all this mean for you? How much do high-tech running shoes matter in your running and racing? I wanted to find out, so I invited Michael |
| 2:28.3 | Heishur on the run to the top to tell us what he found. Mike is a doctoral student and lab manager at |
| 2:34.8 | the Athletic and Human Performance Research Center at Marquette University in |
| 2:39.6 | Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which just so happens to be my alma mater. |
... |
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