In the race for sportswear technology, an advanced form of footwear has recently broken the rules of racing, giving short and long distance runners a big advantage.
New research shows that so-called "superspikes" on the soles can increase running and mid-distance speed by as much as 3.1%, Science alert reports.
The international team of scientists behind the research wanted to take a closer look at the impact of these superspikes - technically known as advanced shoe technology (AST) - as their use at elite level has become commonplace.
As world records continue to fall, there's an interesting question to be answered here: are people getting faster, training harder, or using better equipment (like superspikes) to continue making improvements?
"Superspikes have a thicker but lighter, more flexible and more compliant midsole, often combined with a plate of rigid carbon fiber embedded in the midsole," says University of Massachusetts biomechanical engineer Montgomery Bertshey.
While sprints and long-distance races have characteristics that make factors like energy efficiency and speed easy to test in the lab and on the field, middle-distance feats come with added complications. That said, to date, it is difficult to know whether anecdotes about the superiority of superspikes give a boost to all running methods.
To circumvent these obstacles, superspikes were compared to standard track running spikes in four separate experiments, each with 12 different participants, and all over distances of 200 meters with recovery periods in between.
Participants were asked to adhere to their "race pace" when running 800 or 1500 meters. The idea was to even out the effort the athletes put in to isolate the effects of the shoes.
The data showed a few interesting points: the superspoikes showed an increase in performance of about 2% on average, although it varied by runner and shoe brand. The increase in running speed ranged from 1.8 to 3.1%, with athletes shortening their race time by up to 5 seconds per 1500 meters.
Moreover, the increase seems to be due to longer stride length, not more strides. This is an important point in evaluating the difference that shoes can make, and in the best possible preparation for athletic tournaments such as the Olympic Games.
"Historically, we can expect to see differences of less than 0.5% in race times that determine who wins gold, who gets silver or who doesn't get on the podium," says sports biomechanist Ethan Wilkie of the University of New Brunswick in Canada.
"Our 2% results highlight that some of this may be due to the fact that some people have slightly better shoes than others."
Other UTO studies have shown that they are more beneficial for women than men, and matter more over longer distances. Numerous studies have consistently shown that superspin technology is only part of the story - speed, size and choice of running shoe also have an impact.
During the 2024 Olympics in Paris, another 32 world records were broken and as competition is stronger than ever, athletes will continue to look for any advantage they can get to improve their performance.
"Part of that is because the shoes are getting better and better, and we have evidence of that," says University of Massachusetts kinesiologist Wouter Hugkamer. | BGNES
