The fact of the matter is that to get shoes to be faster and faster, there’s only so much margin with a limited stack height. One way to make a shoe faster for elite athletes is to tune the carbon plate geometry and stiffness, as well as the foam, to match the gait, weight, and pace of the athlete. Obviously, you can’t use custom shoes as a pro runner, but pro runners as a class are all going to be more similar in gait, weight, and pace than the rest of us, so those super shoes are designed to work well for them. You could design a “super shoe” to help a 250 lb runner to run the most economical 13 minute mile pace, but it would look very different from what’s sold right now.
The other way we are seeing improvements is shoes that are effectively less durable, either to save weight, or to use foams that optimize for performance over durability.
The other way we are seeing improvements is shoes that are effectively less durable, either to save weight, or to use foams that optimize for performance over durability
i put 993km on my first pair of adidas pro 3s (probably could have pushed 1000)
my other 2 pairs are at 500km and probably gonna make it to 900+ km
YMMV (literally)
Thats consistent with what Run Repeat reports about that shoe/foam. Seems like it’s a bit of an outlier in the supershoe world.
For the Adidas pro 4s, they did switch to a less durable/lighter foam, though.
That goes to show why it’s sometimes nice to stock up an a few pairs if you know they work well for you and they are on sale.
I hate how often shoes get updated these days…
By the time i run enough miles to know if i like them or not, they’ve already released a new model
I have a pair of AP4 just waiting to use. I havent even properly assessed them and they are talking about AP5 already
Is it against the rules to have custom shoes? Otherwise why wouldn’t you customize a shoe to the runner?
Long story short, it is not permissible to use a bespoke shoe according to World Athletics.
They have a slightly different definition of “customised shoe” which is a modified version of an existing shoe, which they accept for medical reasons or like changing colors and stuff like that.
There are some additional rules around “developmental shoes”, but those get pretty specific.
When you are at an elite level small gains like super shoes makes a big difference as you are much closer to your theoretical limit.
When you have multiple minutes left to gain in a short a distance as a 5k, they are a total waste of money. You’ll gain far more time spending money on a coach than super shoes improving fitness, technique, diet.
betteridges’s law of headlines.
in short, the answer is (almost always) no.
I find the benefit of max stack shoes for me isnt the speed but it helps me put in more miles without my legs feeling so beat up
This is coming from someone very late to the big stack height game… i wore “minimalist” shoes up until 2022
This kind of stuff is cool, but it makes records murky. Like “what could the current record holder do with the previous record holders tech”
Doesn’t that apply to every aspect of sports? Nutrition, hydration, technique (looking at you pole vault), equipment, etc, all changes and advances over the years.
I dont think we should really be comparing athletes from different generations anyway, I’ve always found that quite stupid. Like Pele vs Messi…who cares? Merckx vs Pogačar…who cares? What matters is the individual’s performance within the context of that time period, not whether they are better or worse than someone from a completely different decade.
