Abstract
The influence of advanced footwear technology (thickness of light midsole foam and rigid plate) on distance running performances was analyzed during an 8-year period. Analysis of variance was used to measure effects of time, gender, shoe technology, and East African origin on male and female top 20 or top 100 seasonal best times in 10-kilometer races, half-marathons, and marathons. In both genders and three distance-running events, seasonal best times significantly decreased from 2017, which coincided with the introduction of the advanced footwear technology in distance running. This performance improvement was of similar magnitude in both East African and non-East African elite runners. In female elite athletes, the magnitudes (from 1.7 to 2.3%) of the decrease in seasonal best times between 2016 and 2019 were significantly higher than in their male counterparts (from 0.6 to 1.5%). Analyses of variance confirmed that the adoption of the advanced footwear technology significantly improved the top 20 seasonal best times in female half marathons and marathons and male marathons, with the improvements being more pronounced in females and in long-distance running events. The adoption of this new shoe technology improved female marathon time by ~2 min and 10 s, which represents a significant increase in performance (1.7%).
Highlights
IntroductionThe release was associated with a large and worldwide advertising campaign that received a lot of attention because the manufacturer claimed that this new model of distance running shoes represented a breakthrough in the distance running shoe technology that could improve running time by 4% (Hoogkamer et al, 2018)
In 2017, Nike officially presented its Nike R Vaporfly 4% shoes
This advanced footwear technology (AFT) relies on the combination of a very thick and light midsole made of polyamide block elastomer and the embedding within the midsole layers of a long and rigid carbon plate
Summary
The release was associated with a large and worldwide advertising campaign that received a lot of attention because the manufacturer claimed that this new model of distance running shoes represented a breakthrough in the distance running shoe technology that could improve running time by 4% (Hoogkamer et al, 2018). A large-scale statistical analysis published in 2018 (Quealy and Katz, 2018), based on results from 280,000 marathons and 215,000 half-marathons run, revealed that this AFT was likely responsible for a 3–4% decrease in race times in these distances.
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