Matthew Boyd Physio

Helping Runners Overcome Injuries and Smash PRs

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Do the Nike Vaporfly / Alphafly work for Recreational Runners? |E14 with Dr Kim Hébert-Losier PhD

The Nike Vaporfly and its descendants, the Next% and Alphafly, have revolutionized the running landscape. In recent years we have seen new world records set in the men’s and women’s 10k, half-marathon and marathon. Many other elite runners have set personal bests in the now-dubbed “super-shoes”. We have multiple independent studies showing improvements in running economy of around 4% on average. With all the disruption, the IAAF has finally had to step in and update their regulations on running shoes.

Now that these “super-shoes” are more widely available, the question on every runner’s lips is “will they work for me?”. Our guest today has been attempting to answer that question. Dr Hébert-Losier recently published a study in The Journal of Sport and Health Science in which she tested the Nike Vaporfly 4% on a group of recreational runners, like us! So the question is…

Do the Nike Vaporfly / Alphafly work for Recreational Runners?

Kim Hébert-Losier is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Applied Biomechanics at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. She is also a Physiotherapist and an accomplished runner, having qualified for the Boston Marathon twice. She joins me on the show today to shed a little more light on what these “super-shoes” are, how they work and whether the Nike Vaporfly / Alphafly can really make you a faster runner.

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Cool Stuff mentioned in the show:

Further reading and listening:

Discussed in the show:

  • How do the Nike Vaporfly work?
  • Nike Vaporfly vs Minimalist shoes for running performance
  • Are more comfortable than minimalist shoes
  • Do they work for everyone?
  • They work better for heel strikers?
  • Should the Nike Alphafly be allowed?
  • Do they make your foot weaker?
  • Shoe comfort may not be linked to running economy
  • Are Nike’s carbon fibre plates utilizing a teeter-totter effect?
  • Rearfoot strikers respond better to the Nike Vaporfly?

Music By The Passion HiFi

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being the first of
what people are now calling these you
know super shoes
um and it was you know introduced as
part of illio
kipchoge’s attempts to break you know
the two the two hour marathon
um and yeah it’s been said and
and just not you know proposed but
actually shown to
you know improve running economy um
and the mechanism behind it are you know
suggested to be a combination of the
interaction between
the the compliant and resilient foam
that has a lot of energy return
properties
um so the the foam itself returns up to
87
of the energy that um basically gets you
know gets stored in
uh so a combination of that along with
the curb
uh carbon fiber plate um that’s that’s
within it
and you know they’ve managed to do all
of this within a
lightweight shoe construction so you
know when we tested them they were
they were around 210 grams which is
still you know relatively
light for you know a shoe that’s a
basically a marathon racing shoe
yeah and is that what gives it its
advantage you know the fact that it can
um can remain light and still have
this kind of i mean what looks kind of
like a fat bottom to the shoe
is that is that the secret ingredient
there or is it is it the carbon flair
like
plate yeah what is making the difference
here yeah so
i it’s actually a combination of all of
those elements together
um so you know we’ve long known that
having a lighter
shoe you know was one of the consistent
factors in research shown to
you know be associated with a lower you
know running
um energetic cost um so yes there’s a
lightweight component the lightweight
component probably contributes about you
know
one percent to the energy you know
savings if
if you’re comparing it to something
that’s that’s heavier
um the and then now there’s debate
amongst researchers whether
you know is it the phone that
contributes the most is it
um the carbon fiber plate that const
contributes the most
is it actually the the the fact that the
plate is curved
um and it’s actually the combination of
all of those three elements
um that nike has kind of managed to um
get in a right amount to lead to these
improvements that we see
um so it’s actually it’s actually hard
to say that yes it’s only the phone
because only the phone without the plate
has actually been shown not to be
necessarily effective
and you can’t say that it’s only the
plate because if you actually look at
the
studies that have only looked at
embedding plates
um then even that component it does not
you know con
is you know does not actually reflect
the
total amount of contribution that the
the night vapor fly
um has been shown to to return and then
you know if you start comparing the
curvatures as well so you know a flat
plate
does not give you the same energy return
than a curve plate
um so it’s it you can’t actually just
say it’s one of these components it’s
it’s all of these components brought
together um in this
you know in a synergistic manner that
actually contributes to that
um enhancement of of of running economy
or running performance
and i think if i understand correctly
that and we’ve had some of these things
for a while so we’ve had
form or a similar form and then in an
adidas shoe
for a few years and then we’ve had
carbon fiber plates have been around for
quite some time um and on their own they
weren’t making too much difference so as
you say
it was perhaps the the way they put it
together with the bend with the form um
is is is that uh that the fact that it
had to be put together in this
very specific ways that’s what seems to
be making the difference with these
shoes
yeah yeah that’s yeah that would
definitely be
um what yeah what mike has managed to
achieve i guess
um yeah and then i mean uh it was funny
you know reading about this stuff
recently because i remember when this
first started with the burking 2 project
and they were saying you know we’re
gonna
um have this breaking two thing we’re
gonna have pieces and we’re gonna have a
car
and we’re gonna do it on a track and
we’re gonna get past this two-hour
marathon and oh yeah the shoes
the shoes are gonna be a huge help and i
think everybody including
me was okay yeah fair enough the shoes
are gonna be great and it’s
you know you hear this so much from
every two or three years from
manufacturers but is it fair to say
you know with the records that have been
broken with the
um with the studies that have been done
you know that the independent studies is
it fair to say that these shoes
in certain scenarios are actually making
a
a big difference a big enough difference
yeah i mean i
with all the increasing evidence coming
out and all the world records falling
and that you know changes in
in the time it you know you have to have
your
head pretty far down in the sand to kind
of say that these shoes aren’t and this
aren’t working um but i think there’s
some caveats to that and
yes it’s you know i’ve done
and i mean i’ll be completely honest i
was a little bit in that boat as well
um you know and yes the first research
that came out
on on the night vapor fly from from
where it became the four percent shoe
was you know a nike sponsored lab now
you know subsequent studies in elite
runners and well-controlled
uh conditions um in
in similar cohorts of athletes that was
tested in the
who camera paper um also showed
improvements in
in running economy i’ll bite to a
slightly lesser extent so they were more
around the three percent mark
um you know once that started to come
out okay yeah sure
then you know there is something there
is something potentially there to it
um but again all of these studies were
on the on the elite athletes
and you know if if you start to think
about you you know if you take
a wider view of the shoe industry well
who’s actually the biggest
um purchasers of running shoes you know
it’s not your
0.1 percent of the population who are
you know really the the elite level
which is which was the driver for us to
kind of run this study
in a more of a recreational population
which is you know
sure it’s all very well and good that it
might be working for the elite athletes
but what does it mean for the
the recreational runner and will it
actually work in a recreational
uh based population if you you know
um do an experiment so you’re thinking
look it does seem to work in the elites
does it translate to recreational
learners so it’s
do you kind of think that it’s being
proven to a to to a degree that
in elites it is beneficial these sort of
super shoe kind of
formats and certainly the nike ones and
now
what you’re interested in is okay does
that really translate into
recreational runners yeah yeah
absolutely and
and you know i think like in your
practice i’m sure you get questions in
terms of all what do you think about
these shoes or you know
is it worth investing and you know they
there is a dearer price like to them
than you know just more of your
conventional running shoes or or your
minimalist running shoes that
you know if you successfully adapt to
running in a lighter shoe
in theory it should also um you know
improve your your running
performance because they these shoes are
lightweight so i mean so that was the
the really the genesis to
to the study and you know i’ll be honest
when when you know we first analyzed the
data once it was available and the
average was 4.2 percent i was like oh
okay yeah so it is a four percent shoe
um
but you know so i was i was surprised
myself and you know this was at a time
before they became
you know really really popular and and
you know some of
these um other other pro studies
um you know on from strava studies and
everything else came out so
um so in a way i was you know i’m myself
surprised
by the results of our study but one of
the things to consider is that once you
know if you started to look a little bit
deeper in the
into the data is that you know we want
we were one of the first people to
actually so well actually they weren’t
all just positive responders so the
previous studies have shown that some
people
didn’t respond so they didn’t do worse
but they didn’t get better but in our
study there was clearly some individuals
um that didn’t do so well when they were
in in the in the like vapor fly
um so then unfortunately at a
recreational
you know running level then yeah okay
the shoe might work for you
but you know it might not um
so you know that is one of the you know
the considerations
if you are performance focused
um and then obviously there’s a whole
injury aspect and
adaptation to these shoes because they
are
fundamentally different and you don’t
have to listen long into podcasts or
you know people that have actually tried
on these shoes um
and you know they will tell you that
they’re completely different to any
other type of shoe that they’ve ever
ever worn
um so you know i i think that’s one
consideration that people
you know it’s starting to get talked
more about
now um but in terms of what does it
actually do to your body and
mechanically speaking
um what we used to associate with
running economy
so you know one of the sorry i’m just
kind of rambling on here but
you know one of the areas that i find
really interesting is that
you know running economy um basically
one of the key biomechanical factors
associated with someone who’s more
economical is that they have
less vertical displacement so vertical
displacement they bounce less
up and down when they’re running you
know they’re using their energies
to move forward as opposed to moving
upwards
in the nike vapor fly it actually
increases your vertical displacement
but it increases your you know it
improves your running economy
so our traditional associations between
biomechanics and running form
are are changed so they don’t hold
anymore um
and and to me that’s the kind of the
interesting aspect is that
you know are we actually changing some
of these
you know kind of embedded or or how
people are used to running by
introducing these
these super shoes yes i did read some of
the
um stuff on the um the changes in the
biomechanics and i was like oh hang on
this is like
that sounds worse because i’m so used to
you know you hear higher vertical
oscillation you’re like okay that’s
worse and you’re like oh no but they got
better
and you’re like scratching your head a
little and um what exactly did you do in
your study
yeah so in our study we had um 18
recreational
male runners participate um and we
defined recreational as
you know individuals that were had a
history of running we’re used to running
um
and and ran around 20 minutes
on on a 5k um so that
was kind of like our our guideline so
they couldn’t represent the country
or you know have been competitive
athletes um and then we
got them to come into the lab four times
so the first session was kind of
the shoe fitting session to make sure
that you know that
we had the right size um because we were
in
independent studies we purchased four
different pairs of
uh four different sizings of shoes so we
had the the night vapor fly
and then we wanted to compare it to a
lightweight minimal shoe so we had the
second
endorphins racer so we had
four sizings so make sure that the
sizing fits um
and then basically what we did at the
first session is we did a vo2 max
and we wanted to detect basically the
velocity at which they reach
their vo2 peak peak values
and our interest our interest there was
rather than
setting so typically there’s there’s
kind of like two different ways that you
can do a running economy test so you can
you can set the speed or you can set the
relative intensity
um and we thought it would be more
appropriate to to make it more
meaningful to the runner
because you have different ranges of
recreational runners if we set
the the running velocity based on their
own
um you know peak speed during during the
the vo2 max test um so that’s
what we did at at the baseline and then
we familiarized them a little bit with
the shoes
and running on you know on the treadmill
prior to the the actual experimental
sessions
and then they came back on three
different occasions separated by a week
in which we monitored their nutrition
their sleep and their training um as
best as we could you know
using a self-reported diary to try to to
ensure consistent you know environments
when they came into the lab
and then they were randomized um to one
of the three shoe conditions
so um we wanted to see the nike the
night vapor fly
uh the minimalist shoe and then we also
had their own running shoe
um which was quite novel in in the
scientific literature so it’s not
actually something that you see quite
quite
often um and the reason behind that is
that we
you know as clinicians and you know
the assumption was that people would be
used to running in their in their own
shoe
they would select the most comfortable
shoe for them
um and so our feeling was that well
actually people might just
perform better in their own shoe because
that’s what they’re they’re used to
running
to running in so that’s why we had
actually their own shoe conditions
um and so we we had that there as a more
of a
echolo um a validity um
ecological validity um as opposed to a
very stringent control condition
so they basically did when they came
into the lab then they did a running
economy test
which we set at stages of 60 70 and 80
percent
of their uh speed at their vo2 peak
and then they had a break and then they
did a three kilometer time trial on the
treadmill because we were also
interested
in looking at the performance aspect so
you know not only that running economy
but if
they did an all-out effort um then
were the shoes effective at improving
their performance basically
um so yeah so that was that was our main
our main study design
so the parents are just trying to
translate a little bit for the runners
it’s you know you get them in you put
them on a treadmill you kind of run them
to exhaustion and
measure how much oxygen they’re using in
three different types of shoes is that
uh no so there’s two different tests so
the first one
is it is the the running economy one so
that’s meant to be at
sub maximal um efforts right okay sorry
so you didn’t run into exhaustion you
just get them to run at a at a difficult
pace
and then you measure at a constant speed
yep
yeah so so at a set speed and then you
monitor
how much oxygen they they they consume
and then you can you can convert that
into you know basically how much energy
that they use
to run at a given speed so you know the
more
economical you are the less oxygen you
consume
at a steady state of running which is
one of the the factors to
to running economy or it’s how you you
look at running economy is that at a
given
speed or pace how much oxygen or how
how much energy are you are you
consuming at that steady
at that steady state um so so we
investigated that at 60 percent
of their of their peak speed
and then at 70 well it’s not really peak
speed but of the peak speed that they
used
that they achieved during their vo2 max
test then at 70 percent
and then at 80 percent so those are done
in stages so you you basically so we
used um a relatively short
time span because they they were new to
the running shoes and we were you know
we were kind of
weary of injury and we knew that they
were going to be doing a 3k
time trial afterwards um so
so yeah so you know you can use times
between three minutes and 15 minutes
to assess running economy
in a steady state yeah so we did that
first
so we did three minutes three minutes
three minutes
then they had a break then they did a
run
a 3k time trial run where basically they
were
indicated um or encouraged to give them
maximal effort
um so and it was blinded so basically um
they they ran on on on the treadmill um
and we
set their speed initially at 90 percent
of the speed that we got on that at that
first session
um and they would indicate to the
researcher whether one whether they
wanted to run faster or slower
so as they were running they could
adjust the speed to go faster or slower
and then we would tell them every 400
meters that they covered
up until they got through to the the
three kilometer
um so you know so it’s basically if you
if you did a 3k
race but you did it on on on the
treadmill yeah
and that was uh so you’re essentially
looking at the same one as at two things
you’re looking
at how efficient they are exactly or
running economy which is how much oxygen
they’re using and seeing
if we change their shoes that they use
more or less oxygen
and then you’re looking at performance
so you’re getting them to do a sort of
simulated race
and saying seeing if their shoes
have any influence on their actual
performance as well as their sort of
because um and a lot of studies they
look at economy right and they see
an improvement in economy and it’s like
well does that mean anything in a
race condition so you actually have a
sort of short simulated
race in a research setting so you can
actually
analyze performance in these same
runners in different shoes is that
is that about right that’s absolutely
correct yeah so i think we’ve got a good
idea what you’re looking at with your
research now and i think um
i think the thing that really caught my
eye about your study is the um
the subject when you said recreational
runner i think
it was it was like me it was exactly me
it was my age it was my sex
it was my like times that i would get
it was it was everything like me i was
like oh this is like a study on b
oh perfect and and that and that’s the
whole point that’s
you know that’s that’s what we wanted to
do so and then i can’t remember excuse
me off the top of my head was it all
males or was it females as well in your
shows yeah so it was it was all males
and that and
and yeah and that was just more of a
cost consideration thing is that we
couldn’t buy
shoes that fit and i was quite
disappointed so because then
none of the shoes fit me so i couldn’t
even myself
so you know but it is what it is so you
know you gotta be in it for signs
um and i mean and one of the other
things that that we did that was quite
novel and that we we did get a little
bit of scientific backlash for it but um
we actually spray painted the shoes yes
we spray painted you know 300
shoes um in new zealand they cost 380
that the nike vapor flies
so uh we spray painted the shoes black
uh so we did that to the socony
endorphin racings and we did that to the
the night vapor flight
because we wanted to attempt to
partially blind
participants or subjects to what they
were running in um
and and yeah we got a little bit of
backlash for that because people are
like oh well people would
you know would know what these shoes
were but
this was actually before they became
really really popular so as soon as they
became
commercially available we purchased um
you know we purchased these pairs
and you know i think people tend to
forget that new zealand new zealand’s a
little bit more on the map now because
you know we’ve been
covet-free for some time
and and you know our prime minister is
is pretty awesome um
so so but you know new zealand’s a
little bit kind of remote and and you
still can’t buy nike vapor flowers in
stores here like or
or any other any of the super shoes so
you actually have to purchase them
online
so unless you’re really if you followed
you know the the
two hour marathon attempts and were
really clued into
the the running community um or what was
happening in the running world you
wouldn’t
be privy to it um so we actually asked
our
participants at the end of the study
whether or not they knew uh what shoes
they had been tested and
um and only one of the individuals um
correctly identified that they were
that they were running in the nike vapor
fly yeah that’s really interesting to
hear
explain that in that way because as i
was reading it i was thinking
how did they control placebo here
because you know the whole world’s
talking about these super shoes now and
then
you know you said just playing them
black and i looked at them was like i i
could tell which one’s which
but the and then you had that bit and
you asked them and they didn’t know
there was this
this one person who knew so that i think
that’s probably
never going to happen now you know i
think you were quite
um quite um i don’t know if lucky’s the
right word but it was
it’s really fortunate that you did this
when you did it and so we can’t actually
get a placebo controlled
you know not not policy is it placebo
controlled is it
um it’s a it’s a controlled study where
you you not
being hampered by the fact that the
you know future studies the one who puts
on the the super shoe is gonna know
they’re gonna see the big fat soul and
they’re gonna know that that’s the shoe
that is you know the world
record-breaking shoe
it’s gonna be very hard to control for
that placebo effect now
because if you put another group in some
flats like you did
they’re gonna know um it’s gonna be
really hard so yeah um
it was it was really cool to see that
yeah so obviously they knew there was
something different with these shoes so
you know we told them they were they
were prototype shoes
um and but that we did the same both for
the nike you know vapor fly
with with the the minimalist shoe um so
they
yeah so did you spray paint their own
shoes too
no no obviously they knew what their own
shoes were right so
if you’re like well what science are we
gonna go to yeah
yeah so so what did you find
um so yeah so so basically uh we did
find
a four percent improvement um in terms
of of running economy when you compare
the vapor flies
to their own shoes um
and we found that the minimalist shoes
also
improved their running economy so to a
lesser extent so it was around three
percent
um but they were still superior to their
own shoe
so our idea that their own shoe might
actually be better
because you know they were used to
running in their own shoe
um actually wasn’t substantiated um so
one of my co-authors tagline is is uh on
you know twitter and stuff is your
your shoes suck so
you know so there’s different factors in
into that so you know whether or not
it’s it’s you know yes we we’ve just
talked about the placebo effect
obviously they were running in new shoes
that’s what i was thinking when i was
made that sort of glib comment about the
black is like they didn’t know which
shoe because they did do worse overall
in their own shoes
could it be some aspect of placebo but
benefiting both the nike and the was it
so corny
the uh the other brand yeah yeah yeah
okay yeah so
so obviously we weren’t able to tool
that out but
the other aspect is that all of their
own shoes were also
heavier tended to be heavier than um
you know the the night vapor fly shoes
and the
lightweight racing flat so we did do an
analysis to
to um to look at whether or not
shu weight contributed to the
enhancement that we’ve seen
um it didn’t come out as being
statistically significant
uh but yeah i mean there are some
part of that that likely played in in
that in that difference as well
so in our analysis there was no
statistically significant difference
between
the economy in the
lightweight shoes and the vapor fly
but if you look at the mean numbers it
was three versus four
so you know if you’re saying okay well
that one percent difference
um you know for some people might be
might be relevant but
statistically speaking it wasn’t
significant
hmm so i’m just thinking uh the the
the wheels are turning as you as you’re
talking here because my immediate
question is why
would people not setting the same record
times
in the saucony in flat shoes and is it
because people don’t run marathons in
those shoes and people don’t run the
longer distances in those shoes or
is this something special about these
new shoes
yeah so i mean there’s a difference
between obviously economy
and running performance so economy is
one aspect of running performance
um and so you know a four percent
increase in
or improvement in running economy
actually shouldn’t translate or doesn’t
actually translate to a four percent
improvement in
say marathon performance um and the
um you know the the the newer data
that’s coming out so i know you you’ve
cited the strava data and a lot of
people look at the strava data and say
oh yeah
well you know the new york times report
showed a a four to five percent
improvement
in half marathon in marathon times when
people switched to shoes
uh to to the nike vapor fly shoes or the
nike um the
next percent shoe um i take strava data
with a little bit of a grain of salt um
because it’s not really a controlled
environment
it’s self-reported you know type of
footwear and demographic so yes it can
give you a general indication of trends
um but yeah i’d be a little bit cautious
in in
over interpreting you know the new york
times reported
reported data there’s actually a
pre-print that’s just come out
analyzing um i think it’s marathon
marathon performance and their
enhancements are
in performance are more around the you
know one point eight to
two percent marathon performance
i think i read the abstract of that
yesterday actually um
yeah because they looked they did sort
of a retrospective analysis of
this was elites again i think wasn’t
yeah over their performances in certain
marathons over the last 10 years
and they and they have found an
improvement there as well
yeah so i mean again not super
controlled environments and it’s a
retrospective analysis but
at least it’s not self-reported footwear
so they
the researchers actually went out and
identified
through a video or image what the
the shoes were and they were able to
compare between years
of you know with even within athletes of
those who actually changed to the newer
shoes
um you know so there’s a lot of factors
that play in in
improving performance and you know one
could argue okay well
you know is the bar yes then the super
shoes definitely
have helped to improve performance
that’s not deniable but
as everybody lifts stuff then you know
then the standard itself people now
maybe they train differently they train
you know they train hard they believe
they can
they can run at that level so you know
there’s there’s a lot of other factors
that that come into play when we talk
about
you know the shift or the stepwise
progression in in running performance so
and you do the those those stories and
this trend you know when someone sets
the bar a little higher people find ways
to meet it
um so it may be that the the shoes
helped set the bar a little higher but
maybe the other people who are meeting
that bar
and not being helped as much by the shoe
as they think they are
yeah yeah absolutely i think you titled
your study
something like you know the shoes aren’t
going to be a game changer for
recreational runners so
why did you choose that title and what
what’s your sort of takeaway for
recreational runners yeah so that was
that was the pre-print version
um yes that the published version has a
more um
less um catchy title um
i yeah i i guess the genesis for for
that
for that title was was a little bit more
to grab the attention
um you know um as well and it was just
so we
we released the preprints at the time
that the
uh world athletics were coming out with
their regulations on on footwear
um not necessarily that i think our
study how to play with that because it
was too close to the announcement
um but it was just more to highlight the
variability
um in the sense that not everybody
got better um and
i think it was only um you know when we
when you looked at the
uh 3k so we’ve just talked about the
running economy one
but if we looked at the 3k time trial
performance
um that the vapor fly should
improve performance around 2.8 percent
and that was actually substantially more
compared to the their own choosing
compared to the minimalist shoes
so coming back to your original question
that you said oh well you know why
didn’t we see
everybody lift their game in in
minimalist shoe
well once we looked at the 3k all-out
performance test
um the minimalist shoe actually um
didn’t improve performance like the
vapor fly did
um in that in that higher intensity
effort
now there’s a few reasons to that you
know um adapting
to a minimalist shoe i don’t know what
you running
um i’ve i’ve run in quite a lot of
minimalist shoes
in my life currently i’m not but um i
have one in um
very like i even need the sunderly ones
what are they the zero shoes
and i’ve got some vivos uh so i’ve done
quite a bit and yeah i’ve definitely
experienced the difference between those
and you more i i don’t know if there’s a
real word for conventional running shoes
but um
more common running shoes yeah yeah
in terms of absolutely and you measured
comfort i believe
in your yeah we did so we measured
comfort and we
we measured the um the shoe properties
of individuals own shoes in terms of
using the minimalist index as well as
you know the weight
the stack height the drop you know so
some of your typical measures that you
would
you would clinically use to look at
footwear characteristics
and the um the minimum issue were
by far more different to what people
were used to wearing compared to the
vapor fly shoes
so the vapor fly shoes you know when you
start to look at the drop and the stack
height and the weight
they they’re more comparable um even
comparing the minimalist index they were
more comparable to
what our participants normally which
which was one of the advantage of seeing
what
the normal shoes of people were so they
were more comparable to what people used
to wear compared to the moonless shoe
um so i think running at that higher
intensity
might have been like you say less
comfortable
people were less less used to um you
know
that sensation of running in in a
minimalist shoe
and you know fatigue studies have you
know there’s there was a recent
publication that came out in
in you know comparing the fatigue of
people running in traditional shoes
compared to minimalist shoes
and after the first two kilometers the
biomechanics so we know that
you know if you look at people running
in miller’s shoes compared to
conventional shoes there’s changes in
biomechanics so people in minimal shoe
tend to hit more with a you know with a
forefoot strike
um closer to their center of mass they
increase their cadence
but as fatigue sets in this new study
sense that now
they kind of gravitate towards how how
they would
how they run in a conventional shoe um
so you know there’s there’s that fatigue
process as well that
you know might have kicked in and people
weren’t used to
recruiting their calf muscles or you
know so we can we can speculate why
that um performance
wasn’t maintained during the the 3k time
trial uh but yeah although we saw an
improved economy
at the high at the higher intensity um
the minimus shoes
wasn’t as beneficial for our
recreational running
i see yeah i didn’t i didn’t pick that
up um
so with because the there’s something i
noticed about
um and i’ve seen this in the other
studies that were more on
higher level and what i would call elite
and
certainly by my standard the other
research has been on extremely
competitive runners
that’s shown these improvements but
they’ve shown this variable response
as far as i can make out and i think
you’ve found the same thing that
that it would be fair to say there are
responders and non-responders to these
uh super shoots for one of a better word
yeah definitely and
and i guess one of the questions that’s
still unanswered that i’m sure that
there’s some research groups that are
working on it at the moment
is um is the that adaptation process so
if you are a non-responder initially
because as as we mentioned they are
biomechanically quite different
to what someone would be used to if you
do actually have a period of adaptation
that you train in these shoes then do
you kind of
learn how to work with the shoe you know
because there’s that whole footwear
person interaction as well that i think
a lot of people sometimes
disregard or don’t consider in in
running
um but you know in clinical practice you
can give someone a gateway
training you know tip like you know um
increase your cadence or
you know one that i i i personally don’t
tend to use or which which was a
you know kind of invoke for a while was
you know
hit with the front part of your feet and
people do really
funny things when you know depending on
individuals they can adapt
you know better than others um and it’s
the same with footwear some so some
individuals respond
you know adapt better to running in
different
shoes whereas some people kind of
maintain their own
you know running style or don’t interact
really well with their equipment so
you know we can see that when when we do
golf clubs
right so you know some
people interact better with certain golf
clubs well it’s the same thing with
with running shoes and i think maybe if
we gave a period of adaptation then
people would
um sorry i’m kind of getting an echo
from myself now as well so
it’s a little bit distracting um
you know so so there’s that whole and
answer question in terms of
if you’re not if you’re not a responder
can you actually then adapt to the shoe
to then
utilize this property and become a
responder or will you
ever be doomed to being a non-responder
um
and what is what is your inkling with
that is there just
there’s no data and nobody’s looked at
um people trying to condition themselves
to
these shoes because i mean what i think
is
if that was the case that you some
people
are not non-responders they just need a
period of adaptation
that would be great because that kind of
keeps the playing field level
it just means that everybody’s going to
need these shoes it’s a little bit like
when in
tennis they went to the wooden from the
wooden racket to the carbon fiber
you know and now everybody plays in
carbon fiber and it’s fair again and
you know we’ve had this period of what i
think looks a little bit like unfairness
you you
can’t win at the top level unless you
have these shoes
and i feel like that may come to the
recreational level and your studies does
seem to lend some support to that that
this might
pan out where people’s performances are
assisted by this running shoe
yep but current evidence would suggest
not everybody um which kind of sucks a
bit because you’re not to know
are you so if you’re no you’re finishing
second in your
age group and you know you both have the
nike shoe on you might be sitting there
thinking how do i know i’m not one of
these because there was someone in your
study i think there was one or two
people who actually got worse
is that right for both winning economy
and performance yep
yeah correct yeah so i mean at the
moment one of the
easiest indicator that you can use
you’re more likely to positively respond
to the night vapor fly if you’re a rear
foot striker
and you’re potentially less likely to
respond to
the knife vapor fly if you’re a forefoot
striker um
so who who came or had highlighted that
and we also found a tendency of that
in in our paper um although we didn’t
have the sample size to actually
um yeah we we would have needed 21
forefoot strikers and 21 rear foot
strikers to be able to show
um statistically you know have a strong
enough analysis to be able to say yeah
they respond differently
um that’s interesting that yeah and
because they had said you know that
the the changes in biomechanics that
ensue from changing into these shoes
they don’t account for the
improvements you know that um that the
shoes must be doing something as well
but certain running techniques
um for example heel striking might make
you more likely to benefit from these
shoes are there are there other things
as well that might make you more likely
uh at the moment that’s the only one
that that has
some inkling of scientific evidence
um that and if you’re an elite runner
well because in theory from what i
understand and more
efficient the shoe that made you improve
your running economy would
typically work better in slower runners
from what i understand because they
have less wind resistance so if um
if you’re running slow you capitalize on
improvements in running economy
better than somebody who runs quickly
and so when you have a better
running economy your actual performance
translation might be closer
so let’s take that four percent number
you know a slower runner might get have
a four percent increase in
improvement in running economy translate
to something close to a four percent
improvement in for performance but a
faster runner might be something more
like
2.3 am i understanding that right so
that’s the theory but is that
the way it pans out yeah i mean that’s
that’s the theory and
i mean i can only speak to to the data
that
that we collected that showed more
variability in
recreational hours now now some people
got you know eleven percent better
which is yeah which is greater than you
know
but you know there’s still some of these
other factors that you know interplay in
that as well as you know that i
mentioned earlier is that yes we tried
to keep it as controlled as possible but
they were tested on different days
so even though running economy and doing
a 3k time trial on the treadmill has
been shown to be reliable testing
procedures
well you know maybe you know the
nutritions were different or maybe
you know their sleepers was different or
their their
their running pattern are different so i
think doing a study with recreational
runner
inherently has more external variability
um than potentially trying to do a study
with elite runners where the nutrition
is more controlled their training
regiment is more controlled that
you know their performance parameters
are more controlled as well
um so so yeah and
and so yes does the shoe work
in most people but you know not not all
um not all recreational runners and as i
mentioned them
it might just be you know there might
just be a
need a time for adaptation as well well
let’s hope so
well let’s hope so well you know again
that’s just the science
um you know if you ask me do do i think
these shoes
have a place um i would originally say
no
like i personally don’t like the way
that the shoes
change the fundamental running
biomechanics as i mentioned like it’s
it’s just completely changing
in the sense of what’s associated with
with performance
you know all of a sudden we have an
increased vertical displacement
you have you know a slightly slower
cadence you have
an increase in the peak ground reaction
force um as well
um you know there’s there’s less medial
lateral stability in these shoes because
of of you know kind of their
their curve features and you know
they’re they’re a relatively
high stack height you know at you know
around 40 is is quite is quite
substantial
um so you know we’re kind of shifting
everything
everything away um i mean i don’t own a
power of night vapor fly
um but i think we’re at a stage now that
we’re gonna have to accept that these
super shoes
are part of the new of the new normal um
yeah so fortunately or unfortunately it
depends what your stand
your standpoint is well there’s
certainly there’s been a ton of
controversy i think it kind of got
i don’t know put put on hold with the
olympics being
postponed and but they had the um
the changes in i don’t know the exact
wording
of the ruling but they from what i
understand this is the first time that
there’s actually been regulation of
running shoes which is probably
testament to the fact that this is the
first time they made
uh such a massive impact on performance
um yeah um what are the regulators are
you familiar with the regulations
brought in and what do you think of them
did that do they
do they address this issue yeah so i
mean there was
there was always some regulations in
place in terms of regulating
um equipment and you know
within uh world athletics and but
you know the wording was rather loose in
terms of well you know it shouldn’t
provide an unfair advantage and it
should be reasonable ex
reasonably accessible to um to all
athletes
so you know so what happened now is
because these shoes were seen to be
doing such
you know a difference and then you could
question as to okay well
were these shoes actually reasonably
accessible to all athletes
the answer to that were no because
unless you were a nike sponsored athlete
you didn’t have
access to these shoes um and did they
did they
provide a a unfair advantage and you
know
the answer to that would be yes um so in
theory these shoes were
not following the you know regulations
um but because of these loopholes they
were allowed to be you know to be used
and and
and i think it just kind of brought the
deficiencies in the regulations to light
so i mean that the new footwear
regulations have have come in
and they’ve put a you know a series of
measures in place um
and and i mean the main regulation is
that they’re limiting the
the stack height so i think they’ve
limited it to
40 millimeters which just so happens to
fit with the alpha fly um so there’s
debate as to
you know how that came about but anyway
that’s another story
um and and and the the idea
here is that it just limits the
innovation that can happen
within that amount of space because the
more
scaffolding or the more space that you
give for people to put technology in
or or anything else then um
the yeah that the more
technology can be embedded within a shoe
now now
we’re basically saying okay we’ll do
what you want within that 40 millimeter
space basically
and does that go far enough for you or
do you think that that 40
um i mean i suppose at some point
there’s a bit of an arms race right and
then
the other shoe companies are trying to
develop shoes with similar performance
benefits
um yeah and they’re all going to be
limited now within 40. so at some point
this is probably going to peter out and
these
different brands will have different
versions of this same yeah
and it’s already starting to happen now
you know like all the different
you know the different companies are
coming out you know saucony brooks
adidas
um they’re all coming out with these new
super shoes
um now no one has i’m sure they probably
compare them behind closed door but you
know
there’s nothing available in the public
domain showing you know whether one
brand is
is outperforming um another you know
some of the other regulations um
i believe that they brought in was um
you know you you can only have one
carbon fiber plate and you know you
can’t have
it needs to be um you know all in this
in the series and
and things like that and um it has to be
available for commercial purpose i think
for
a minimum period of three months before
it’s used so that way it’s reasonably
accessible to
um uh yeah to to the
other competitors as well um but yeah so
it’s gonna be interesting to see how
they enforce the rules though
i think is the main question that people
are still
kind of wondering because short of
taking the individual shoes on race day
and cutting through them
to see is it constructed in a way that
fits the requirements
um yeah and that gets very difficult for
things like um qualifying for certain
races like a lot of my runners
um not a lot but like there’s a there’s
a small percentage of the recreational
learners i work with whose
big aspiration is to qualify for new
york or boston
sure this makes a big difference for
that um
and then how do you police what kind of
shoes
but um i don’t know i would like to
think that you know
it’s going to be hard now that they’ve
got that limit in place
it’s going to be hard to get this four
percent or three to five percent
jump again which has caused so much
turmoil you know
yeah i mean there’s there’s some
whispers that the alpha fly is closer to
eight percent
um i heard that but i heard it from nike
so
yeah well that’s the thing so we don’t
know where these whispers are coming
from and
you know i didn’t have funding to buy
you know whatever four more shoes um
without the alpha play um so yeah so i
mean who
who knows but yeah i i do think
eventually it will
kind of stabilize um i don’t think we’re
at stability yet
but yeah you know it just makes it hard
from a clinical perspective
how do you then go on to recommend
choose to
you know to to to the general public and
um you know you just have to come back
to i think what your priorities are in
terms of your
training and aspirations so you know if
if you have your runners that are
close to that qualifying you know
time and that’s really what they want to
do and
you know if they have
the fundamentals of their training in
place then yeah
that that is an additional thing that
they can use to
help enhance their performance but
you know fundamentally if you do
consistent and
in a well-planned training then you know
you should be able to improve your
um physio physiological capacity um
to be able to achieve those times is is
my thoughts
um irrespective of what shoes that that
that you run in so yes it’s a tool that
can be used but
you know should it be used i don’t know
you know nobody actually really knows
either in the long term
you know there’s some speculations that
you might actually
you know weaken your calf muscles and
and weaken your foot muscles
because the shoe is doing some of the
work for you so then is your body
actually becoming lazy and
and you know we know that the body
adapts to the load and
load that we place on them and you know
so we’ve we’ve talked about the gross
you know when i talk gross bio mechanics
i talk you know the big picture
biomechanics like the
the vertical oscillation and the the
stride rate and
and things like that but you know at a
joint level um you know research has
shown that there’s less work done
at the at the mtp so the the toes
basically
um and there’s less work done at the
ankle
um so if there’s less work and
done at those in those areas then what
happens to the muscles in those areas as
well
um or or the structures like the plantar
fasciitis that
then you know is not contributing to
your running stride anymore
um so you know so in the long term what
you know running is good but then then
do you become stuck in those shoes
because you’ve adapted you know you’ve
adapted to that and then re-adapting
back to something that’s
even going back to a traditional shoe
you know
is that you know not forget you know
transitioning back to a minimal shoe you
know
you know what i’m saying like so you
know where’s it depends where your
priorities are
um well it’s sort of almost leads
to you know you’re going to have racing
shoes that are going to be like these
super shoes and you’re going to have a
few pairs of training shoes and every
runner
who’s seriously wanting to um
hit um externally placed markers so
they’re not just trying to beat
themselves they’re trying to beat other
people in their age group or they’re
trying to beat certain times
um they’re going to need to have to wear
these at least on race day
realistically i mean i don’t know how
it’ll pan out over the next few years
but from what i understand the
the form is gonna die quicker
so if you’re training in them um
you know what is that gonna um
i can’t imagine i don’t know what you
think i can’t imagine a scenario in a
few years where i would be doing
all of my training and my racing in
a super shoe type model you know that
had yeah and
i’ve forgotten the name is it the p box
form or um
yeah the zoom special form yeah and the
carbon plate then
yeah with a massive like uh stack height
because it’s
it’s gonna like you said it’s gonna
weaken parts of my
foot and ankle that are potentially then
gonna
slow me down on race day because i
haven’t worked them during my training
yeah yeah yeah but then there’s a flip
side to that is that if you never train
in them and then you’re not used to them
and then you
wear them just on race day then
what does that look like you know have
you actually adapted to running in your
shoes so you know there’s kind of like
that
you know that that flip that flip
argument as well
um so so yeah so i mean do i think
realistically that’s
where it should go if you want to
integrate these in your in your racing
plan
yes is is that you you do have you know
these pair
of super shoes that you use at times in
your training in that you know so that
you’re used to enough to running and
then that you can utilize them
in your um in your race in your racing
should they be the only pair of shoes
that you’re running i don’t think so
but that’s my that’s my humble opinion
and just just before we move on there
because i know you’re a big fan of um
well i don’t want to keep you too long
but um i know you’re a big fan of the
cough
um and you mentioned that the the carbon
fiber plate and the fact that it’s bent
potentially
might or i think you said it has been
proven to
to i forget what you said was it reduce
the stress on the ankle and
uh tours or was it weakened so you
you there’s less work right right so
that’s
one leads to the other right because if
you if you changed
your shoes to those most of the time if
it requires less work at let’s say the
ankle and foot then it’s gonna
those muscles relatively are going to be
weaker in a few months all
things being equal is that this um
teeter-totter
or seesaw for british listeners um
effect um could you explain that is that
what is happening
um yeah so yeah so i mean that’s that’s
one of the
um i guess ben onig has had brought that
as a
as an explan as one explanation to how
the the carbon fiber plates work
um in the sense of because of its of its
curved shape
um you know you you kind of
it pivots and it pushes
your heel um up during during the
push-off so as you transition into your
your step
because of the curve shape it acts like
a like you say a teeter-totter and
pushes up um your your heel and your
foot
your foot forward um which
presumably is one of the contributors to
lessening the work done at the ankle
because it’s it’s being returned
in part by the carbon fiber plate and
then in part by the
um by the cushioning of of the shoe
yeah and um i’m just gonna check the
time
um it do you need to head off and we’ve
been talking i think an hour an
i’m happy to jump back on at some other
time to talk to you about the calf
muscle if you want to do a
you know a footwear and a calf muscle
one that would be lovely maybe that’d be
better than their name because i think
we’ve
we’ve rounded out the shoe discussion
quite nicely there and we’ve discovered
all the problems with it and then
i think that’s um it’s very it’s been
very informative to me to read
your study and and some of the other
studies that you referenced that i am
sort of i was led on to so um thank you
for coming on to sort of explain it in a
little more detail for the runners
and especially for recreational runners
it’s it’s awesome to see
like when i saw the study on
recreational wonders and i was like oh
man they recruited me i was i was very
excited so
um that’s yeah is this what you
uh what are you planning to do in the
future because i know you have other
interests uh
like uh jump landing and stuff like that
it what are your
what are your plans for the future yeah
so i mean i i guess i
i have a few areas of of interest so one
of the
of the ones that are up right in is is
um injury prevention part particularly
around the acl in the knee
um but then there’s my whole um calf
muscle
um calf muscle area that that i’m really
passionate about as well so as you’ve
alluded to i’ve developed an app to help
clinicians
uh quantify calf muscle performance so
at the moment we’re just going through
the
the validation process of of the app um
just to make sure that the
you know that the values that are
outputted corresponds to to lab-based um
values so when we’re in the middle of
that process
i’m working with rugby rugby union to
help them with their calf injury
problems as well so
um you know instigating uh better calf
muscle testing procedures
that are um targeting in athletic
populations
um and in in the running area
so at the moment i’m just finalizing
actually biomechanical analysis
comparing
um the different running shoes that our
participants wore
so we did do 3d motion capture with them
so you know
further exploring that you know what
we’ve just talked about those mechanical
differences
um between the the running gate um
and i’ve also kind of really interested
in the whole area of
you know just running and footwear and
and basically you know footwear
selection and footwear comfort um so i
think i think that’s a relatively
um unexplored area in terms of
really its usefulness so you know one of
the things that we found in our study is
um we did take those perceptual measures
in terms of
you know how comfortable individuals
were in the different shoes
and how much they actually perceived
that the shoes helped
to enhance performance and their
perceptions were
actually not linked with whether or not
um
they did did better or worse in in any
of the shoes
so just because individuals were for
instance more comfortable
in the vapor fly or thought that the
vapor fly improved their performance
um their perceptions weren’t actually
links
to how much they improved or if they
improved
um you know so that wasn’t actually a
good filter to
as you’ve kind of alluded to to say
whether or not they believed they would
respond or
to detect the responders to the
non-responders um
so yeah so going down that path a little
bit at the moment as well
um to further explore footwear yeah
that’s really interesting because i
thought i saw in your data
um an inverse relationship between
i think it was running economy and
comfort level
in that the people that they they the
less comfortable
they found it less comfortable but they
their economy was better
is it did i see that correctly yeah so
that so that was for the minimalist shoe
so even though
participants were the least comfortable
in the minimal shoes
um so they were more comfortable for
instance in their own shoe than the
minimalist shoe they still perform
better
in in terms of the running economy and
their mental issues mm-hmm so yeah so
for them because it wasn’t yeah it
wasn’t associated yeah
and because um i i discussed with cody
when i spoke with her this um you know
the comfort felt the paradigm which is
sort of where a lot of clinicians have
landed that you know we have to
um that the most evidence-based way to
advise people on footwear is to say that
the most comfortable is the
the shoe for you and i would say that
that contradicts that
um proposition yeah and this is i
believe
um if i’m unless i’m getting this wildly
wrong that
the comfort filter paradigm sort of
proposes that you have a preferred
movement path
and you will choose the shoes that are
least likely to cause you an injury
because
you’ll feel that they feel best for you
and i think that’s more related to
injury prevention as opposed to
performance
but um yeah but but again i i think you
have to go back to the
the terminology and you know
comfort filtered paradigm theory
it’s a theory it’s a paradigm it’s that
there’s actually no
scientific evidence to substantiate if
you run in a more comfortable shoe
that you’ll have less injury there’s no
evidence of that
i’m not saying it’s not the right way
because at the end of the day
you know as long as you’re out there
running you’d rather be running in a
comfortable student and not comfortable
shoe
um but your level of comfort is actually
not necessarily associated to
how well you’re performing their in
those shoes um
and or to the the number of injuries um
if you’re not injured then yeah that’s
that’s a great way to
um you know obviously select running
shoe this is going to encourage you to
run
um but you know there is some evidence
that certain shoes are better for
treating certain
you know you know musculoskeletal
conditions and
and and whatnot so um yeah i think
there’s more to footwear prescription
than just
footwear comfort um and that’s probably
an easy way for people not to think
about footwear prescription too much
right and and for what i’ve heard about
the vaporfly i haven’t worn any myself
but um
i think it was more the alpha fly i’ve
heard people say it feels like they’re
tipping you forward constantly
and so there’s another sort of
is that comfortable it kind of depends
on what you’re going for
if you’re thinking i want to run fast
then being tipped forward of it you’re
probably quite
pleased about that you know so there’s
all these other little things that
fit into it so i would be uh very
interested to read
um if you’re looking into that uh
relationship between
um you know what people think their
shoes are doing and what their
what that is actually happening and that
that’d be very helpful because um
the more information we can get on that
and in order because
what running shoes should i buy is such
it’s it’s like every runner i work with
asks me yeah and it’s so hard to answer
with them
um with some sort of um
i don’t know what confidence in my
advice
you know um yeah
and so just before we head off is there
any way you’d like to direct people
who’d like to
sort of learn more from you or follow
you or um
oh yeah stuff going on courses or any of
that kind of stuff
um yeah so i i am on twitter so feel
free to follow me on twitter
um i do try to keep my university
webpage
up to date as well um but yeah anybody
who wants
i’m you know always happy to collaborate
or to to answer emails or
or messages so yeah just just ping me
um that’s a a good way and i am involved
with um the running clinic
um so it’s a continuous education for
um you know clinicians and healthcare
professionals that work with runners
but actually they’ve just recently
expanded their
course offerings to other
non-related running um type of injuries
so it’s um
yeah yeah so you can you can check out
the courses that the running running
clinic offer as well
okay cool well i’ll put links to all of
those in the descriptions and
in the show notes as well so that people
can find you and
and follow you and uh thank you very
much for coming on it was really really
interesting i
will definitely hold you to that promise
of coming back to talk about the cafes
at some point but i’ll give you a few
weeks
off at least thank you and i don’t know
what time of day you’re on there so i
don’t know whether to say good
good morning good afternoon good
afternoon yeah good afternoon
yeah yeah yeah evening and i’ll um
i’ll talk to you again soon thank you
okay thank you very much
okay bye bye
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