New nike vapor. Nike Vaporfly: Revolutionary Running Shoe or Unfair Advantage?

How does the Nike Vaporfly impact running performance. Are the claims of 4% improvement in running efficiency accurate. What are the implications for competitive fairness in distance running.

The Nike Vaporfly: A Game-Changing Running Shoe

The Nike Zoom Vaporfly 4% has sent shockwaves through the running world since its release. This high-tech shoe promises to make runners significantly faster, raising questions about fairness and technology in competitive sports. But does it live up to the hype?

Nike claims the Vaporfly improves running efficiency by about 4% compared to their other top racing shoes. For a three-hour marathoner, this could translate to nearly six minutes saved. For a four-hour marathoner, it could mean shaving off eight minutes. These are staggering numbers that could dramatically impact race results.

Key Features of the Nike Vaporfly

• Carbon-fiber plate in the midsole
• Energy storage and release with each stride
• Retails for $250
• Reportedly wears out after about 100 miles

Analyzing the Data: Do the Vaporflys Deliver?

To investigate Nike’s claims, The New York Times conducted an extensive analysis of around 500,000 marathon and half marathon times since 2014. They used public race reports and data from Strava, a popular fitness tracking app. The results were eye-opening.

Runners wearing Vaporflys were found to run 3 to 4 percent faster than comparable runners in other shoes. This advantage held true across various analytical approaches:

• Statistical modeling based on runner demographics and history
• Comparing changes in race times for runners who switched to Vaporflys
• Analyzing matched pairs of races
• Examining the frequency of personal records when switching to Vaporflys

Importantly, the advantage was consistent across different types of runners:

• Fast and slow runners
• Men and women
• Experienced and novice marathoners

Breaking Down the Performance Boost

How significant is the Vaporfly advantage in real terms? Let’s consider some specific scenarios:

Marathon Impact

For marathon runners, the data suggests a 4% improvement when using Vaporflys. This translates to:

• A 3-hour marathoner could potentially run 7.2 minutes faster
• A 4-hour marathoner might see a 9.6-minute improvement

Half Marathon Effect

The impact on half marathon times appears even more pronounced, with a 5% improvement noted. This could mean:

• A 1:30 half marathoner might run 4.5 minutes faster
• A 2-hour half marathoner could potentially improve by 6 minutes

The Science Behind the Speed

What makes the Nike Vaporfly so effective? The key lies in its innovative design:

Carbon-Fiber Plate

The carbon-fiber plate embedded in the midsole acts like a spring. It stores energy as the foot lands and releases it during push-off, creating a propulsive effect. This technology aims to reduce the energy cost of running, allowing athletes to maintain faster paces for longer periods.

Foam Technology

The Vaporfly uses a proprietary foam called ZoomX. This ultra-lightweight material provides exceptional energy return, further contributing to the shoe’s efficiency.

Weight Reduction

By using advanced materials, Nike has created a racing shoe that’s significantly lighter than traditional options. This weight reduction means less energy expended with each step, potentially leading to faster times over long distances.

Fairness in Competition: A New Era of “Technological Doping”?

The remarkable performance boost provided by the Vaporfly raises important questions about fairness in competitive running. Is wearing these shoes equivalent to a form of technological doping?

Historical Precedents

This is not the first time sports have grappled with technological advancements:

• Golf has banned certain balls that fly straighter
• Swimming prohibited full-body suits that reduced drag
• Cycling has strict regulations on bike design and materials

Current Running Regulations

As of now, there are no specific rules prohibiting shoes like the Vaporfly in most running competitions. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) states that shoes must not provide “any unfair assistance or advantage” but has not taken action against the Vaporfly.

The Debate

Opinions on the fairness of the Vaporfly are divided:

• Proponents argue that technological innovation is a natural part of sports evolution
• Critics contend that the advantage is too significant and creates an uneven playing field
• Some suggest implementing a “competition shoe” standard to ensure fairness

The Ripple Effect: Impact on the Running Industry

The success of the Vaporfly has sent shockwaves through the running shoe industry. How are other manufacturers responding to this game-changing technology?

Competing Technologies

Major shoe brands are racing to develop their own versions of energy-returning, carbon-plated shoes:

• Hoka One One has released the Carbon X
• Saucony has introduced the Endorphin Pro
• Brooks is developing the Hyperion Elite

Market Dynamics

The Vaporfly’s success has sparked a new arms race in running shoe technology. This competition is likely to drive further innovation but may also lead to increased costs for competitive runners who feel pressured to keep up with the latest advancements.

Amateur Impact

While the Vaporfly’s $250 price tag may be justifiable for elite athletes, it presents a significant investment for amateur runners. This raises concerns about creating a two-tiered system where only those who can afford the latest technology can compete at their highest potential.

Beyond the Hype: Considering the Long-Term Implications

As the running world grapples with the Vaporfly phenomenon, it’s important to consider the broader implications of this technology:

Record Books and Asterisks

If the Vaporfly and similar shoes continue to produce significantly faster times, how will historical records be viewed? Should there be separate categories for performances achieved with and without this technology?

Injury Prevention and Long-Term Health

While the Vaporfly may improve performance, its long-term impact on runner health is unknown. The altered biomechanics could potentially lead to new injury patterns or exacerbate existing issues. More research is needed to understand these effects.

The Spirit of Competition

At its core, distance running has always been about the human spirit, endurance, and personal achievement. Does the introduction of such impactful technology fundamentally change the nature of the sport?

The Future of Running: Embracing Innovation or Preserving Tradition?

As the debate over the Nike Vaporfly continues, the running community faces a crucial decision point. How can the sport balance the drive for innovation with the need for fair competition and the preservation of running’s essential character?

Potential Regulatory Approaches

• Implement strict guidelines on shoe construction and materials
• Create separate race categories for “standard” and “enhanced” footwear
• Establish a maximum performance improvement threshold for approved shoes

Embracing the Technology

Alternatively, the sport could fully embrace these advancements, viewing them as a natural evolution akin to improvements in training methods, nutrition, and other areas of sports science.

Finding Middle Ground

Perhaps the most likely outcome is a compromise that allows for innovation within certain boundaries. This could involve:

• Setting limits on specific shoe components (e.g., midsole thickness, plate materials)
• Requiring shoe technology to be commercially available for a certain period before being allowed in elite competition
• Implementing a handicap system for races that accounts for shoe technology

The Nike Vaporfly has undoubtedly changed the landscape of distance running. As the sport grapples with this new reality, the coming years will likely see intense debate, evolving regulations, and continued technological innovation. Runners, coaches, and governing bodies must work together to chart a course that preserves the integrity of the sport while embracing the potential for human achievement.

Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster. What if That’s Actually True?

Illustration by Agnes Lee

Illustration by Agnes Lee

If a running shoe made you 25 percent faster, would it be fair to wear it in a race? What about 10 percent? Or 2 percent? The Nike Zoom Vaporfly 4% — a bouncy, expensive shoe released to the public one year ago — raises these questions like no shoe in recent distance running history.

Nike says the shoes are about 4 percent better than some of its best racing shoes, as measured by how much energy runners spend when running in them. That is an astonishing claim, an efficiency improvement worth almost six minutes to a three-hour marathoner, or about eight minutes to a four-hour marathoner.

And it may be an accurate one, according to a new analysis by The New York Times of race data from about 500,000 marathon and half marathon running times since 2014.

Using public race reports and shoe records from Strava, a fitness app that calls itself the social network for athletes, The Times found that runners in Vaporflys ran 3 to 4 percent faster than similar runners wearing other shoes, and more than 1 percent faster than the next-fastest racing shoe.

We found that the difference was not explained by faster runners choosing to wear the shoes, by runners choosing to wear them in easier races or by runners switching to Vaporflys after running more training miles. Instead, the analysis suggests that, in a race between two marathoners of the same ability, a runner wearing Vaporflys would have a real advantage over a competitor not wearing them.

How the Nike Vaporflys compare with other popular running shoes …

When we use a statistical model, based on runners’ ages, genders, race histories and other information, to measure the effect of shoes

When we compare changes in race times among groups of runners who ran the same pairs of races

When we measure finish times after runners switch to new shoes

When we see how common a personal record is when switching shoes

The advantages for runners wearing Vaporflys were consistent for slower racers and fast ones; for men and women; for runners on their second marathon or their fifth.

The shoes’ effect when we restrict our analysis to …

The subset of fastest runners are those whose average time meets the 2018 time-qualifying standards for the New York marathon; fast runners are those whose average time is within 25 percent of those standards or faster; slower runners are those whose average time exceeds 25 percent above those standards. Enthusiastic runners are runners with at least four completed marathons or four completed half marathons in the data. Logged training miles is the subset of runners who logged training miles in Strava in the four months before the race date.

The Vaporflys — which retail at $250 a pair — were widely released to the public by Nike last summer. Unlike most running shoes, they have a carbon-fiber plate in the midsole, which stores and releases energy with each stride and is meant to act as a kind of slingshot, or catapult, to propel runners forward. Compared with typical training shoes, the Vaporflys are believed to wear out quickly: Some runners have said they lose their effectiveness after 100 miles or so.

The apparent effectiveness of the shoes highlights an issue that has vexed sports officials for decades: how to determine which technological advances constitute an unfair competitive advantage. Golf officials barred the use of certain balls that fly straighter, the N.F.L. barred the use of a sticky substance that helped players catch the ball, and swimming officials barred high-tech suits that were said to have enhanced buoyancy and speed.

The swimsuits were believed to lower times by as much as 2 percent — comparable to the apparent advantage derived from Nike Vaporflys relative to the next-best-performing popular shoes in our data.

The International Association of Athletics Federations, track’s governing body, has rules about shoes, but they are vague: “Shoes must not be constructed so as to give athletes any unfair assistance or advantage.” It does not specify what such an advantage might be.

The rules also state that shoes “must be reasonably available to all in the spirit of the universality of athletics.” The Vaporflys sell out quickly; on the secondary market, a pair can cost $400 or more. Nike’s newest version of the shoe, the Elite Flyprint, was sold to a limited number of runners in London for the 2018 London Marathon at a cost of £499, or about $650.

When asked whether the shoes conform to track and field’s rules, a spokesman for Nike wrote in an email that the shoe “meets all I.A.A.F. product requirements and does not require any special inspection or approval.”

Yannis Nikolaou, a spokesman for the I.A.A.F., said that while it’s accurate to say that the Vaporflys are legal, it’s actually more accurate to say there is no evidence they shouldn’t be.

“We need evidence to say that something is wrong with a shoe,” he said. “We’ve never had anyone to bring some evidence to convince us.”

Where these estimates come from

An ideal experiment to measure how much shoes matter for race performance might involve a series of marathons on a variety of courses, with runners randomly assigned different running shoes.

That experiment does not yet exist, but something like it happens around the world almost every weekend, when tens of thousands of amateur runners compete in races and upload their race data — collected on smartphones or satellite watches — to Strava.

This data usually includes statistics like a runner’s overall time, splits for every mile and a map of the runner’s route. In about one-third of the races on Strava, athletes reported data on the shoes that they wore.

Here’s what those race reports look like for three runners of the 2017 New York Marathon who finished near the three-hour mark:

Based on profiles from more than 700 races in dozens of countries since 2014, The Times compiled results from about 280,000 marathon and 215,000 half marathon completed races. (These race records are public, but The Times obtained permission from every athlete named in this article. )

Below, we describe the four ways we measured the shoes’ effect.

Measuring shoe effects using statistical models

Pros of this approach: Tries to control for race conditions, weather, gender, age, pre-race training and a runner’s previous race times.

Cons of this approach: Still not a randomized controlled trial.

We know a lot about the runners in our data set, including their age, gender, race history and, in some cases, how much training they’ve done in the months before a race. We also know about the races themselves, including the distribution of runners’ times and the weather that day. We can put all of this information into a model to try to estimate the change in runners’ time from their previous races.

After controlling for all of these variables, our model estimates that the shoes account for an expected improvement of about 4 percent over a runner’s previous time. Including the uncertainty around the estimates, the Vaporflys are a clear outlier, one of the only popular shoes we can really say makes any difference at all.

Estimated change in race time, compared with a previous result, when switching shoes

Best guess

95% confidence interval

Show more shoes ↓

Some shoe names have been shortened.

This model estimates the effect of wearing Vaporflys compared with the effect of wearing any other shoes. It estimates the expected change in race time from a runner’s previous race given the runner’s age, gender, race history, training miles (for those athletes whose training logs are public) and the weather conditions on race day.

There are several statistical approaches one could take with this data set — and we tried several of them. None are perfect, but every way we tried, the effect of the shoes was more or less consistent: whether we included training miles or omitted them; whether weather data was included or ignored; or whether we modeled the change in time after switching shoes or the change in time from a runner’s average.

Of course, these observations do not constitute a randomized control trial. Runners choose to wear Vaporflys; they are not randomly assigned them. One statistical approach that seeks to address this uses something called propensity scores, which attempt to control for the likelihood that someone wears the shoes in the first place. We tried this, too. Our estimates didn’t change.

Comparing groups of runners who completed the same two races

Pros of this approach: Follows athletes of similar ability who ran in identical conditions.

Cons of this approach: Runners could save their special shoes for when they expect to have a fast race.

Tony Kharitonov and Marios Athineos don’t know each other — in fact, they live on opposite coasts — but they have something in common: They both failed to get the time they wanted in the 2017 Boston Marathon. But they failed together, just nine seconds apart, two minutes on the wrong side of three hours.

That race was one of the hottest in years, with temperatures approaching 80 degrees, and both runners were off pace after the course’s famous Heartbreak Hill, around Mile 21, and slowed considerably in the race’s final miles.

Running a marathon in less than three hours is a sign of an elite runner, and Boston is one of the world’s most prestigious races. In April, the men returned to run it again — and both switched to a different pair of shoes. Mr. Kharitonov wore Altra Solstice shoes, and Mr. Athineos wore Vaporflys.

Once again, weather was a factor. The 2018 race featured pouring rain, strong winds, low temperatures and a big rise in dropouts.

This time, the results were different. Mr. Athineos, a 42-year-old researcher based in San Francisco, finished with 33 seconds to spare, at 2:59:26. But Mr. Kharitonov, 49, a software engineer in Millburn, N.J., could not stay warm, and once again could not maintain his pace. For the fifth year in a row, he failed to break three hours at the Boston Marathon, finishing in 3:07:17.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the conditions, neither runner identified shoes as a factor in this year’s result. And, given what we know about how different the races were, it may seem unhelpful to compare times between them at all. But there is still meaningful information in events like these in aggregate.

Instead of directly comparing performances in the two races, we can compare the net change of runners who switched to Vaporflys with the net change of similar runners who did not. Of the 1,275 runners in our data who ran Boston both years, 52 switched to Vaporflys in 2018, as Mr. Athineos did. On the whole, those runners’ times improved more than that of the group of runners who did not.

Change in performance, Boston 2017 to Boston 2018

On average, there wasn’t much of a difference in race times among runners who ran Boston in 2017 and 2018.

Change in performance, Boston 2017 to Boston 2018, among runners who switched to Vaporflys

But 85 percent of runners who switched to Vaporflys got faster.

This specific comparison may be too extreme for any study of shoes, and perhaps it is. But Boston 2017 and Boston 2018 are just one pair of races, and there are hundreds of pairs of races in our data in which large groups of runners ran the same two races and in which a subset of them switched shoes. When we compare all these pairs of races among all kinds of popular shoes, we see that, on average, runners who switched to Vaporflys improved their times more than similar runners who switched to any other kind of popular shoe.

Average change among shoe-switchers compared with non-switchers

Best guess

95% confidence interval

Show more shoes ↓

Some shoe names have been shortened.

Following runners as they switch to a new kind of racing shoe

Pros of this approach: Accounts for runners of varying skills over several races.

Cons of this approach: Runners could save Vaporflys for when they expect to be faster than normal, or Vaporfly wearers could be different in some way from other kinds of runners.

The runners who use Strava are an enthusiastic bunch: About one in four have uploaded data for two or more marathons, and about one in 10 have uploaded data for three or more. The Strava data allows us to follow these repeat racers over time, and, crucially, as they change shoes.

Glenn Kasin, a 49-year-old doctoral student at the Southern California University of Health Sciences, is one of these avid runners. He has uploaded five marathons to Strava since November 2015, and he wore a different pair of shoes in every race. In January, at the Houston Marathon, he decided to race in Vaporflys.

In Houston, Mr. Kasin improved on his Boston time by about 18 minutes, an improvement owing to much more than a pair of shoes. He attributed his result, a 2:56:00, to many things: perfect weather, a fast course and the culmination of two consecutive years of a training regimen that included, on average, about 50 miles of running per week. But he said he also thought the shoes made a difference.

“Everything aligned, and then you throw that shoe on top of it,” he said. “The pace felt so easy that you felt like questioning: What’s going on here? When is it not going to feel easy?”

Mr. Kasin is a single data point, but in our data there are almost 4,000 runners just like him — men and women who have uploaded results for five marathons or more. When we aggregate the change in race times for runners the first time they switch to a new pair of shoes, runners who switched to Vaporflys improved their times more than runners who switched to any other kind of popular shoe.

Median change in race time when runners switch shoes

Best guess

95% confidence interval

Show more shoes ↓

Includes only runners who switch from one shoe to another, rather than switching from not reporting shoes at all to reporting them. Some shoe names have been shortened.

Measuring the likelihood of a personal best

Pros of this approach: A measure of race performance most runners know by heart.

Cons of this approach: Doesn’t account for race conditions, increased training miles or aging. Runners who switch to Vaporflys could be different from other runners.

Race times are, in many ways, a crude way to measure performance. A marathon is not like a 400-meter dash or a 100-meter freestyle swim: One marathon may be hilly or feature sharp turns; others may be flat and straight. Weather, too, is important, with higher temperatures typically resulting in much slower times.

And yet race times are how runners qualify for prestigious races, like the Boston Marathon, and most runners know their personal best times by heart, regardless of whether the race they ran was flat or hilly, on a hot day or a cold one.

We can follow the runners in our data with this measure in mind, testing whether a runner’s fastest time is more likely when he or she switches to the Vaporflys, or any other kind of shoe.

Consider two fast runners in our data: Stephanie Andre, 35, a freelance writer from Bixby, Okla., and Amanda Hicks, 34, a product director in Washington, D.C. Both women have uploaded several marathons to Strava and both switched to the Vaporflys for a recent marathon. Mrs. Andre ran the 2017 Chicago Marathon and Ms. Hicks the 2018 Boston Marathon.

By objective standards, both women had excellent races. Mrs. Andre placed 22nd among women in Chicago with a 2:41:50, fast enough to qualify for the 2020 U.S. Olympic team trials, and Ms. Hicks finished in Boston with a 3:15:31, among the top 5 percent of all female finishers that day.

Here are the two women’s marathon race histories as they appear in our data, with races in the Vaporflys highlighted:

Stephanie Andre set her P. R. …

… but

Amanda Hicks did not.

Someone can run a personal best for all kinds of reasons unrelated to shoes. A runner may train more, execute a better strategy on race day or run an easier course. Regardless, we found that runners who switched to Vaporflys were more likely to run their fastest race than runners who switched to almost any other kind of popular shoe.

Likelihood of a personal record when switching to …

Best guess

95% confidence interval

Show more shoes ↓

*Among runners who have run two or more marathons or half marathons. Some shoe names have been shortened.

Putting them all together

None of these approaches are perfect, but they all point to a similar conclusion. Wherever we look for evidence that shoes matter in a marathon or half marathon, we find Vaporflys at or near the top of that list. More than that, the shoes tend to be outliers among all popular shoes, suggesting that there is something happening in races with Vaporflys that is not happening in races with nearly any other kind of popular shoe.

Nothing is certain, of course, and we describe some reasons for continued skepticism below. But from our perspective, the most honest answer we can give to the question “Do Vaporflys really make runners faster?” is a qualified yes.

Reasons to remain skeptical

The data is self-reported — and self-typed. All of our analysis comes from runners who publicly tell Strava what shoe they’re wearing during a race, which they type in manually. The race records included about 33,000 distinct shoe descriptions, and our analysis depends on standardizing those records. (Even for a shoe as heavily marketed as the Vaporflys, Strava users found 147 different ways to spell the name. ) We’ve done our best to identify misspellings, remove shoe records that are clearly incorrect and consolidate different variations of the same basic shoe. But there’s no perfect way to do so.

More problematic is when runners do not identify their shoes with enough precision for us to categorize them. Wherever possible, we’ve attempted to identify the shoe to its most specific name, differentiating between shoes within a shoe line (or “franchise”). But not all runners were this detailed. This was most common among Adidas shoes. Adidas, for example, lists more than a dozen different subfranchises belonging to its “Boost” franchise. When runners did not specify to this level of detail, we simply identified the parent franchise of a given shoe. This could mask high-performing shoes within a franchise.

The shoe names published here reflect a bespoke attempt at standardizing names, but we also tried an algorithmic approach. While the ordering of the shoes changed somewhat, the general pattern did not.

These estimates compare Vaporflys only with other popular shoes. Perhaps the greatest limitation of this data set is that for us to make meaningful conclusions, it requires that large groups of people to run in a pair of shoes. This necessarily omits less popular shoes that, for all we know, may be faster than the shoes mentioned in this article. This analysis includes only the 50 most popular shoes — those with roughly 500 races or more in our data.

There still may be something we’re missing that’s not captured in the data. It’s possible that runners wear Vaporflys only when they know they are going to run faster, or that the act of wearing Vaporflys correlates with other things that indicate a runner is going to run faster. We acknowledge that it’s impossible to control for every factor that affects marathon performance. But we have some evidence that it really is the shoes.

First, we identified training mileage in the months leading up to a race for runners whose training logs are public, an important indication that a runner is getting more serious in his or her race preparations. Training miles are a variable we included in our statistical approach, and when we matched pairs of runners who ran in the same groups of races, we tried to match not just race time but also training regimens, where possible.

Second, the effect of the shoe was persistent across different tiers of athletes — for three-hour marathoners and four-hour marathoners alike. Faster runners improved their race times at about the same rate that slower runners did.

Finally, if runners raced in Vaporflys only when they thought they might have their best race, we might expect to see fewer of them on days with suboptimal weather. But we do not see that. In the 2018 Boston Marathon, in particular — a race with conditions few runners would prefer — no shoe was more popular among the runners in our data who reported what they wore.

Reasons to believe these estimates

This is a large sample of runners. There’s nothing random about people so enthusiastic about running that they upload information about all their races and shoes to a social media site. But we believe the data set is broadly representative of competitive runners. Among the races known as the World Marathon Majors — the largest and most competitive races in the world — about one in six finishers uploaded race data to Strava and made it public. Not counting the Tokyo Marathon, about one in five did:

These runners are a little faster than a much larger sample of runners that other researchers have examined, but they are broadly similar.

In all, about 600 different athletes reported wearing Vaporflys in 825 marathons and half marathons. They were the 32nd-most popular shoe in this data.

The speed increases associated with Vaporflys are consistent with the increases in a Nike-funded study by University of Colorado researchers published in the journal Sports Medicine. That experiment measured the energy output of 18 male elite runners on a treadmill at various speeds and concluded that, on average, runners in Vaporflys exerted 4 percent less energy than they did in other racing shoes. They estimated such a savings would translate into a performance improvement of around 3 percent for a three-hour marathoner. Our findings were similar but showed a smaller effect. We found Vaporflys to be 1 percent faster than the next-fastest running shoe in our data (the Nike Streak), but our sample included a much wider range of athletes, and included men and women.

Runners who improved their performance in Vaporflys and then switched to other shoes got slower. There were very few runners in our data who met this criterion: We counted just 24 such races. But these runners finished about 7 percent slower on average than they did while wearing the Vaporflys. (Of the 24 races, 17 races were slower, and 7 were faster.)

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Next-Gen Nike Mercurial Vapor XIII Elite Debut Boots Revealed

Nike officially unveiled the brand-new Mercurial Vapor 13 boots in the ‘New Lights’ colorway today. The Nike Mercurial Superfly 7 and Vapor 13 cleats will be available to buy from tomorrow, July 7th.

Nike ‘New Lights’ Pack

Nike Mercurial Vapor 13 – Blue Hero / White / Blue Hero

This is the debut colorway of the next-gen Nike Mercurial Vapor XIII cleat.

The next-gen Nike Mercurial Vapor 13 and Superfly 7 debut boots are predominantly ‘blue hero’ with white-iridescent brandings.

Brandings – there are lots of them all across the upper of the two new Nike Mercurial boots. There’s a large Swoosh on the outside, as well as a cropped ‘Mercurial’ writing, another small Swoosh towards the heel. On the inside is a large ‘Just Do It’ print, together with another Swoosh and a ‘Merc’ branding above it. Another Swoosh sits on the toebox.

Tech-wise, it’s a smaller step from the previous generation as usual with the Nike Mercurial. The Nike Mercurial Vapor 13 football boots have a one-piece Flyknit construction with added NikeSkin for improved durability and control.

Read all about the tech of Mercurial Superfly 7 here. Apart from the lower collar, the Vapor is 100% on par with the new Superfly.

Next-Gen Nike Mercurial Superfly VII Debut Boots Revealed

Nike Mercurial Vapor XIII – Features

• One-piece Flyknit upper
• 360° Fit wraps around the foot
• Microtexturized Flyknit upper with NikeSkin overlay
• ACC (All Conditions Control)
• Podular sole plate system with an internal chassis
• Swoosh design on the toe has a matte finish to help provide traction on the ball
• Price: USD 250 (EUR 240, GBP 210)
• Release date: 7 July 2019

The next-gen Nike Mercurial boots will be available to buy from 7 July 2019.

What’s your rating for the next-gen Nike Mercurial boots in the ‘New Lights’ colorway? Comment below, and check out the Boot Calendar for more.

How the Nike Vaporfly 4% Shoes Work

If you’re a running skeptic, there’s a chance you look at Nike’s Vaporfly 4% shoes with some suspicion. In early tests, research has shown that these shoes can improve running economy by 4 percent, but the $250 shoes continue to be put to the test in labs to find out how they make runners more efficient and faster.

And ever since the 4% shoes made their debut for Nike’s Breaking2 project, runners have wondered whether they are only made to help the likes of Eliud Kipchoge set world records, or if they can help the average Joe for every type of pace.

So for all the skeptics out there, here is a look at what we already know about the biomechanics of the Vaporfly 4% shoes, along with the latest answers to your most burning questions.

The early evidence

One of the first studies that looked at the Vaporfly 4% was done in 2017 and published by the journal Sports Medicine. In the study, every one of the 18 runners tested at the University of Colorado Boulder’s “Locomotion Lab” had better running economy in the Vaporflys than when they ran in two other racing shoe models (Nike Zoom Streak 6 and Adidas Adios Boost 2). Some runners’ running economy—or the energy needed to run at a given pace—improved by as little as 1.59 percent, while others improved by as much as 6.26 percent. That means, you guessed it, the average improvement was around 4 percent.

VaporFly 4% Flyknit Running Shoes

Nike
dickssportinggoods.com

$199.99

But a question remained: How do these shoes work in the real world with real runners? One of the more comprehensive analytical deep dives was done by The New York Times in 2018. In their analysis of half a million marathon and half-marathon race times posted to Strava (along with the shoes the runners were wearing), reporters Kevin Quealy and Josh Katz confirmed the 4 percent claim. Also, runners of the same caliber were more likely to hit a PR wearing the Vaporflys than other shoes.

“We found that the difference was not explained by faster runners choosing to wear the shoes, by runners choosing to wear them in easier races or by runners switching to Vaporflys after running more training miles. Instead, the analysis suggests that, in a race between two marathoners of the same ability, a runner wearing Vaporflys would have a real advantage over a competitor not wearing them.”

How do the Nike Vaporflys actually work?

The University of Colorado Boulder scientists who originally verified that the Vaporflys work as promised followed up with a study looking at how the components of the shoes —namely the carbon fiber plate and special ZoomX midsole foam—actually save runners 4 percent energy.

Published late last year in Sports Medicine, this study involved 10 male competitive runners doing 5-minute intervals in each of the same three shoes as their running economy study: Vaporfly, Zoom Streak, and Adios Boost. Using 3-D biomechanical stride analysis and force plates, the researchers examined how the runners’ gaits (the way they moved their limbs) and ground force reactions (how hard their feet were hitting the ground) differed between the shoes.

Based on previous studies where runners bent their knees less on extra-compliant (i.e., “squishy”) treadmills than on normal treadmills, the researchers expected that runners wearing the Vaporflys—which have extra-compliant foam—would bend their knees less.

“Why that would be important for energy is easy to imagine,” Wouter Hoogkamer, the lead author on the study, told Runner’s World. “Go stand up now and stand with straight legs, versus try to stand up now and bend your knees 90 degrees. See how you think you can last longer.”

However, none of the runners’ knee movements really differed between the three shoes.

Instead, it turns out the Vaporfly’s energy savings come from three things. First, runners’ ankle mechanics improve. This is likely thanks to the curved carbon-fiber plate that runs throughout the midsole from heel to toe; the researchers believe that the plate, in a sense, stabilizes your ankle and reduces your “rotational force”—or the work your calves would normally have to do.

Second, runners lose less energy by the plate keeping their toes straight, because yes, your toes work and waste energy when you are running by flexing. And third, the ZoomX foam in the midsole has two unique properties: an unusual degree of compliance (it squishes when your foot lands) and an unusual degree of resilience (it springs back to its original shape, returning most of the energy your foot applied when you landed). In fact, the shoe has 80 percent energy return in the heel, which is the highest we’ve ever measured in our Runner’s World shoe lab.

Hoogkamer admitted that there’s not much an average runner can take away from the study. But it might help you win a “should-the-shoes-be-legal” argument if you’re pro-Vaporfly.

“There’s a lot of people saying the [carbon fiber] plate functions as a spring, so if you have a strong opinion about that, then here’s some additional data to take into account,” he said. “Is it really the plate that’s the game-changer or not? For me, no. It’s the integration of the plate with the foam in this specific area that works so great.”

Could the Nike Vaporflys injure me?

One of the Vaporfly’s selling points is that they have more foam than most racing flats because the ZoomX midsole is so lightweight. In theory, this seems like it would cushion a runner against the impact of the ground—which could reduce risk of injury—but a study of extra-cushioned, or “maximal,” shoes found otherwise.

Researchers at Oregon State University-Cascades compared the biomechanics of 15 female recreational runners when they wore a neutral running shoe (New Balance 880) versus a maximal running shoe (Hoka One One Bondi 4).

Maximal shoes are claimed to lessen the shock of running on the body, because of their added cushioning, decreasing the odds of injuries like plantar fasciitis and tibial stress fractures. Therefore, the researchers expected that when wearing the maximal shoes, runners would experience a lower vertical impact peak—the highest amount of force when your foot initially lands—and loading rate—how quickly you load force onto your limbs as you move through your stride. However, the researchers found the exact opposite to be true: both measurements were higher in the cushioned shoes.

While this may seem like cause for alarm, JJ Hannigan, a post-doctoral researcher at OSU-Cascades and an author of the study, cautioned that there were a lot of other differences between the shoes besides just midsole cushioning that could have influenced the results. The stiffness of the midsole, the wideness of the heel, and the Hoka’s “rockered” bottom were just a few. “So it’s not as simple as ‘add cushioning, this happens, remove cushioning, this happens,’” he said. “If it was, we’d already probably know a lot more about the ideal running shoe.”

Given all of these differences between shoes, and because neither the OSU study nor the Sports Medicine study looked at the impact peak or loading rate of the Vaporflys specifically, it’s probably too far of a stretch to extend any of these findings to those shoes. Thus, the jury is still out regarding injury risk.

Will everyone wearing Vaporflys see the same 4% improvement?

The same University of Colorado Boulder researchers who verified the 4 percent claim of the Vaporflys examined what a 4 percent energy savings would mean for runners of different sizes and speeds. Through whole bunch of theory and math—which they just published in Frontiers in Physiology—they determined that the relationship between improvement in running economy and speed is not linear—that is, saving 4 percent energy does not necessarily mean you’ll run 4 percent faster.

Height and weight matter, as does the air resistance you encounter. Plus, running a little bit faster at already high speeds costs you more energy than running a little bit faster at slow speeds. Therefore, all other factors being equal (e.g., terrain, weather, turns), the faster you run, the less of an improvement you’ll see in your finishing time.

For instance, a 4-hour marathoner who saves 4 percent energy will run 4 percent faster (9 minutes and 36 seconds, or a 3:50:24 marathon), whereas a 2-hour marathoner will run only about 2.5 percent faster (3 minutes, or a 1:57:00 marathon).

What now?

If you want to see how much you might improve wearing Vaporfly shoes—given perfect conditions, of course—just plug your height, weight, and running speed into this online calculator, courtesy of the University of Colorado Boulder researchers.

And if you try running in the Vaporflys and decide that they’re too uncomfortable, or if you’re against running in any shoe that has a carbon fiber plate, Nike is now making other shoe styles (sans plate) with that same ZoomX foam, like the Pegasus 35 Turbo.

Allison Goldstein
Contributing Writer
Allison Goldstein is a freelance writer and editor who is endlessly fascinated by the scientific “why” of things.

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Madden 20 is adding a Nike cleat that makes players better

Just in time for the Super Bowl, Madden 20 will be getting a new shoe. More specifically, the Nike Vapor Edge Cleat. Among the players getting this special footwear: Christian McCaffrey, Odell Beckham Jr., Kyler Murray, Ezekiel Elliott, and Dalvin Cook (congrats, Dieter). Most notably, it will be the first time an aesthetic update will actually affect players’ abilities in-game, increasing their speed and acceleration. EA says the virtual shoes are available in-game now.

Madden is a strange product already. It’s less a simulation of playing football and more a simulation of watching football on TV. Which means it exists as kind of a bizarre, alternate universe version of the NFL with its own in-game ads and sponsorships. A real-life Nike cleat making an appearance in Madden isn’t so strange.

But the addition of the Vapor Edge Cleat sets a precedent: a cosmetic change that also grants special stat boosts. (Imagine a Fortnite skin with special buffs. That would be bullshit, right?) There are no details on how much this will affect these chosen players, and knowing how carefully Madden tries to balance itself, I imagine it won’t be huge.

Still, it makes players signed with Nike more powerful — the flip side being that an athlete signed to, say, Adidas or Under Armour, is less effective, at least in the world of Madden. And listen: players in the NFL care about Madden. They play a lot of it! A couple years ago, I interviewed Todd Gurley, who told me he tore through a lot of Madden despite being kind of terrible at it. As you might expect, as a running back, Gurley’s game plan involves a lot of rushing as the Madden version of himself. He did joke that he fumbles a lot in-game — something that the real-life Todd Gurley would never do.

But maybe that will improve in subsequent Madden updates. Luckily for Gurley, he’s sponsored by Nike.

How Nike innovates for everyday athletes  – TechCrunch

Eight years ago, Nike decided it was time to expand the Nike Sports Research Lab (NSRL), which was housed in the Mia Hamm building across company headquarters.

Now a full five times the size of its former self, the NSRL, which occupies the top floor of the brand-new LeBron James Innovation Center, is big enough to allow collaboration among athletes, researchers and innovators as they develop the products we wear every day.

Studying soccer stars like Megan Rapinoe and the world’s fastest marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge — for everything from the differences in millimeters between each of their feet to the amount of force projected every time their feet touch the ground — helps researchers develop guidelines that help creators design apparel and footwear to enhance performance. Athletes also train with the support of Nike scientists in order to learn more about themselves and their bodies to benefit their performance.

But the NSRL is not just for the world’s elite athletes; it’s for those who play pick-up basketball games on concrete courts in city parks, neighborhood runners and expectant and new parents like those highlighted in Nike’s “The Toughest Athlete” film.

Matt Nurse, vice president of the Nike Explore Team Sport Research Lab, says there are times Nike tries to pursue a deeper understanding more quickly.

“The other type of science is this big data, observational stuff using machine learning or AI to start to understand lots of different inventions for movement.”

He says 80% to 85% of the people who come through the lab are everyday athletes from different backgrounds with diverse body types. With a plan to bring thousands of active bodies through the door, Nike can increase the learnings and the speed of development with the new space.

Nike recently invited members of the media to experience firsthand how athletes, researchers and innovators interact to develop Nike products.

Entrance to the LeBron James Innovation Center. Image Credits: Rae Witte / Composite: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

The entranceway of the 750,000-square-foot LeBron James Innovation Center sets the tone for Nike’s commitment, nearly a decade in the making, to utilizing data and design for innovation.

Every one of James’ shot attempts that led to his 30,000 professional career points is mapped on the polished concrete floor in front of a golden hoop. Shots are differentiated by golden dots and empty zeros, representative of points made and missed. Milestone moments are highlighted with larger captioned markers on the floor, including his first made shot and his 20,000th point.

Above the main floor are the apparel and footwear prototypes: Designers and creators occupy spaces with robotics and 3D printers, as well as knit, textile and embroidery sections. There is even a replica of the Winnebago that Nike co-founder Phil Knight traveled to track meets in. Once there, he’d pass out the earliest iterations of Nike footwear in order to get feedback from the athletes.

The 84,000-square-foot NSRL occupies the top floor of the building and is where researchers and athletes come together to develop Nike footwear and attire. The NSRL includes a full-size, NBA regulation court, a 200-meter track, climate chambers and artificial training turf. These areas contain a combination of 92 force plates, 400 motion capture cameras and 80 prototyping machines.

Force plates, which Nurse describes as glorified bathroom scales, are located beneath the surface of the track, turf and basketball courts. Unlike the typical bathroom scale that offers one reading when you step on it, he says, “these measure tens of thousands of times a second in three dimensions. So not just straight up and down but side to side, back and front.”

For example, for a runner on the track, they’d be able to measure the force with which the foot is connecting and pushing off the ground.

The additional space in the NSRL allows for more fluid and less restricted gameplay and movement.

“One of the goals here is to allow athletes to come in full speed, full motion and also [in] continuous play,” Nurse said. “Sometimes in small facilities, the movements become choreographed, and that’s it. Now, we can have people come in and play.”

Sweating in the lab

To inform researchers how all of the tools within the space are leveraged for controlled experimentation and observational big data collection, Nurse said they try to understand three pillars of the triangle: “What’s the dose, what’s the behavior and what’s the response. If we have the dose, response and behavior, a prototype has to give us enough information to do that. We think it’s a solution to look for problems.”

On our tour of the lab, we underwent some of the same testing that Nike designed for its athletes, which included work on the basketball court, track and turf and in the treadmill bays.

We started with a collection of baseline data: a full body scan to determine optimal Nike apparel fit; morphological body size tracking and skeletal and muscular asymmetries; a separate, three-dimensional scan of my feet and ankles; and a barefoot walking pressure test before the Applied Performance Innovation Treadmill. I chose a comfortable speed for a jog and was instructed to run for two to three minutes while they recorded it for analysis.

Researchers can provide observations on form, such as whether athletes are too bouncy, run on their toes or lean forward too much.

They can also make functional recommendations. For example, a runner who leans forward too much may need to strengthen their glutes or hamstrings for a more efficient gait.

Based on what they know biomechanically and through their algorithm development to understand products and athletes, using this testing combined with the baseline data, researchers can make footwear recommendations for optimal efficiency — whether that’s running faster, longer and/or with less stress on the body.

The track

The track itself surrounds both the turf and the basketball court, and it features force plates and motion capture cameras that can be utilized for long runs or more segmented testing, such as starts. An LED Rabbit or pacer offers another layer of control to experiments, and there’s a 100-meter concrete strip to simulate running outdoors.

On the track I was able to test out two different footwear options. Their Infinity Reacts are meant for protection, lower stress on the body and stability. I was able to make it around the track at a comfortable rate in front of the Nike Run Club average runner’s mile pace of 11:37 and well behind sub-2-hour marathoner Eliud Kipchoge’s pace, as indicated by a glowing green LED pacer that spun around the track all day.

However, when I attempted to do a lap with the elite runner’s race shoe of choice, the ZoomX Invincible, we discovered that the cushion system — made to be super lightweight with a carbon plate within their exaggerated foam and air system sole — was not a match for the mechanics of my feet.

The construction, which lends optimal efficiency for some, afforded me — admittedly a non-runner despite finding I have decent form — and my very narrow feet, previously injured ankle and flexible (or what I think are loose or weak) ankles a very unstable running experience. I didn’t even complete the 200-meter lap.

Athletes run on the track at the Nike Sport Research Lab. Image Credits: Nike

This is where the range of athletes is so crucial. Studying a runner like Kipchoge is incredibly valuable. Because he is so physically efficient, he doesn’t need five hours to complete a marathon and so hasn’t ever run that long. But the global average marathon runner clocks in somewhere between 4 hours and 20 minutes to 4 hours and 40 minutes.

This wide range of data collection will inform footwear innovations through multiple sets of shoes, enabling Nike to develop running shoes appropriate for any runner, whether they’re an elite marathoner or a casual jogger.

The turf

The Turf Lab boasts the largest data capture volume in the NSRL and what Nike says may be the largest in the world. Here, force plates below the surface monitor game play and more controlled experiments, allowing researchers to collect data on up to 22 players — the amount on a soccer field during gameplay — who are moving at different speeds and directions while interacting with each other, the turf, the cleats and the ball. The turf also has a screen where targets can be projected and accuracy can be recorded for shooting and passing.

Two things Nike specifically focuses on for soccer players’ footwear are functionally very different — the sole for traction and the type of movement the upper requires for dribbling, passing and kicking.

Simulating a shot at a goal in the Nike Sport Research Lab. Image Credits: Nike

The 200 cameras surrounding the area capture submillimeter movement, and below the turf are 15 force plates. By measuring an athlete’s movement in a controlled environment, researchers can drill down into the tiniest changes to make for performance and for protection, and a lot of the findings can apply to other field sports like baseball, football and rugby.

During the soccer test, I simulated the opportunity to take a shot on goal. This included a shuttle run as if I were tackling a defender, running around a defender and then taking the shot at a target projected on a screen within the goal.

In this simulation, they captured the forces when I was cutting back, the timing and agility throughout the route, the timing of my decision-making upon the appearance of the target and the accuracy of the ball with respect to the target.

The results of this test will speak to the size of the athlete, how explosive they are and how quickly they can push off the force plate beneath them. The power, in addition to the traction of the footwear, translates into the speed of their movement. If the traction were to be insufficient, the same level of force would result in a slower speed.

A shoe with really good traction but poor containment, afforded by the shoes’ upper, will result in the foot sliding within the shoe, because while the footwear is interacting with the ground efficiently, the foot is not.

By contrast, an upper providing good containment and poor traction will fit the foot, but will result in the shoe sliding on the ground. The data allows for alterations like these to be made to the footwear.

The basketball court

The force plates beneath the neighboring basketball court capture similar data for basketball players.

Fully surrounded by motion capture cameras, players wear sensors that track their heart rates and the speed of their movements on the court, which can be projected in real time on a large screen on the wall. In addition to those, a force plate with a 4K camera below it is under the hoop and can record the way in which a sneaker sole interacts with the floor.

Coupled with the motion sensor tracking data throughout the drill, depending on the stiffness of the sneaker or the thickness of the sole, they can track how speed is affected by the footwear, and observe and see the sole’s connection to the floor all while the sensor tracks the athlete’s heart rate throughout the movements.

Another camera in the hoop records the position of the ball as it goes through. The data collected from these shots provide suggestions on functional adjustments that result in a more consistent and efficient shot going through the hoop.

The climate chambers

Understanding moisture management needs between different wearers offers designers guidelines to create more functional clothing. We toured two climate chambers, one hot and the other cold, that can regulate temperature from -20 to over 50 degrees Celsius; humidity from 10%-90%; control wind speed; and simulate the radiant heat of the sun using two different types of bulbs that match the spectral outlet of the sun’s rays.

The chambers can be set to such precision that their hot tank on the day we visited was set to 34 degrees Celsius and 70% humidity — the exact weather conditions on August 6 in Tokyo during this summer’s Olympic Games where some staff and athletes had to be treated for heat exhaustion.

Leveraging the climate chambers allows Nike to evaluate how different apparel designs or zoning of features can have the biggest impact on making garments more breathable.

Because sweating helps to regulate body temperature, the hot chamber is used to study sweating responses in consumers and how they vary based on sex, age and body size.

They showed us their Vapor Match Men’s Soccer jersey, pointing out where the changes in the knit were zoned to the most condensed perspiration areas, which can be seen in the third image here.

Conversely, the Nike NSRL Transform Jacket exhibits the manifestation of the different thermal needs for an outside run. Sleeves that zip off and tuck into chambers on the back of the jacket and removable down fill accommodates the transition from stepping outside to plateau. They’ve found that the day-to-day runner averages about 5 kilometers per run, and the biggest shift in their insulation needs is between start and 2.5 to 3 kilometers. After that, it regulates for the remainder of the exercise, which is also the case for those running beyond 5 kilometers.

Finally, they have thermal mannequins — that sweat! — in order to test zoning features without having to put stress on human bodies. Between the climate control and the bodies to test on that never tire, they’re able to give design teams even more to work with.

The cool down

We hear a lot about mental toughness in the world of sport, so it makes sense Nike would want to understand the minds of their athletes, too, particularly as they impact performance.

Studies and recovery at NSRL go far beyond massage, acupuncture and other bodily needs of rest and maintenance that are available in the lab. They’re also taking into account their subjects’ mental state.

Mental health has become a factor in discussions about elite athletes in the media, whether it’s Naomi Osaka opting out of press conferences or Simone Biles being open about her need to sit out the women’s all-around final at the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Before taking my baseline measurements, they gave me a cognitive assessment, and at the close of the day, we went through the learnings. Surprisingly (and probably by design), the assessment translates easily between both athletes in regard to sports as it does everyday human behavior.

In pointing out how uncertainty is often so much greater than certainty, the team discussed decision-making and how different results could point to whether an athlete is more prone to decision-making from a place of loss prevention or risk aversion.

These findings can similarly be applied to cognitive recommendations, much like the form or functional recommendations other tests offered. Not only are they trying to create better apparel and footwear, the lab is committed to furthering all aspects of athletes’ abilities.

For example, an athlete struggling with a need for control can try to focus less on the outcome itself and more on the fact that the outcome can be leveraged as an opportunity to benefit future competitions or even process. Similarly, rather than dwelling on a moment or missed shot, sport psychologists will recommend employing mental imagery or visualizing the positive outcome for the future.

Ultimately, the new LeBron James Innovation Center will aid in athletes’ well-being and progress as much as it will afford faster innovations of Nike’s apparel and shoes.

As everything is approached with steps to greater opportunities rather than ticking problems off a list with the entire team in one building, it will be incredible to see what the future holds for the space and its output.

Lobby of the LeBron James Innovation Center. Image Credits: Nike

Top Nike Black Friday Sales

It’s raining in my neighborhood—pouring even. And when I walked out this morning to get my standard cups (yes, cups) of iced coffee in my trusty Nike Revolution 5 sneakers, I quickly realized from my soaked feet that I needed a new pair. I’ve worn my kicks to exhaustion, but, as an astute shopper, I’m tempted to wait. That’s because Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2021 are just a few weeks away, and the deals that are offered are extending my normally paper-thin patience.

Cyber Week, the holiest holiday in e-commerce, is something that I look forward to every year. Come to think of it, I bought said Nike sneakers in the Before Times on Black Friday, and at a price that probably landed close to that of a couple of days’ worth of coffee. And though the deals for 2021 have yet to be announced, based on what was offered in previous years, I expect The Swoosh to offer promo codes for up to 25 percent off styles at Nike.com, with an additional 30 percent off clearance items. An example: The Revolution 5s are normally priced at $65, but are now 29 percent off in the sale section. This means I could get my go-to runners at $32!—the amount I basically spend at Dunkin’ Donuts every two to three days. I’m not the best at math, but even I know that’s a steal.

Basically, don’t sleep on Nike’s Black Friday sale. From the Air Max and Court Legacy to the Phantom GT and Vapor Edge, the brand will presumably be slashing prices on a wide, wide, wide variety of styles. It’s pretty much covered the market in activewear. Which means that there’ll definitely be something for you to virtually steal.

Note: Nike shoes in all categories sell out fast, so make sure to bookmark this page to know all the details and codes before Cyber Week officially starts. But if you, too, experienced a downpour this morning and need sneakers stat, we rounded up some great options, all at stellar discounts.

Shop Pre-Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2021 Deals at Nike

Barry Samaha
Barry Samaha is the style commerce editor at Esquire, where he covers all things fashion and grooming.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

Nike Unveils its Sustainably Redesigned Air VaporMax 2020

Original Story (07/09/20): Nike’s 2017 release of the VaporMax represented the ultimate achievement in Nike Air technology: pure, unmediated, full-foot Air. Since then, the VaporMax has seen a few small changes including Utility models, slightly redesigned uppers, and experimentation with foam midsoles. The recently revealed VaporMax 2020, however, provides one of the silhouette’s more significant redesigns and a far more sustainable and accessible lifestyle runner.

Originally slated to make its debut at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, the VaporMax 2020 features an upper made from 75% recycled material and makes use of Nike Grind rubber in the outsole. This move to sustainability echoes Nike’s Space Hippie program, and it almost appears that the Crater Foam developed under the line shows up on the heel cup of one of the upcoming VaporMax 2020 models.

Perhaps an even larger change, however, comes in the form of the model’s FlyEase system. FlyEase shoes are designed for athletes of all shapes, sizes, and ability systems, and generally involve easy on/off systems or advanced adjustability mechanisms without compromising fit or performance. It appears that FlyEase will come standard with the VaporMax 2020, representing a significant step forward in Nike’s accessibility efforts.

Lastly, shots of the model’s outsole show a significantly repatterned VaporMax system. It looks like the traditional enclosed pods have been swapped in favor of a more intricate, snaking system of pod treads. It’s unclear how or if this will affect performance at this time, but it marks a significant shift from previous models of the shoe.

It appears that both initial VaporMax 2020 efforts will be offered in women’s sizing, though a unisex release is likely to follow. The Pure Platinum colorway is set to release via Nike.com and select retailers on July 23rd with the second colorway to follow on August 6th. Stay tuned to Modern Notoriety for updates on future colorways, pricing, and more release info.

Update (07/14/20): Nike has provided a release date for the VaporMax 2020, images of all of the launch colorways of the shoe, and more details on the shoe’s recycled content.

The VaporMax unit, the first full-foot continuous Vapormax unit ever, is made from around 70% recycled material; the Flyknit upper is made with over 60% recycled yarn, the tongue is made from 80% recycled foam, and the sockliner and TPU heel clip are made with around 50-60% recycled material. These stats lead up to a shoe that’s over 50% recycled material by weight, an impressive feat on a model as high-tech as the VaporMax. This model, as well as the newly-announced Jordan Crater collection, represent significant advances in Nike’s Move to Zero sustainability program.

The Nike VaporMax 2020 debuts July 23rd on Nike.com, with the “Pure Platinum” colorway arriving via Nike SNKRS in men’s and women’s sizing. Check out the upcoming colorways of the shoe down below.

Nike Air Vapormax 2020
Release Date: July 23, 2020

Original Story photos:

Nike Air Vapormax 2020 “Pure Platinum”
Color: Pure Platinum/Black-Multi-color
Style Code: CJ6741-001
Release Date: July 23, 2020

Nike Air Vapormax 2020
Color: Deep Royal Blue/White-Multi-Color
Style Code: CJ6741-400
Release Date: August 6, 2020

Nike Air Max 1 – a new format for youth shoes »WRC Info: Russian, European and World Rally News

It is not easy in today’s world to find people who have not yet appreciated the advantages of such comfortable shoes as sneakers. Wearing sneakers can definitely be called the trend of our time! And this trend has affected all age categories.

The world around is changing very quickly, more and more people are paying attention to online stores, and sports shoes stores have not spared this trend.For those who are interested in high quality sneakers, it will be interesting to get acquainted with the site https://nike-air-max1.com/nike-air-max-1/. It offers a wide range of Original Nike Air Max 1 sneakers to the attention of visitors, as evidenced by the presence of official certifications.

Nike sneakers have a modern look and style. With proper care, they will last a lot of time to their owner! By the way, on the website of the Nike Air Max company it is suggested to call a specialist in case of any difficulties with the choice.Taking care of the client, the specialist will select the ideal option for each specific customer, and will also help with ordering. So why choose only high-quality, branded sneakers in the end turns out to be more profitable for your wallet than buying a cheap analogue? Low cost along with a low level of quality are the main signs of counterfeiting. The fact is that exceptionally high-quality shoes can give a person the desired comfort and practicality for several seasons.Cheap sneakers are likely to wear out much faster.

It seems to many that they cannot afford to buy branded sneakers, but this is not entirely true. One has only to familiarize yourself with the prices on the online storefront and it will become clear that the cost is within the reach of almost every potential buyer! Plus, a great running shoe is a purchase that will make a big difference in improving your quality of life. Many lovers of this type of footwear have in their arsenal two or three, or even more models for different occasions.

It is quite easy to understand why sneakers have been at the peak of popularity for so long. The combination of high convenience with functionality and everyday life gives this lasting effect of high demand. There are certain sneakers that can be matched to almost any style of clothing, and people appreciate that. In addition, the market offers a huge selection of sports shoes: a variety of colors, combinations of shades and materials, design solutions for every taste.

Choose only high-quality sneakers in trusted stores and be sure of your comfort!

, where you can discuss the events of the race in a circle of like-minded people and report all bugs and errors of the VK site / group.Simultaneously created

Review of glasses nike sparq steam strobe: practical application

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Nike SPARQ Vapor Strobe Goggles

Nike’s new sensory training goggles are being hands-on Pingtwitter prior to the December release of the Nike SPARQ Vapor Strobe in the UK.

While training your muscles to respond and respond quickly to changing circumstances in sport is a tried and true practice, training your senses to give you an instinctive advantage over other athletes is a new step as in amateur and professional sports.

Pioneering these new areas of advanced sensory training based on technology is a sports giant.Nike with the Nike SPARQ Vapor Strobe Goggles, coming later this year as the first pair of goggles with stroboscopic lenses designed for short-term weakening of vision for increased focus, time and awareness.

Pingtwitter recently jumped over the pond, taking a trip to Nike’s global headquarters in Portland, Oregon to bring you the UK’s first hands-on Nike Vapor Strobe review.

Nike SPARQ Vapor Strobe Design

Wearing glasses while playing ball sports is usually a disaster, however, since they are intended for use exclusively in a training environment, much of the risk of a quick hit or unwanted collision has been eliminated. allowing users to stay safe from plastic degradation.

Extremely comfortable to wear with adjustable nose pads and an elastic adjustable strap that replaces standard eyeglass temples, the Vapor Strobes are reliable even for vigorous exercise and quickly become a familiar, almost forgotten part of your workout outfit.

A set of curved plastic LCD lenses provides a wide field of view, allowing for irreplaceable peripheral vision with a stroboscopic effect that seems strange at first, but after a couple of hours of use does not cause the same aching headaches as 3D specs.

Nike SPARQ Vapor Strobe Goggles Specifications

With nine variable strobe modes, offering varying degrees of visibility and associated difficulty, the Vapor Strobes will provide the added benefit of training for months. Starting at the first or second level seems like an uncontrollable labor, but once the glasses are removed, the foresight in the game becomes clearer, even after small spells of use.

While the advertised battery life of 10-15 hours requires additional testing to confirm accuracy, if true, that would mean the best part of a two-week intense workout would run on a single charge.

By adding additional features to increase complexity and productivity, stroboscopic lenses can be configured to operate independently, allowing users to improve peripheral vision and individual eye balance. Much more complex than standard double strobing, the benefits of this feature should be revealed with further testing and further use.

Nike SPARQ Vapor Performance Strobe Goggles

While turning on Strobes for the first time will make you question your sanity and wander about how strobe effect can do any possible benefit, for half an hour you will you will only analyze your next move, trying to figure out how to control and attack the ball, which is visible only in the push.

While stroboscopes celebrate all the claimed benefits from improved accuracy and timing to improved focus and response times, after first using the area in which they seem to be most beneficial, users start thinking two steps ahead of the game, nudging them into what might be next. , and offered an improved perspective of relative angles.

Stay tuned on Pingtwitter.com for the full Nike SPARQ Vapor Strobes review. Let us know what you think of the sensory training tool in the comment box below.

An educational program for teachers of exact disciplines in schools STEAM-CAMP starts in Ukraine

In Mariupol, Zaporozhye and Kryvyi Rih, the project “Leadership educational program for teachers STEAM-CAMP” is being launched, which will improve the quality of teaching mathematics, physics, chemistry and computer science in schools through modern approaches to teaching.

The program is being implemented by the Mariupol Development Fund, Zaporizhzhya Joint Action Platform, Kryvyi Rih Fund of the Future together with the Ukrainian Leadership Academy and with the support of Metinvest Group.

What happens to the exact sciences in schools

In Ukrainian schools, the quality of teaching technical disciplines leaves much to be desired. This is confirmed by world statistics.

According to the International Program for the Assessment of Educational Achievements of Students (PISA), Ukrainian students are almost a year behind their peers from developed countries, and their results are on average 100 points lower than in Singapore or China. Moreover, Ukrainian schoolchildren have the largest knowledge gaps in mathematics.

After leaving school, most adolescents choose the humanities. Only a third of graduates are ready to enter technical specialties in universities, and only 6-8% of them can gain the required number of points for admission.

In the context of the coronavirus pandemic, when teaching in schools went online, teaching exact sciences has become even more difficult.

The STEAM-CAMP project will help teachers establish online communication with students and deal with modern technologies in teaching.The goal of the program is to improve the level of knowledge of schoolchildren and to interest more students in the exact sciences. The organizers of the project want everyone to be able to enroll in technical areas in secondary and higher educational institutions, and for this they set the task by a third in relation to the previous year to increase the average score of the UPE in mathematics, physics and chemistry.

For teachers, a motivation system is provided for the performance of students in exact subjects. And young people who choose STEAM specialties in universities will receive scholarships.

STEAM (science – science, technology – technology, engineering – engineering, art – art, mathematics – mathematics) is an educational method that develops analytical, creative, research abilities. These skills will become a competitive advantage in the technical professions of the future.

How the training will take place

This week the program starts in Mariupol, Zaporozhye and Kryvyi Rih. The project can be attended by teachers of schools of the 2nd and 3rd level, as well as secondary specialized educational institutions.Teachers will be asked to take a test and write an essay. Applications are accepted until January 20.

Based on the results of the selection, 300 participants from three cities will receive the opportunity to receive training in modern and effective teaching methods. Training will begin in February 2021.

The educational program will last seven months and include five modules, during which teachers will be taught soft skills, leadership skills and critical thinking. The learning formats include interactive lectures, microlearning, supervision, group work, master classes from children.

The first module will be devoted to the topic of leadership in education, the second module – modern teaching methodologies, the third – digitalization. In the fourth and fifth modules, participants will be introduced to critical thinking, taught to work with information and properly build communication with students. During the training, teachers will visit leading enterprises that apply innovative technologies and scientific approaches in practice.

After training 900 STEAM teachers from industrial cities of Ukraine will be able to look at the education system in a new way.More than 5 thousand Ukrainian schoolchildren will have the opportunity to choose the technical profession of the future and build a career in Ukraine.
The educational program will end in the summer of 2021, and its first results can be assessed after schoolchildren pass the EIT in mathematics, physics and chemistry.

Diana Sidko, project coordinator:

– The program helps to solve several social problems at once. Children of residents of the three largest industrial cities of Ukraine will have the opportunity to improve their knowledge of the exact sciences, weakened by quarantine and online education.We motivate both students and teachers. Schoolchildren will have more chances to enter universities, get a profession in demand and stay to make a career in their hometowns. And teachers will be proud to have brought up future inventors and technical geniuses.

What else is Metinvest doing to educate children

Metinvest develops educational programs for schoolchildren, students and university graduates.
For children from 6 to 14 years old, there is an Alvarium Science Summer Camp – a summer STEM camp.Play-based learning helps children develop the ability to think outside the box and instill a passion for science. In the tech camp, the guys learn to assemble robots, program and control them, work with drones, and participate in various game scientific missions.

Since 2017, the Group has been holding M.Student CHAMP – a competition for solving real business problems for university and college students. Each team is assigned a mentor from Metinvest and a curator from an educational institution.Excursions to production facilities, expert consultations, lectures and trainings on current topics help to develop the competencies necessary for the future profession. The winners will receive valuable prizes, and the best will receive an invitation to work at Metinvest.
The company participates in the creation of educational programs for young people and the description of state standards for technical professions, and also supports professional skills competitions.

This year Metinvest for the fifth time acted as the general partner of the “Olympiad of blue-collar jobs”, the WorldSkills Ukraine competition.Thanks to the competition, the best world practices are being introduced into the education system, the effectiveness of vocational guidance work, the prestige of blue-collar occupations is increasing.
For seven years in a row, Metinvest has supported the Steel Freedom architectural competition, where students from specialized universities develop projects using steel structures for customers from all over Ukraine.

This year the Group became one of the signatories of the Ukrainian Pact for Youth-2025. This means that Metinvest will participate in improving the quality of education and creating jobs for young people.