Footwear's Impact on Marathon Performance: A Deeper Dive in the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1
They often say that shoes maketh the runner, but can a pair of trainers propel someone into the record books?
Tigist Assefa from Ethiopia recently shattered the women's marathon world record by over two minutes while sporting the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1s, reigniting the age-old debate about the influence of "super shoes" on athletic performance.
Assefa attributes her remarkable achievement to a year of relentless hard work. Yet, she couldn't help but praise her Adizeros as "the lightest racing shoe I have ever worn," adding, "The feeling of running in them is an incredible experience – like nothing I've felt before."
On the other hand, Adidas boldly claims that these shoes are "enhanced with unique technology that challenges the boundaries of racing." So, the question lingers:
Did the shoes or the athlete play a pivotal role in this astounding performance?
The super shoe wars have been raging since 2016, when all three runners on the men's 2016 Olympic marathon podium – Eliud Kipchoge, Feyisa Lilesa, and Galen Rupp – were revealed to have been wearing an unreleased prototype of Nike's Vaporfly shoes. Which now are in the second generation sale for in the form or Nike Alphafly 2 which retails at £275.
Independent scientific tests later corroborated Nike's assertion that these 2016 prototype shoes, featuring a carbon fibre plate and a wedge of soft, energy-returning foam, could boost an athlete's running efficiency by approximately 4% compared to conventional marathon footwear.
Since then, Nike-sponsored athletes have largely dominated marathon running, with subsequent marathon shoes generally representing incremental improvements on the Vaporfly design.
Dr T Allen, a sports engineer at Manchester Metropolitan University, explained,
"There's been a natural evolution towards lighter foam, greater energy resilience, and a very curved rocker at the front that supposedly improves your biomechanics – particularly around the position of the ankle joint – and helps you run more efficiently."
However, in a surprising twist, the top four finishers in the men's Boston Marathon race 2023 all wore Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3s in April. So, is Adidas the new super shoe brand?
Maybe Addidas is showing signs of being a superpower, but Kenya's Hellen Obiri also secured a victory in the women's event wearing a prototype from the Swiss brand On. So, there is a manufacturing race on the cards.
But what's is so special about the new Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1:
Adidas claims these shoes are 40% lighter than any previous racing super shoes they've created. They also incorporate a first-of-its-kind forefoot rocker, placed at 60% of the shoe length, this type of design has been "lab-tested to trigger forward momentum and improve running economy. Without dissecting one of these trainers – which, until now, has been impossible since they aren't available for sale yet – experts are uncertain whether the technology they contain is genuinely groundbreaking or merely an incremental improvement.
"A lot of the innovations in such shoes are not immediately evident, And companies aren't eager to publicize them for fear of their competitors catching up. Even when independent researchers get their hands on these shoes, isolating the impact of individual components is a complex task. Unless you can create your shoes, you can't just alter the rocker, for example, and examine its effects. Nevertheless, with the potential financial rewards being so substantial and elite sports margins razor-thin, sports companies have poured significant resources into shoe technologies in recent years, making it entirely plausible that Adidas has uncovered something revolutionary. " - Allan Dyer.
The incentive to innovate when you can break marathon records by two minutes is a massive sell point. So, more superpower is yet to come.
What remains to be seen is how extensively Adidas designed its new shoes with Assefa's specific physiology in mind. The company asserts that it has gathered insights from elite athletes, including Assefa and other marathon runners, throughout development.
Nike also did this custom build when it aimed to break the two-hour barrier for the marathon, ultimately leading to the creation of the Vaporfly.
We may see this elite prototype from Adidas filter down into the running shoes of the future Weekend Warriors athlete. At £400 a pair, the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 cost £125 more than Nike's equivalent Alphafly 2, this raises the question ‘How many weekend warriors runners will swallow the added cost?
We are keeping an eye on these developing trends at the London Foot Pain Clinic based in Wimbledon SW19.
