When you think of running tech to improve your performance, you probably think about GPS watches, but with running shoes getting more high-tech by the day, evidence is growing that they may also be performance enhancers. A newly published study that examined 12 years' worth of running performance data suggests that women may benefit more from so-called super shoes than men.
The observational study, which was published in the journal Sports Medicine, also found that the benefits of super shoes increase with distance. The authors of the study looked at the top 100 track and road running performances from 100 meter sprint to marathon distance from 2010 through 2022. Their aim was to see whether advanced footwear technology – such as lightweight road running shoes constructed with carbon plates in the midsoles – really does help your running economy, a topic they note has created controversy in the running world.
"Advanced footwear technologies (AFTs) have been the subject of intense debate in the sporting world in recent years. Critics see them as techno-doping that artifcially enhances athletes’ performance."
Marking 2016 as the year that carbon plate shoes began to be widely used in road running, they conclude that at the sprint level, gains were the smallest but as the distances increased, so did the advantages of wearing super shoes, and at every distance, women saw more benefit than men. In long-distance events, which they define as 5000 meters to marathon, female runners saw improvements in performance between 2.2 and 3.5 percent compared to just 0.7 to 1.4 for males.
The authors were not able to establish causation or explain why female runners benefit more than men, but put forward several working theories including biomechanics, body mass and gender differences in shoe design. They also note that differences in training and recovery methods can't be ruled out as possible explanations citing preliminary evidence that super shoes "may reduce muscle damage and neuromuscular fatigue after intense races or training sessions."
