Runner's World

JUNE 2018 RUNNERSWORLD.CO.UK 085

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It’s a sleek little number with a simple knitted upper that sits on

top of a single layer of extra-thick ‘React’ foam. In a trend

sweeping the running-shoe industry Nike is centering its

attention and fanfare on the properties of this newfangled foam

rather than highlighting other parts of the shoe.

‘React is our most complete foam ever’ says Ernest Kim

director of advanced footwear at Nike Running. ‘You not only get

great energy return – 13 per cent greater than Lunarlon – but a

much softer experience as well.’ For a runner who wants a shoe

that feels springy and light and can hold up through plenty of

miles Kim believes Nike nailed it with React.

Sound familiar? No doubt.

Last September Brooks

revealed its DNA AMP

foam also touting a blend

of cushioning and energy

return. In 2017 we saw

Altra design its first

shoes with the cleverly

named Altra Ego foam

which – you guessed it –

distinguishes itself by

its soft step-in feel and

bouncy ride. There’s also

Under Armour’s new

HOVR foam Reebok

Floatride Foam Saucony

Everun and New Balance

Fresh Foam. It seems

that every major shoe

company now makes its

own hero foam. But the

question is: does it really

make for a better run?

How we

got here

To understand what

made the world ready for

bouncy-foam shoes let’s

rewind a few years.

In 2009 Christopher

McDougall wrote a book

called Born to Run which

challenged what was

historically accepted

about running shoes

• namely that perhaps
  we didn’t need so much
  shoe – and some believe it
  launched the barefoot or
  minimalist movement.
  Propelled by plenty of
  new research touting
  the benefits of light
  barefoot-like shoes
  minimalism experienced
  a meteoric rise. But in
  2012 a class-action
  lawsuit against Vibram

FiveFingers for deceptive

advertising was the loud

thud that marked the end

of the minimalist running

movement. At that point

many runners sidelined

with injuries found

minimalist shoes

to be untenable and

most of the running

community quickly

returned to shoes that

offered more padding.

But by that point the

world had changed. The

research that led the

minimalist movement

proving that shoes didn’t

work to prevent injury as

we had once believed

didn’t just disappear.

Throwing out running

shoes altogether wasn’t

the answer but neither

was turning back to

overbuilt stiff heavy

controlling shoes. One

researcher Benno Nigg

professor emeritus of

kinesiology and director of

the Human Performance

Lab at the University

of Calgary Canada

suggested that your body

knows best. His studies

revealed that running

shoes chosen simply

by which felt the most

comfortable were also the

most efficient and best at

reducing injury. Common

runner knowledge

shifted and comfort

usurped control as the

basis for shoe selection.

With running-shoe

companies no longer able

to successfully market

their multi-density

soles with plastic posts

shanks and trusses the

properties of the foam

itself rose in importance

• and runners were ready
  to pay attention.

The energy surge

Enter the Adidas Boost.

You can trace the running

industry’s foam obsession

back to a compound in

this shoe introduced in

2013. While running
      shoes have used foam for
      cushioning since Forrest
      Gump’s 1972 Nike Cortez
      Adidas’s Boost foam
      promised something new:
      energy return.
      The term while great
      for marketing can be a bit
      deceptive. Let’s be clear
      no shoe will defy the
      second law of thermo-
      dynamics and actually
      create energy that will do
      the running for you. The
      energy for your stride
      comes from you pushing
      against the ground.
      ‘When you put something
      soft underfoot it’s
      robbing energy’ says
      Golden Harper founder
      of Altra. ‘The best foam
      in the world will never
      return energy.’
      Martyn Shorten a
      bio mechanics expert and
      director of the RW Shoe
      Lab can quantify that
      energy loss. Most shoes
      with traditional foam
      (called EVA) tend to
      dissipate 40-60 per cent
      of the force needed to
      compress them. The best
      new foams lose only

ADIDAS BOOST:

ENERGY BOOST 2013

HOKA RMAT:

CONQUEST 2014

NEW BALANCE FRESH FOAM:

FRESH FOAM 980 V1 2014

PUMA IGNITE:

IGNITE 2015

SAUCONY EVERUN:

TRIUMPH ISO 2 2016

ASICS FLYTEFOAM:

METARUN 2015

WORDS: JONATHAN BEVERLY. SHOE PHOTOGR

APHS: MITCH MANDEL & MATT RAINEY;

COURTESY OF ASICS (ASICS METARUN)

GEAR