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'Shoe doping' changed marathon times in ways we still don't understand
- cheschire 2y agohttps://archive.is/F1Ia0 https://archive.is/F1Ia0
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- brainzap 2y agowould be funny if runners develop a stride optimised to harvest the energy from the foam
- pferde 2y agoThat already happens automagically and subconsciously. Your body is lazy, so it tries to use as little energy as possible for what you force it to do, and with movements repeated thousands of times, over time, it will find a way to do them in a most energy-efficient way. And if you always run in the same shoes, it will eventually find a way to optimize for those shoes. Unfortunately, the process is blind, and sometimes it finds a local maximum while limiting you, and sometimes that local maximum can cause injuries. That's why getting a good trainer to have a look at your running style is a good idea if you want to start running more.
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- prettyStandard 2y agoAbout halfway through the article, I'm trying to understand how they measure energy usage. When I herniated a disc, because my hamstring atrophied, because I got a knee scope, I could not find a single doctor or physical therapist to explain it and such straightforward words, I had to do months and years of research myself to figure out what was happening. I probably saw a good 8 to 10 different "professionals" on this. This taught me to not trust doctors. They're probably slackers and they probably don't care.
- poincaredisk 2y agoMuch more likely, they know so much about this issue that they struggle with finding simple words. Similarly how I often overcomplicate answers to technical problems of my family. What is more likely: that doctors are slackers that have no idea what they are doing, or that their education path prioritized doing things over explaining anatomy to laymen.
- HPsquared 2y agoI think the main issue with doctors is they only give each patient a few minutes of their time. There's not much "deep work" in the medical field.
- smallerfish 2y agoYou really need to be your own advocate to get thorough treatment for anything non-routine from many primary care physicians.
- rqtwteye 2y agoThat’s my theory. They are good at obvious things but if something is a little tricky nobody puts the time in to figure it out. And nobody talks to each other. I always read about “care teams” but I have never seen such a thing.
- coliveira 2y agoThere are care teams at specialized and high cost situations, main examples being a major surgery to treat well understood condition. But for normal folks living with non life threatening conditions, this is almost impossible to find unless you're very rich.
- freeopinion 2y agoIt's interesting to characterize this as an issue. If 20% effort can solve 80% of the problems... Then there are the 5% of problems that could be solved with 20% effort, but there is enough money in it to convince the patient to pay for more attention even if they don't need it. Let's hope that 80% of doctors don't gravitate to the 1% of patients that can afford to pay for exclusivity. People with enough money to see 10 different specialists in search of a satisfying answer are probably already moving outside of the treadmill medicine realm.
- saalweachter 2y agoDoes anyone know how they measure the energy used while running?
- stefan_ 2y agoYou breathe into a mask and oxygen uptake / co2 exhaust is measured. This is of course contaminated by things like your individual efficiency but for relative measurements it’s fine.
- llimllib 2y agoMy understanding is that they hook a runner up to a machine that measures their oxygen consumption, have them run a given pace in a given shoe, and measure how much oxygen they consume as a proxy to how much energy they’re using. With the super shoes, they use less oxygen to run at a given pace Example abstract: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30374945/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30374945/
- 082349872349872 2y agothe article linked to from TFA, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-017-0811-2?app=true https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-017-0811-2?... (2017), says: > We measured submaximal oxygen uptake and carbon dioxide production during minutes 3–5 and averaged energetic cost (W/kg) for the two trials in each shoe model. normally respiration gives very good results, better than other proxies such as accelerometry or heart rate measurement, but TIL that there's an even better method: doubly labeled water (DLW) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5426207/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5426207/ (2017) > ...after the subject ingests a dose of ²H2¹⁸O, there is an equilibration of the 2 isotopes with total body water (TBW) followed by their elimination from the body, which occurs at different rates. Deuterium (²H) is lost from the body via only water (H2O) while ¹⁸O is lost both via water and carbon dioxide (CO2). The rate of CO2 production (rCO2) is calculated as the difference between the elimination rates of ²H and ¹⁸O... the advantage is not needing to be masked during activity; the disadvantage is dealing with isotopes
- delichon 2y agoCompare to https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/blade-runners-do-high-tech-prostheses-give-runners-an-unfair-advantage/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/blade-runners-do-... This seems to be the same debate in a smaller format. How much energy should a runner's equipment be allowed to catch and release and still be in the same category with unassisted runners?
- highcountess 2y agoSo riding my cybernetic robot legs that can run 60 mph while I’m relaxing would be ok? If anything, nothing but “barefoot” shoes should be permitted.
- mathgeek 2y agoAs the article says, since everyone responds differently to different materials, the only truly fair playing field is to run naked and barefoot. Obviously that isn’t going to happen so someone will always be left out of having the best gear for them.
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- code_runner 2y agoEven still some people are going to just have natural attributes that make them more efficient, less injury prone etc. If you take away Kipchoge’s shoes he’s still gonna be fast.
- batch12 2y agoI'm sure there is a niche audience for that, too.
- code_runner 2y agoDefinitely a reasonable response. Yes, super shoes are equivalent to a fully mechanized leg that doesn’t exist. It’s basically like being Rosie the robot from the jetsons with wheels for feet. Can’t believe we let them get away with it.
- AriedK 2y agoI’m curious how this will find acceptance, regulation or rejection. Acceptance like the clap skate in speed skating (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clap_skate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clap_skate) or if they will be regulated like the swim suits in competitive swimming (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-technology_swimwear https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-technology_swimwear)
- pentamassiv 2y agoHow does that compare to wearing no shoes though? If you don't have foam in the first place, it cannot absorb energy.
- rurban 2y agoEPO doping and paying the doping lab is still more lucrative. You have to pay a lot of people, but everyone keeps silent.
- ifwinterco 2y agoBecause EPO is a natural hormone, in theory you can get away with using moderate amounts without needing to bypass the tests. Take bioidentical EPO before bed (possibly IV instead of IM for shorter detection time) and by the time you wake up it's hard to distinguish from natural variation. This is what the "biological passport" is designed to prevent but I'm not sure if it actually works
- bo1024 2y agoThe article doesn’t mention a couple things. The shoes reduce mechanical stress and impact. Runners can train harder and get more aerobic stimulus with less wear and tear on their legs. Also, the last miles of a marathon are faster and easier because muscles aren’t as broken down.
- schiffern 2y agoMore proof that "doping" has become a meaningless word. If shoes are considered "doping," why aren't all marathons (and indeed, all athletic events) run barefoot and naked[1]? If those are the "rules," then surely they should at least be consistently applied... [1] Presumably reduced thermal stress due to clothing improves athletic performance, therefore is "doping" by this metric.
- code_runner 2y agoExactly. The whole super shoe discourse is really tired at this point. Shoes changed. Now all of the shoes have carbon plates. The athletes are still incredible… nobody is getting one of these shoes and becoming some super star overnight. We let the athletes drink hyper specialized drink mixtures based on studying their sweat content and even adjusting the drinks for their perspiration level during the race. The shoe foam and carbon plates sell more expensive shoes.
- a012 2y agoSo you’re saying the athletes have perks that optimize their performance, not _boosting_ performance which is doping.
- schiffern 2y agoWhat's the difference between "optimizing" and "boosting?" Be specific.
- fnordpiglet 2y agoMedical inducement of physiological changes that wouldn’t occur naturally without intervention.
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- krisoft 2y ago
- inSenCite 2y agoweird to call it 'doping' but that must have tested better for click throughs. Anyway the fly's are pretty damn cool. I ran a marathon last year and a half earlier this year in the cheaper ones are broke my PRs both times. I don't train in them, they are reserved just for events.
- Mistletoe 2y agoWhy don’t you train in them?
- llimllib 2y agoThey’re expensive and last less time than regular trainers
- tetris11 2y agodon't they throw off your gait if you're not used to them at said events?
- schiffern 2y agoIf you feel like sponsoring them, I'm sure they'll be happy to adopt a "cost is no object" attitude. Otherwise the obvious conclusion is that the training mismatch is less costly than frequently replacing expensive shoes.
- bberenberg 2y agoCan’t speak for others but as an amateur marathoner, this didn’t happen to me. The biggest thing I noticed wasn’t even that I sped up but that it reduced pain for the next day vs practice marathons I had run in my trainers. If I get richer I’ll switch to using race shoes for all runs for health reasons, not speed ones.
- inSenCite 2y agoYeah mostly cost related as others have suggested, I also use more cushioned shoes for training to help reduce fatigue for the back-to-back weeks of long runs. I thought the same thing about gait but gave it a shot anyway. Didn't throw me off all that much, and I still enjoyed running in the firmer fly's. I did do a few trial short runs before the long run just so I was not going in cold. To give an idea of shoe wear. I'll easily run through 1 pair in a year if I'm training for a marathon (just to run it). If I'm training to beat PRs then I'll go through almost 2.
- Spooky23 2y agoMeta Comment: The NY Times is so user hostile. I’m a subscriber. I pay a stupid amount of money as I need it professionally. But apparently I’ve never read the Athletic outside of Apple News. So not only do I need to hit the stupid paywall and re-login… but they insist on delivering you to some sort of on-boarding experience. If I had followed a link from equally bizarre Instagram, I never would have found the article again after clicking though the onboarding experience.
- MilnerRoute 2y agoThere was a footrace in the 1975 movie "Man Friday" that always made me think. The first man brags that he'd finished the race first. But the second man says he ran with more joy -- with the maximum euphoria, fully embracing the act of running, celebrating the body's ability to speed....
- mensetmanusman 2y agoEvery high end sport should have athletes with a support team of scientists and engineers pushing the limit of human capacity. Think of it more like F1 racing than running naked at the high end.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoIt can break the sport on the other hand as this iteration almost always outpaces how the rest of the sport is balanced. Baseball roid era effectively shortened the length of the outfield. Golf today is going through a similar issue with pros hitting the new high tech drivers a lot further than when they built these tournament golf courses. Hazards like bunkers on a golf hole are placed based on where you might hit your drive and now the pros are just sailing over them making it easy for themselves. There’s now talk of deadening the golf ball to compensate.
- mensetmanusman 2y agoYes, altering the game to counter extreme engineering and confine the space is perfectly reasonable. Making the ball heavier is totally reasonable for both sports, or maybe lighter for baseball so it doesn’t have the inertia to travel as far.
- metalman 2y ago"shoe dopeing" is a valid term because cost and availibility of the most performance enhancing foot ware is not universal and a several percentage point advantage defines the difference olympians,and nobodys so it's olympic level "pay to win".....dopeing or is this another semantics marathon?