footwear innovation

Dr. Wouter Hoogkamer is the principle author of one of the most important pieces of running shoe research ever published.

In 2018 his paper “A Comparison of the Energetic Cost of Running in Marathon

Racing Shoes” was published in Sports Medicine, and for the first time revealed exactly what was going on with the Nike Vaporfly, the first of the so called Super Shoes,

Wouter’s story starts way before that though, and, it is one of the most interesting we have aired on SHOEphoria.

Like Kevin Fallon from Speedland, Wouter started his professional and academic life as an engineer. Basically, the take home message from all of this is that being good at maths can turn you into a running shoe superstar!

Wouter was a very accomplished scientist long before he started working on the Nike project. He found his niche in biomechanics, and developed a lifetime interest in, if not passion for, energetics. Initially this had nothing to dom with running shoes, but simply looked at the energetics of uphill running.

This led him into several projects involving cycling, and then an important step into neurophysiology, trying to unravel some of the mysteries of stroke and Parkinson’s Disease.

Eventually Nike came knocking on his door, and Wouter began working on a project dedicated to the development of a shoe to take an athlete under 2 hours for the marathon. Working with another iconic researcher in Rodger Kram, bot scientists thought this achievement, if possible at all, was at least 5-10 years in the future.

History has now recorded that on October 13th 2019, the great Eliud Kipchoge ran the marathon distance in 1:59:40.. in a Nike prototype shoe codenamed the Alphafly, that Wouter Hoogkamer helped to develop. Not a bad thing to have on your CV!

Despite this, Wouter always felt like an “outsider looking in” in relation to Nike, and much of his subsequent understanding of how the Nike super shoes work has been achieved via reverse engineering, and without the assistance of Nike!

Wouter has now moved from Colorado to Amherst, where he heads up the University of Massachusetts Integrative Locomotion Lab (UMILL) and is currently working on new projects with…. PUMA.

Well, we cannot wait to see how that turns out!

Wouter Hoogkamer on SHOEphoria, don’t miss it!

Shoephoria has never had the same interviewee twice in a row, but Dr. Martyn Shorten is such a gold mine of information on shoes, the footwear industry, biomechanics and sports medicine, that we had him go back to back.

In this episode, Martyn casually chucks a few hand grenades into the footwear world telling us that there is no place for “segmentation” of footwear into motion control, cushioning or stability categories because there simply is no evidence for it. And this means that traditional ways of clustering and recommending shoes in retail, podiatry and physiotherapy, is wrong, and must change!

Dr. Shorten introduces us to the Performance Protection Spectrum in this wide ranging podcast, a more accurate and meaningful way to stratify running footwear according to the individual athlete needs.

He also takes us through the concept of “grounded running”, and, why Navy Seals get sore backs!

This is a not to be missed Shoephoria episode

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Enjoy!

Part 1 of a 2 part podcast with Dr Martyn Shorten

It is not often one gets the opportunity to chat with someone who has worked with Nike Founder Phil Knight AND the legendary Nike innovator Bill Bowerman. Or for that matter with Mark Parker and Tom Clarke, both of whom started in the Nike Sports Research Laboratory and rose through the ranks to become CEO’s of the entire shebang!

My guest today on Shoephoria episode 6 is considered one of the true legends of the world of footwear and footwear biomechanics and with a career spanning 42 years, there is not a lot he has not seen or done.

Dr. Martyn Shorten

He joined Nike the year after a young college basketballer named Michael Jordan was snapped up as an endorsed athlete by the company, a relatively new concept at the time. It is fair to say this turned out to be an Ok investment for Nike!

Martyn sharpened his teeth on the very first of the visible air shoes, natural successors to the very first Nike Air running shoe, the Tailwind.

After a very successful stint at Nike, eventually as director of the Sport Research Laboratory, Martyn moved to the global body of Puma, to take on the role as Director of Research, Design and Product Development.

Martyn is not short of an opinion, however that opinion is invariably followed by hard evidence to back it up.

He is scathing of some of the trends that have, and continue to drive the athletic footwear industry, not  the least the concept of overpronation, motion control in footwear and analysis of footwear by heel angle.

This is a fascinating and at time challenging interview, one of the best, and not to be missed.

Such is Martyn’s knowledge,  and the depth of his experience, that this is part 1 of a 2 part Shoephoria podcast. Enjoy!

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