Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.
Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA.
J Sports Sci Med. 2022 Feb 15;21(1):127-130. doi: 10.52082/jssm.2022.127. eCollection 2022 Mar.
Road-racing shoes recently experienced major changes. In the recent past, lightweight, thin midsole shoes were thought to help runners maximize their performance. But, in 2017, Nike released the Vaporfly shoe which transformed the thinking about racing shoe design. Incorporating a curved carbon fiber plate embedded in a thick, compliant and resilient midsole resulted in a reduced metabolic cost across a range of running speeds. We hypothesized the new style of shoes would be less effective uphill than downhill due to the larger ground reaction forces and hence greater elastic energy storage in the shoe during downhill running. Eighteen runners completed two days of testing, each comprising two trials of two shoe models (Saucony Endorphin Pro (EP) and Type A) and three grade conditions (uphill, level and downhill), i.e. 12 trials per day. Oxygen uptake, ground reaction forces, and lower-body kinematics were captured during each condition. Comparisons of the percent metabolic benefit were made between shoes for each grade. Stride rate, ground time, peak vertical force, and flight time were regressed with the percent metabolic benefit of the EP over the Type A shoe across grades. Metabolic benefits of the Endorphin Pro were similar across the three grade conditions (p = 0.778). No significant correlations were observed between how much benefit one runner got over another specific to grade. The new style of road-racing shoes effectively decreases metabolic cost equally across grades. Differences in running mechanics between runners did not explain greater individual metabolic benefits between shoe conditions during uphill or downhill running.
路跑鞋最近发生了重大变化。在最近的过去，人们认为轻便、薄中底的鞋子有助于跑步者最大限度地提高表现。但是，2017 年，耐克发布了 Vaporfly 鞋，改变了人们对赛车鞋设计的看法。在厚厚的、柔顺的和有弹性的中底中嵌入弯曲的碳纤维板，使得在一系列跑步速度下的代谢成本降低。我们假设，由于下坡跑步时地面反作用力较大，因此鞋中储存的弹性能量更大，这种新款式的鞋在上坡时的效果会比下坡时差。18 名跑步者完成了两天的测试，每个测试包括两种鞋款（Saucony Endorphin Pro（EP）和 Type A）和三种坡度条件（上坡、平地和下坡）的两次试验，即每天 12 次试验。在每种情况下都记录了耗氧量、地面反作用力和下肢运动学。对每个坡度的两种鞋的代谢效益百分比进行了比较。步频、地面时间、垂直峰值力和腾空时间与 EP 鞋相对于 Type A 鞋的代谢效益百分比在各等级上进行回归。Endorphin Pro 在三个等级条件下的代谢效益相似（p = 0.778）。在特定等级下，一个跑步者相对于另一个跑步者获得的收益多少之间没有观察到显著的相关性。新的路跑鞋在各等级上同样有效地降低代谢成本。跑步者之间的跑步力学差异并不能解释在上坡或下坡跑步时，鞋况之间的个体代谢效益差异。
