I do not run, if I can avoid it. Nor do I play any sports, aside from golf (unless musical theatre counts). Which means the latest computerized sports shoe from Adidas is not for me.
The new shoe, named “1,” continuously reconfigures its sole to provide a constant level of support. The wearer sets the amount of cushioning he or she wants before donning the shoe. An electromagnet sensor in the heel registers how much the sole is compressed with each step and passes along the data to a microprocessor in the midsole, which activates a small motor as necessary to loosen or tighten a wire in the midsole every four steps. All of this is powered by a battery good for 100 hours.
It’s a far cry from the ancestor of today’s running shoes, the 19th-century plimsoll, a lightweight canvas shoe with a leather sole surrounded by a decorative band of rubber. (They were named after the British politician who mandated the painting of load lines on the hulls of ships, still known as Plimsoll marks.)
When the leather sole gave way to a slab of rubber, the sneaker had arrived–but the soft rubber available at the time wore away too quickly for sneakers to be used by athletes. Sprinters used lightweight spiked shoes made of kangaroo leather; marathoners wore bulky shoes with stiff leather soles.
At the 1936 Olympics, some athletes (Jesse Owens among them) wore new lightweight shoes made by a German cobbler named Adi Dassler, who eventually formed Adidas. But the first modern track shoe was introduced in 1962 by the Boston orthopedic shoe company New Balance. It had a rubber wedge tucked between the sole and the upper at the rear of the shoe, raising the heel of the foot, to take stress off the Achilles tendon.
A few years later, Bill Bowerman, track coach at the University of Oregon in Eugene, decided he could make an even better shoe. Working with the Japanese company Tiger, he created a shoe with a nylon upper (rather than leather or canvas) and, by pouring urethane into his wife’s waffle maker, created the waffle sole for better traction. Bowerman’s shoe design was so successful he formed a little company called Nike to promote it. The innovation that took Nike from Bowerman’s basement to the corporate heights was an extra layer of cushioning between the sole and the upper: the midsole.
The first midsoles were made from rubber; today’s shoes use everything from encapsulated Freon to silicone gel. Besides providing cushioning, some midsoles provide a rebound or spring to the foot, helping the wearer jump or change direction with less effort.
The other components of a modern sports shoe are the upper, the insert, and the outsole.
The upper covers your foot and in turn is covered with corporate logos, racing stripes, etc. Its primary function isn’t advertising, however, but to hold the shoe to your foot. It also contains the heel counter, the hard bit at the back that holds your heel in place so your foot doesn’t slide off the sole.
The insert, the part of the shoe your foot rests on, provides arch support; it can also draw away moisture and heat, provide a little extra cushioning, and even help prevent foot odor.
Finally, there’s the outsole, which provides traction and reduces wear on the midsole. Outsole patterns vary from shoe to shoe; different sports require different amounts of traction in different areas of the foot.
Not everyone agrees that all the high-tech hype surrounding sports shoes is justified. Australian podiatrist Simon Bartold told a conference a couple of years ago that “To a large degree shoe design doesn’t make a lot of difference.” In particular, he’s not a big fan of soft midsoles. The ideal walking/running device already exists, he points out: it’s the human foot. A very soft midsole, he believes, interferes with the interplay between the nerves in the foot and the brain.
Nor does the latest shoe technology necessarily reduce the likelihood of injury: a 2001 study showed that the injury rates of runners and walkers hadn’t changed since the 1970s.
It turns out the most important thing isn’t the latest bells and whistles on the shoe, but that the shoe fits you properly.
Or, to put it another way, “If the shoe fits, wear it.”
