The Ascent Journal

Running shoe research is a black box to some degree. Researchers put the shoe on a runner’s foot and have them run. Then, we measure some things while they run. In one sense, you can still argue that the results of this kind of research is useful and well controlled. Through a different lens, by changing the shoe, we’ve changed several things at once. A recent paper proposes one way to think more clearly about what might be going on inside the black box.

The recent work of Tizian Scharl and his team help clarify how running shoes affect female running form. Their 2024 paper is a one-hundred-and-seventeen page clinic on the form changes running shoes cause for female runners.

Super shoes have taken over elite road and tracking running in the decade since they first emerged with Nike’s invention of the Vaporfly 4%. One category of runner that hasn’t gotten the same boost that everyone else got when super shoes appeared: trail runners. Research on trail running can be hard to do. Simulating rock and switchbacks on a treadmill in a laboratory poses some readily apparent challenges. Two recent studies provide some answers though.

Is your training app running the show? “All models are wrong. Some are useful.” -George Box It used to be that we decided for ourselves how we were doing. I still remember my old manual training log where I’d enter my mileage for the day and a quick thought about how it went. But the roles have reversed. If training apps and sports watches are the new training logs, then it seems more like the training log is telling us how we’re doing instead. There’s a common favorite way t

What some of the latest developments in running footwear might mean for all of our success in the sport. I grew up with the barefoot...

It isn’t perfect, but running power solves some of the most common problems runners face in training.