The Evolution of the Running Shoe and What Comes Next

Nike’s success prompted other brands to develop super shoes, kick-starting a foot race that continues to this day, with each brand manufacturing a stack height tall enough to accommodate its foam-and-plate technology, according to Chris Napier, a sports physiotherapist and director of the Simon Fraser University Run Lab in British Columbia.

To level the playing field, in 2020, the World Athletics, the governing body that oversees most international running events, capped stack heights at 40 millimeters (1.6 inches) for road racing.

Despite enhanced performance, such shoes come with trade-offs.

“There has to be ramifications if we’re basically cheating the body out of what it’s naturally supposed to do, and making it more efficient,” said Kyle Barnes, an associate professor of exercise science at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.

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