University News Last updated 05 August 2011
Running shoes built on the same principles as the 2010 World Cup football could improve athletes’ performance on the track, according to new research.
A team based at Birmingham City University has studied the performance of four running shoes, measuring the aerodynamic drag on each. The research was led by Professor Robert Ashford, Director of Postgraduate Research Degrees at the University’s Faculty of Health, who presented his findings at the 10th biennial Footwear Biomechanics Symposium in Tübingen, Germany on Friday 1 July.
Professor Ashford and his team examined the drag on the models of middle to long distance running shoe by placing them on a mannequin’s foot which was inserted into a wind tunnel. The team set four different wind speeds to observe and measure how the shoes reacted to these speeds in terms of their drag properties.
The studies showed that the drag on the shoes varied, with one shoe, a Reebok, in particular demonstrating lower drag across all but one of the tests. The academics (Professor Peter White, the Faculty of Engineering and Computing, Coventry University, Professor Clive E. Neal-Sturgess, the School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Birmingham and Professor Nachiappan Chockalingam, the Faculty of Health, Staffordshire University) concluded that the aerodynamics of a running shoe both in terms of upper shoe design and the overall composition of the frontal aspects of the shoe could affect a runner's performance on the track. Despite the importance of aerodynamics in certain sports, such as the design of the 2010 World Cup football, the research paper’s authors believe that there has been little focus on this aspect in running shoes, despite recent advances in shoe design with a focus on materials.
In their research paper, the academics refer to how aerodynamic principles were used to produce the laboratory designed football which used for the finals of 2010 tournament in South Africa. The football was specially textured with grooves which were intended to improve the ball's aerodynamics and decrease 'wobble' (1). The manufacturers of the ball suggested that the textured design would help goalkeepers handle the ball and improve the flight of the ball, in a similar way to the dimples of a golf ball. They also refer to the Speedo Fastskin FSII swimsuit which was developed in 2004swimsuit using a system called computational fluid dynamic modelling (2) which demonstrated a reduction of passive drag by up to 4% compared to similar suits.
The shoes tested by Professor Ashford’s team were a left foot UK size 6 Nike Zoom, Nike Free, Nike 100km and a Reebok DMXRIDE. The decision to measure the performance of these particular models was not made on shoe manufacturer but on the availability of the shoes to the research team. The team itself was the result of a collaboration between four West Midlands universities which allowed the research to benefit from joint resources.
Professor Ashford said: “One could speculate and argue that if indeed aerodynamics is found to be important in a long distance race, and if the athlete is biomechanically compromised, in terms of their swing pattern, total shoe design may prove to be important in energy consumption and ultimately the finishing time for such an individual – whether they are a professional or an amateur.”
Birmingham City University is currently running a major awareness campaign in the Midlands to demonstrate how it is upgrading the future of individuals and companies. You can find out more at www.bcu.ac.uk