Adidas 1 - Popular Science Story & Forum

Adidas 1 - Popular ScienceDuring a THREE-mile run, the average guy’s feet smack the ground 5,400 times and endure a collective 1,200 tons of pressure—but that weight isn’t evenly distributed over every stride. “When runners become tired, they hit the ground harder,” explains Christian DiBenedetto, leader of Adidas’s Intelligent Product Team. “And when they transition from a road to a trail, their cushioning needs change.”

In 2001 DiBenedetto and two engineers began investigating technologies to replace passive cushioning. Dreaming of a shoe that would adapt itself to its wearer and to changing surface conditions, they considered a range of exotic materials, from shape-memory alloys to magnetorheological fluids (which solidify into a pasty consistency when subjected to a magnetic field), ultimately landing on a mechanical solution—a motor-driven cable system.

By Trevor Thieme
Popular Science

Forum Comment
At 3:51 PM, David Coyle said: For honest-to-God runner pain relief, check out Z-CoiLs (www.zcoil.com) with an actual spring under the heel, a built-in orthotic, and 3/4 inch of padding under the metatarsals. Has been around for 6-7 years and really works.


Gregor Halenda; styling by Marissa Gimeno for Halley Resources