SHOEphoria - The Bartold Clinical Podcast
Sports:Running
Dr. Wouter Hoogkamer is the principle author of one of the most important pieces of running shoe research ever published.
In 2018 his paper “A Comparison of the Energetic Cost of Running in Marathon
Racing Shoes” was published in Sports Medicine, and for the first time revealed exactly what was going on with the Nike Vaporfly, the first of the so called Super Shoes,
Wouter’s story starts way before that though, and, it is one of the most interesting we have aired on SHOEphoria.
Like Kevin Fallon from Speedland, Wouter started his professional and academic life as an engineer. Basically, the take home message from all of this is that being good at maths can turn you into a running shoe superstar!
Wouter was a very accomplished scientist long before he started working on the Nike project. He found his niche in biomechanics, and developed a lifetime interest in, if not passion for, energetics. Initially this had nothing to dom with running shoes, but simply looked at the energetics of uphill running.
This led him into several projects involving cycling, and then an important step into neurophysiology, trying to unravel some of the mysteries of stroke and Parkinson’s Disease.
Eventually Nike came knocking on his door, and Wouter began working on a project dedicated to the development of a shoe to take an athlete under 2 hours for the marathon. Working with another iconic researcher in Rodger Kram, bot scientists thought this achievement, if possible at all, was at least 5-10 years in the future.
History has now recorded that on October 13th 2019, the great Eliud Kipchoge ran the marathon distance in 1:59:40.. in a Nike prototype shoe codenamed the Alphafly, that Wouter Hoogkamer helped to develop. Not a bad thing to have on your CV!
Despite this, Wouter always felt like an “outsider looking in” in relation to Nike, and much of his subsequent understanding of how the Nike super shoes work has been achieved via reverse engineering, and without the assistance of Nike!
Wouter has now moved from Colorado to Amherst, where he heads up the University of Massachusetts Integrative Locomotion Lab (UMILL) and is currently working on new projects with…. PUMA.
Well, we cannot wait to see how that turns out!
Wouter Hoogkamer on SHOEphoria, don’t miss it!
Kevin Kirby on Modern Footwear - What's Wrong & What's Right?
Dave Dombrow and Kevin Fallon & The Revolutionary SPEEDLAND SL:PDX Trail Shoe
Terry Schalow - Executive Director of Running Industry Association
Rebecca Rushton - Think you Know Everything About Blisters?.... THINK AGAIN!
Matt Klein - Human and Footwear Interaction From Experience in all Facets of Athletic Footwear
Trevor Prior and the Quest for a £6000 Football Boot
Prof Irene Davis - Standing up for Barefoot
Deena Kastor Asics Ambassador talks Running and Running Shoes
Amby Burfoot & 50 Years of the Boston Marathon
Dr Martyn Shorten - Retail and Clinicians, Where is it at? (Part 2)
Dr Martyn Shorten - Pronation and Motion Control in Footwear is Pure Marketing
Paul Griffin & Simon Bartold - Motion Control vs Running Retail & Referring Clinicians
Jim Monahan - From Asics Corporation to 361°, A Lifetime in Athletic Footwear
Episode 4 - Dr Codi Ramsey - Do Shoes Prevent Injury?
Episode 3 - Jeff Dengate & The Running Landscape During and Post COVID-19
Episode 2 - Alex Hutchinson on Athletic Performance. Physiology? Shoe Tech?... or something else!??...
Episode 1- Prof Benno Nigg all things Nike 4%, Next Percent and Alphafly.
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