Melanie Knopp is doing her PhD at the Exercise Biology. She is predominantly working on running economy with modern technology shoes and also focuses on marathon training concepts. After her talk at the Congress of the International Federation of Sports Medicine in 2021 she now published her first international paper.
This paper deals with the differences of of tech-shoes world-class Kenyan (mean half-marathon time: 59:30 min:s) versus European amateur runners. The laboratory results revealed large variability in both world-class Kenyan road runners, which ranged from a 11.3% drawback to a 11.4% beneft, and amateur Europeans, which ranged from a 9.7% beneft to a 1.1% drawback in running economy of advanced footwear technology compared to a flat shoe. The post-hoc meta-analysis revealed an overall signifcant medium beneft of advanced footwear technology on running economy compared with traditional flats. The ariability of advanced footwear technology performance appears in both world-class and amateur runners, suggesting further testing should examine such variability to ensure validity of results and explain the cause as a more personalized approach to shoe selection might be necessary for optimal beneft.
If you are interested in the whole publication, you can use the following link to Sports Medicine.