The Athletic finally called the supershoe trend by its proper name: Shoe Doping.
“Shoe doping…a similar effect to being on EPO (erythropoietin, the red-blood-cell-creating hormone that the body naturally produces but can be injected artificially to illegally enhance performance).”
The article is limited to marathon running, and as a trail runner with a visceral aversion to concrete and flats, that world doesn’t mean much.
But the article does include interviews with researchers and links to studies demonstrating that supershoes are doing quite a bit of work. One of the original designers noted that they won’t make regular runners faster, but they will allow runners to run longer using less energy. And that supershoes are nowhere near comparable to other advancements in shoe designs that came before. Supershoes aren’t really shoes, they’re performance enhancing technologies.
Like doping.
“How ‘shoe doping’ changed marathon times forever.”
*Note that neither the article nor myself make any value judgements. The article references peer-reviewed research and includes interviews with designers that made the first supershoe (Nike Vaporfly).