It means a lot to see Bridgewater State on a paper in the Journal of Applied Physiology. I want our students to know that serious, peer-reviewed work on questions people care about is within their reach, and that it can include collaborations with industry.
Do Nike's high-tech "super spikes" really make athletes faster? Bridgewater State University assistant professor Lance Brooks helped answer that question.
Brooks, who teaches in BSU’s Department of Health and Kinesiology, co-authored a Texas Christian University study conducted in collaboration with the Nike Sport Research Lab.
Published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, the study examined how Nike’s advanced super spikes affect an athlete’s speed and ability to maintain their pace over the course of a sprint.
“Sprint times have improved since advanced spikes arrived, but nobody knew why,” Brooks said.
The study tested two ideas. One was that the shoes helped athletes push harder against the ground and reach a higher top speed. The other was that shorter ground contacts and longer steps helped athletes hold their speed later in a sprint, when fatigue sets in.
“The data supported both,” Brooks said.
To test their theories, 15 athletes —10 track runners and five soccer players — each completed a 130-meter sprint in conventional spikes and prototype Nike spikes. Researchers used specialized equipment to track speed throughout each run.
“For me, it was how the advantage built up over the run,” Brooks said. “In the first 10 meters, the prototype made almost no difference. By the end of the 130-meter sprint, athletes were about 3.9 percent faster.”
The findings connect directly to what Brooks teaches in his biomechanics courses at BSU, giving his students an opportunity to see the principles they study in the classroom applied to real athletes.
“They get to see the full arc of science: a question nobody could answer, two testable hypotheses, careful measurement with radar, accelerometers, and timing gates, and the results that line up with long-established principles,” Brooks said. “The same ideas about force, contact time, and fatigue apply to coaching, rehabilitation, and injury prevention.”
For Brooks, having BSU represented in a peer-reviewed study involving an internationally recognized company also sends an important message to students about the opportunities available to them.
“It means a lot to see Bridgewater State on a paper in the Journal of Applied Physiology,” he said. “I want our students to know that serious, peer-reviewed work on questions people care about is within their reach, and that it can include collaborations with industry.”
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