Super shoes have taken the world by storm ever since Nike introduced the Vaporfly in 2016. Companies like Saucony and Hoka have followed suit and created their own super shoes designed to improve an athlete’s running performance. One runner wearing the shoes completed a marathon in under two hours—a feat most thought impossible. The unique exoskeleton design reduces strain on the lower body while the foam stores energy to increase propulsion with each step. Knowing these shoes have transformed running at all levels, Jared Steele, PhD ‘24 (EXSC), wondered if super shoes had the same effect on everyday walking.
After Steele’s father had a heart attack in 2021, Steele assisted in the challenging recovery process and was curious if the super shoe could assist vulnerable populations recover from injuries and illnesses. “During those early walking bouts, we'd go down to a flat surface, and he'd make it two minutes before calling for a break,” recalls Steele. “Knowing my science, I was confident that he was going to get back to where he was, or at least pretty close. But if we can make that journey less taxing or speed up the recovery process, that would be my goal. We had the technology; it's just leveraging it for a different population.”
Mobility is something we take for granted when we're healthy.
To test if super shoes can make walking easier for the wearer, Steele and his fellow researchers walked on treadmills with the shoes while wearing masks to track the expended oxygen levels. They also used cameras to construct a 3D computerized version of the wearer and measure the muscle contraction of the body.
Steele ultimately found that the shoes do have the same impact when walking as they do when running. The metabolic cost of walking is decreased by about 4 percent, making each step more efficient and less taxing on the body. Additionally, the oxygen cost is reduced by 10 percent. When applied to vulnerable populations like the elderly or heart attack and stroke victims, these percentages mean it will be easier to walk every day.
Before performing tests with an older population or the recently injured, Steele first had to prove that the super shoes affect younger and healthier individuals while walking. Now that he has verified this scientifically, he can move on to tests with vulnerable populations, where the benefits he found for the average adult will likely be amplified.
With the conclusion of his research, Steele felt he should apply for BYU’s Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. The judging process imposes a time limit to explain months of research, and competitors must make their presentations as clear as possible. Steele won both the internal College of Life Sciences competition and the university-wide BYU competition.
Along with his research on super shoes, Steele has studied how drafting, or running behind someone else on a windy day, affects running speed. Measured by having a person run behind a mannequin in a wind tunnel, he discovered that drafting actually decreases oxygen consumption. His findings show that drafting during a race can give a runner a competitive edge. The research also gave quantifiable evidence of wind speed’s effect on runners.
BYU’s Spiritual Impact
Steele chose to come to BYU as a non-member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to escape the distractions prevalent at other universities. He wanted to purely focus on his research and academic performance. Finding mentors like Iain Hunter, Dustin Bruening, and Matthew Seeley, who had similar research interests, also impacted Steele’s decision to attend the Y. “With an advisor that shared the same passion as I did, it was just a good fit all around,” he notes.
Little did Steele know how much the religious learning environment would impact him. He was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this past year by Seeley with Hunter performing the confirmation. This decision has changed how Steele thinks about his research and his experience at BYU. "I used to think that religion and faith were the complete opposite of science and research," said Steele. "Having been on both a faith and science journey simultaneously at BYU, I can attest that the two complement each other and I'm excited to continue growing in both."
Since graduating, Steele hopes to find a job in athletic research in either industry or academia. You can learn more about Steele’s research here.