Shoes are still a critical focus of advancements for athletes
The global director of athlete services at adidas, Fabian Schweizer, has said that while professional athletes are looking at advances in biometric monitoring and in nutrition to help them improve their performance, good footwear remains critical to their success.
Writing on social media site LinkedIn on January 22, Mr Schweizer picked out his three top innovation trends in sports performance for 2024. He said that biometric monitoring to inform personalised training programmes was certainly one of them. He explained that targeted training programmes, based on data from wearable technology and sensors, were becoming increasingly important to athletes and coaches.
In a similar way, he said personalised nutrition and the field of nutrigenomics, which studies the interaction between nutrition and a person’s genetic profile, are also becoming increasingly important for professional athletes now. An increase in available data is allowing sports people to address accurately their own specific nutritional needs.
If these first two trends are concepts that most athletes of previous generations barely thought about, the third trend that Fabian Schweizer has identified is as old as sporting competition itself. He said that footwear remains a critical component in professional sports, and that the industry is now witnessing “a dual trend of sustainability and high-end performance enhancement”.
Innovative materials, including recycled and bio-based options, are gaining traction as athletes and manufacturers alike recognise the importance of reducing environmental impact, he argued. And in terms of performance enhancement, he said the most important innovations are aimed at delivering customisation, energy return, and biomechanical optimisation.
Image shows the Adizero Takumi Sen 10.
Credit: adidas.
