I'm still surprised that "lightest weight" is such a thing? It's not about light weight, it's about the right weight - you can make a 2.5 ounce road shoe quite easily with modern materials (this upper, an "old school" 8-14 midsole made of current nitrogen infused TPE foam and 1.5mm rubber in limited areas as the outsole) - in fact I think you could make it even lighter - but at what point is your weight saving benefit mitigated by the lack of cushioning and how that effects muscle fatigue? Or the lack of rigidity which in turns asks more of your foot and lower leg muscles as they over compensate for the excess torsion in the foot/shoe unit?
I had a few pairs of the Reebok floatride fast shoes for testing which was sub 100g (3.5 ounces) and they were okay. They were fun to put on but honestly during running I couldn't notice an appreciable difference in terms of feel or experience between them and a 200g shoe. In fact I noticed them more because they gave a lot of feedback in terms of ground force and anything I stood on. Even though that 100g was lab-wise a 1% RE benefit it was definitely offset by lack of cushion and stability.
I get that Anta are looking for a point of difference - I guess it's one from the current status quo, even if not new in it's concept. Like you I would love to know if anyone has worn these and can report on how they performed.
I'm still surprised that "lightest weight" is such a thing? It's not about light weight, it's about the right weight - you can make a 2.5 ounce road shoe quite easily with modern materials (this upper, an "old school" 8-14 midsole made of current nitrogen infused TPE foam and 1.5mm rubber in limited areas as the outsole) - in fact I think you could make it even lighter - but at what point is your weight saving benefit mitigated by the lack of cushioning and how that effects muscle fatigue? Or the lack of rigidity which in turns asks more of your foot and lower leg muscles as they over compensate for the excess torsion in the foot/shoe unit?
I had a few pairs of the Reebok floatride fast shoes for testing which was sub 100g (3.5 ounces) and they were okay. They were fun to put on but honestly during running I couldn't notice an appreciable difference in terms of feel or experience between them and a 200g shoe. In fact I noticed them more because they gave a lot of feedback in terms of ground force and anything I stood on. Even though that 100g was lab-wise a 1% RE benefit it was definitely offset by lack of cushion and stability.
I get that Anta are looking for a point of difference - I guess it's one from the current status quo, even if not new in it's concept. Like you I would love to know if anyone has worn these and can report on how they performed.
Spot on, as usual, SS. I'm curious how comparable the cushioning, stiffness and other properties are to the top tier current Supershoes. If these properties are essentially equal, then lighter weight is obviously better.
I'm still surprised that "lightest weight" is such a thing? It's not about light weight, it's about the right weight - you can make a 2.5 ounce road shoe quite easily with modern materials (this upper, an "old school" 8-14 midsole made of current nitrogen infused TPE foam and 1.5mm rubber in limited areas as the outsole) - in fact I think you could make it even lighter - but at what point is your weight saving benefit mitigated by the lack of cushioning and how that effects muscle fatigue? Or the lack of rigidity which in turns asks more of your foot and lower leg muscles as they over compensate for the excess torsion in the foot/shoe unit?
I had a few pairs of the Reebok floatride fast shoes for testing which was sub 100g (3.5 ounces) and they were okay. They were fun to put on but honestly during running I couldn't notice an appreciable difference in terms of feel or experience between them and a 200g shoe. In fact I noticed them more because they gave a lot of feedback in terms of ground force and anything I stood on. Even though that 100g was lab-wise a 1% RE benefit it was definitely offset by lack of cushion and stability.
I get that Anta are looking for a point of difference - I guess it's one from the current status quo, even if not new in it's concept. Like you I would love to know if anyone has worn these and can report on how they performed.
Spot on, as usual, SS. I'm curious how comparable the cushioning, stiffness and other properties are to the top tier current Supershoes. If these properties are essentially equal, then lighter weight is obviously better.
Well I think we can apply some pretty sound reasoning to guess. Let's think about the Vaporfly Nxt% which comes in at around 6.9 ounces or 195grams - so about 100g heavier.
When I look at the uppers, they are basically comparable. Single layer, very open "net" style meshes, limited padding in the heel and tongue. Maybe this Anta upper is marginally lighter - if it is it's a matter of a handful of grams and nothing more. Let's say it's 10 grams lighter. So the midsole/outsole is 90 grams lighter which is quite a lot - how are we doing this. Well the midsole foam on this Anta shoe might be less dense than the VF but it can't be that much less dense or else the shoe would be be unrunnable. Zoom X foam is kind of the industry standard in terms of weight/resilience/durability/cushion and it needs that plate glued into it to help it function optimally.
Even if this shoe uses less foam (looks like it does) and it was 70% of the density of Zoom X (this would be basically getting into kitchen sponge like properties) that is not worth 90 grams. What is comparatively heavy in these (super)shoes are the stiffening mechanisms they have to put in because of the foam ie. plates and in the case of adidas, rods. So my guess is that this shoe doesn't have a plate - if it does it would be an incredibly thin injected nylon that really has little to no stiffness. But I don't think it does because I looked pretty hard at that midsole and I don't see a parting line to suggest the midsole is in two parts. It could be a cupsole style midsole with some insert and then a top section but the midsole looks too thin to cater for that. One of the reasons "super" shoes are 25mm+ in the forefoot and 35mm+ in the heel is because they have to cater for the plate. Much smaller than this and you can't put enough of this super soft foam in particular on top of the plate and then you have a lot of problems with wearability/comfort.
So yes, if the properties were the same and it was just straight up 100g lighter then it would theoretically be better. But when I look this shoe, it's geometries etc and it's materials, I believe it's just lighter because it doesn't have a stiffening element that is so important. I think it would be very similar to that Reebok shoe I referenced which was 3.9 ounces or 99 grams. It had a basic upper (not as minimal as this but still simple) and a midsole with zotefoam (same supplier as ZoomX) that was just the foam. It was considerably thinner than this looks but they made up for it with a much more substantial outsole traction system of poured PU on textile. I would expect this shoe performs very similar to that shoe.
Spot on, as usual, SS. I'm curious how comparable the cushioning, stiffness and other properties are to the top tier current Supershoes. If these properties are essentially equal, then lighter weight is obviously better.
Well I think we can apply some pretty sound reasoning to guess. Let's think about the Vaporfly Nxt% which comes in at around 6.9 ounces or 195grams - so about 100g heavier.
When I look at the uppers, they are basically comparable. Single layer, very open "net" style meshes, limited padding in the heel and tongue. Maybe this Anta upper is marginally lighter - if it is it's a matter of a handful of grams and nothing more. Let's say it's 10 grams lighter. So the midsole/outsole is 90 grams lighter which is quite a lot - how are we doing this. Well the midsole foam on this Anta shoe might be less dense than the VF but it can't be that much less dense or else the shoe would be be unrunnable. Zoom X foam is kind of the industry standard in terms of weight/resilience/durability/cushion and it needs that plate glued into it to help it function optimally.
Even if this shoe uses less foam (looks like it does) and it was 70% of the density of Zoom X (this would be basically getting into kitchen sponge like properties) that is not worth 90 grams. What is comparatively heavy in these (super)shoes are the stiffening mechanisms they have to put in because of the foam ie. plates and in the case of adidas, rods. So my guess is that this shoe doesn't have a plate - if it does it would be an incredibly thin injected nylon that really has little to no stiffness. But I don't think it does because I looked pretty hard at that midsole and I don't see a parting line to suggest the midsole is in two parts. It could be a cupsole style midsole with some insert and then a top section but the midsole looks too thin to cater for that. One of the reasons "super" shoes are 25mm+ in the forefoot and 35mm+ in the heel is because they have to cater for the plate. Much smaller than this and you can't put enough of this super soft foam in particular on top of the plate and then you have a lot of problems with wearability/comfort.
So yes, if the properties were the same and it was just straight up 100g lighter then it would theoretically be better. But when I look this shoe, it's geometries etc and it's materials, I believe it's just lighter because it doesn't have a stiffening element that is so important. I think it would be very similar to that Reebok shoe I referenced which was 3.9 ounces or 99 grams. It had a basic upper (not as minimal as this but still simple) and a midsole with zotefoam (same supplier as ZoomX) that was just the foam. It was considerably thinner than this looks but they made up for it with a much more substantial outsole traction system of poured PU on textile. I would expect this shoe performs very similar to that shoe.
It would certainly take some pretty miraculous technological breakthroughs to get the same running economy benefits packed into a shoe half the weight that would be comfortable and durable enough to make it though a race of any relevant distance, let alone a marathon.
It would certainly take some pretty miraculous technological breakthroughs to get the same running economy benefits packed into a shoe half the weight that would be comfortable and durable enough to make it though a race of any relevant distance, let alone a marathon.
I think that's a very good way to look at it - no disrespect to Anta but I'm not sure they have any special access to material vendors/suppliers and manufacturing methods that Nike, adidas et al have.
I'm going to settle on this being a shoe with a very minimal upper, with a midsole made of very low density TPE nitrogen infused (super critical) foam that I would guess has some RE benefits due to weight and resiliency of the foam, but is still inferior to product with stiffening, curved-rocker additions in them.
Hey - I do like the design and way the shoe looks from a shelf POV.