adidas Formation Heel Strike: Worthwhile or Gimmick?

I doubt that dude heel strikes. You can see at the end it is kind of a mid foot. I can't see how this much instability is good for a runner. I can really see it being an issue if you heel strike and run down hills. This could spell big problems in the name of patellar tendonitis.

I've come to find that basically all high end running shoes are the same. (Nike, Adidas, Asics, Saucony, ect)

wha huh? wrote:

I doubt that dude heel strikes. You can see at the end it is kind of a mid foot.

That's a good point.

There is no way this is a good idea. I don't want to be causing massive shearing deflection along the plane responsible for stabilizing my whole body weight.

I'm more concern w/the clunkiness of the heel? What happened to 'less' shoe? As for the movement of the heel, it would seem like you would be working on different muscles that would fatigue quicker if you're not used to running in them. Plus, what would happened if you stepped on a crack/crevice? I certainly wouldn't want the heel caving in and making me trip.

The thing that strikes me is that this appears to increase contact time between the shoe and the ground. By stretching out that heel-shoe area, you're rolling slower over to your toe-off, causing your foot to remain in contact with the ground for a longer time. The work done to create an impulse is proportional to it's length, so a shorter contact-time would mean less energy expended per stride.

Exactly. Of all the heel cushioning technologies, Formotion is the least functional. Other than the thing in the ASICS Kinsei. Or the Mizuno Prophecy thing. adidas make some of my favorite shoes, and none of them have the Formotion piece.

Wejo, this topic was already extensively discussed in this thread http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4556056

phamphee wrote:

There is no way this is a good idea. I don't want to be causing massive shearing deflection along the plane responsible for stabilizing my whole body weight.

That was my thought as well. The video shows the shoe's response to an elite athlete with good form, but how does it respond to someone who slams down on the heel? Is it going to do a huge backward displacement? At the least that seems like it would absorb energy and mess with the stride. But it's really hard to tell when their example is someone who has already has perfect form (thus the form correction is doing very little).

the thing has been in adistar salvations since the begining, has no effect thats noticable Good or bad.

Wejo is just pushing a sponsor. He should be banned.

1) Formotion.

2) This is the quality of post I expect on the RunnersWorld forums. You may as well have asked us about Shape Ups.

Even if it does or doesn't work as described, it doesn't matter. Adidas will be phasing it out in the next few years.

Here's a positive vote. I love the heel in both the new Boston and the Tempo 4.

I'm a mid-foot striker, but even mid-foot strikers need some extra heel protection if they are doing hilly long runs. I can bomb the downhills without worrying about foot soreness with this heel.

I also do faster stuff in last year's Ace's, without the formotion heel and vastly prefer it's protection for long runs.

I work in a running shoe store and can tell you that all the companies make bold claims like this all the time with their "revolutionary technologies." the trick is acting like shoes are a lot more complicated than they are. like the other poster said, all high-end running shoes are basically the same...don't be a sucker.

Shoebacca wrote:

1) Formotion.

2) This is the quality of post I expect on the RunnersWorld forums. You may as well have asked us about Shape Ups.

The RunnersWorld forums actually aren't all that bad, seriously.

The quality of post I expect from the LetsRun forum is someone bashing Brett Gotcher then making a vaguely racist political joke.

I always run in Adidas, and I don't notice the formotion heel at all. I did wonder why it was set off from the rest of the sole though. I love the shoes, but I don't think the heel pod really makes any difference.

Ever since I was a running store manager in the early '80's......Adidas running shoes were synonymous with "Gimmick" (Dellinger Web!!)They still are. Clothing was another matter.