A sneaker is a high or low shoe, usually of fabric such as canvas, with a rubber or synthetic sole. Some consider it to be a piece of art, a way of life, and has many different uses.
For that reason I will pay close attention to one sneaker company, Nike. Nike was founded on January 25, 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports by Bill Bowerman and Philip Knight, and officially became Nike, Inc. in 1978. The company takes its name from Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. The “swoosh” was actually designed by a female Portland State University student who received a lousy $35 from the founder of Nike. But after Nike became successful they decided to give her some company stock along with a gold ring. The logo represents the wing of the Greek Goddess “Nike” who was the Goddess of Victory. When first started out they were selling sneakers at track meets and out the trunk of Bowerman’s car. Bowerman was trying to figure out different ways to make the shoe get better grip on the track. So he decided to pour some rubber in his wife’s waffle maker.
From that day Nike has been innovating the design world. Nike uses various technology in the shoes; Nike Air, Nike Zoom, Nike Shox, Nike +, and Nike Flywire
� Nike Air- a unit of air under the heel used for a comfortable ride while running
� Nike Zoom Air-a low profile air unit for responsive cushioning and stability
� Nike Shox-absorb impact from heel strike while running; they also “spring back” and add more power to a runner’s stride
� Nike +-is a device which measures and records the distance and pace of a walk or run
� Nike Flywire-is a thread, composed of Vectran, used in the upper of a shoe. The goal of Flywire is to minimize weight and maximize support.
Tinker Hatfield is the renowned designer of many of Nike’s most popular and innovative athletic shoe designs, including the Air Jordan III through Air Jordan XV, the twentieth anniversary Air Jordan XX, the final numbered Air Jordan, the XXIII, the 2010 (XXV) and other athletic sneakers including the world’s first “cross training” shoes, the Nike Air Trainer. Hatfield oversees Nike’s “Innovation Kitchen”. Academically, he studied architecture and graduated from the University Of Oregon School Of Architecture. He joined Nike in 1981 and in 1985 started working on shoe design. He realized that his architectural skills could also be applied to athletic shoes.
Nike is infamous for their marketing powers their commercials, iconic, bizarre, and true. Came out with the famous is it the shoe campaign. Or most recently using athletes as the marketing tool for something BIG. Ever since Nike has became a leader in design they have also pushed their ways on to the consumer, for example more cushion is better….wrong. In the most recent years sneakers have been getting lighter, for example flywire in shoes and 360� Air. NBA players such as Gilbert Arena, Steve Nash, and more recently Kobe Bryant have worn low-top basketball sneakers because they feel high-tops are restrictive of natural movement and are heavy.
Recently there has been a trend on the rise and it is running…..barefoot. Some say that we (humans) have been misleading big companies such as Nike that we need more cushioning to run faster and longer. Christopher McDougall is an American author and journalist best known for his 2009 best-selling book Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen. In Born to Run, McDougall goes down to the members of the reclusive Tarahumara Indian tribe in the Mexican Copper Canyons. After being repeatedly injured as a runner himself, McDougall marvels at the tribe’s ability to run ultra distances (over 100 miles) at incredible speeds, without getting the routine injuries of most American runners. The book has received attention in the sporting world for McDougall’s description of how he overcame injuries by modeling his running after the Tarahumara. He claims that modern cushioned running shoes are a major cause of running injury, pointing to the thin sandals worn by Tarahumara runners, and the explosion of running-related injuries since the introduction of modern running shoes in 1968. Did a study when they went to Kenya to figure out why they always win marathons and this is what they found there . Nike Free is technology invented by Tobie Hatfield.
Nike Free attempts to simulate barefoot running while wearing a shoe. This shoe allows the muscles in the foot to gain strength by providing less constriction; runners are advised to gradually break into the shoe rather than immediately running long distances as to prevent muscle cramps and other discomforts. The Nike shoe scale goes from 10.0 to 0.0 with a ’10’ being a fully supportive shoe, and ‘0’ being completely barefoot. Example: The 5.0 Nike Free is like running halfway barefoot, the 3.0 is even less shoe, while the 7.0 is a bit more supportive.