Technology innovations - improving or taking away from sport?
Sports. Running, cycling, athletics, swimming or boxing, the list is never-ending.
New records are broken year after year, cycling races are getting faster and runners are running further and further. But what is causing this upward trajectory in sporting performance? Is it just genetics or does the never-ending list of sports equipment and technology have a huge part to play?
From school age, we are all encouraged to participate in sports and to be active. A report from Sport England shows that “in 2018/2019 there was an increase of 3.6% in the number of children in England doing at least 60 minutes of physical activity a day”.
So is the improvement in sporting performance caused by being more active as children or is it the science of the sports we do?
Technology is always changing and developing, like with medicine and medical treatment being better than it has ever been and the world of the internet allowing everything and anything to be accessible to anyone. However, the rapid increase of sport-specific technology is something that has sent the performance levels to skyrocket.
The world of data and how it can be used to allow us to perform at our optimum.
AKCCoaching client on a power/fitness test
The world of data has grown massively in the last decade or so. If we take cycling as an example, you have access to every data field you could want. Power, cadence, heart rate and heart rate variability, sweat analysis and core body temperature sensors to mention a few.
Speaking to Aidan King, cycling coach at AKCCoaching, he explained that the data now, compared to when he grew up watching cycling just 10 years ago, has changed so much. “You used to watch interviews of riders after a Tour De France stage, and they would be talking about how they feel and their RPE (rate of perceived exertion), but now you have pros finishing stages saying they can’t believe their power numbers and their heart rate was high chasing onto an attack”.
Being a coach, and having access to this tech, Aidan explained the use of sweat analysis. “Over the years there has been a big shift in how riders train with power and lactate testing sensors, it is now the new normal. Dehydration is something most will suffer from or not have a clue how to truly see what they need to replenish when they sweat”. Looking into the data with CEO of FLOWBIO, Stefan Van Der Fluit, “even in a lab environment, a 5% body weight loss due to sweating can lead to a 30% performance decrease”. Companies such as FLOWBIO, have made a sweat-testing sensor called the S1, allowing athletes, cyclists and runners to go to an AHi Affiliated lab like Aidan’s to have their sweat analysed.
FLOWBIO S1 sensor
“With a simple 60-120 minute zone 2 aerobic activity, an athlete can wear the S1 on their heart rate strap or arm strap and collect their sweat. Then we look at the data in the app, and we get an accurate breakdown of water loss, sweat loss and sodium concentration. Allowing us to see how many grams of sodium an athlete loses in their sweat in an hour. This then allows us to recommend products for the amount of electrolytes they need to replenish to perform at their best” explained Aidan.
This can help to reduce some of the effects of dehydration on athletes such as feeling tired, dizzy and light-headedness, dry lips and performance loss.
Technology like this allows athletes to not only learn about their bodies to perform at the optimal level but also with live data reading, this means they can see, during races, how their body is reacting to the race, the environment or any health issues they may be having. Therefore, boosting their performance, especially on back-to-back racing days in an event such as the Tour De France.
What other examples of technology INNOVATIONS are improving sports?
Not everyone has thousands of pounds to spend on sensors and extra bits of equipment. Running is a sport that appeals to many people because you can get some shoes on and do it from your house, but the world of “super shoes” is something else that is pushing the performance of running.
“Super shoes” are something that became an idea in the 1980’s in the pursuit for athletes wanting to be more efficient and faster. The demand for those “marginal gains” that we now see happening in most sports was high for those athletes looking to get an advantage on their competitors.
However, it wasn’t until 2016 for the Rio Olympic Games that we saw the super shoe in the public eye.
Nike, a big shoe brand within sports and casual wear, have always been a brand to push the limit to help athletes look good and have an increase in performance. A big shoe that got their name noticed was their partnership with Michael Jordan, a basketball player for Chicago Balls in the 80/90s - and the Nike Air Jordan shoe was born.
Nike developed the Vaporfly 4% carbon shoe and this was the first time we saw a shoe of this type being used.
Super shoes, contain carbon layering within the sole of the shoe this, and the surrounding foam springs, helps the athletes momentum to go forward, improves running efficiency and creates a spring in their step - mind the pun.
Carbon fibre is five times stronger than steel but lighter than aluminium, so it is perfect for uses in lightweight equipment such as running shoes and bicycles. The carbon flexes slightly and retracts creating a spring effect allowing the athlete to run more efficiently, but more importantly further and faster for less effort. Research has shown that runner using these type of super shoes can see 3-4% improvements in running speed.
Now in its 3rd generation, the vaporfly is a model of shoe that has got plenty of competition from other brands such as Adidas, ASICS and Hoka. Along with the demand for free speed, the price has also jumped up some levels since 2017 when the Vaporfly first retailed. To get your hands on any of the carbon plated shoes, you are looking at having to spend £250+.
Is the cost worth the reward?
In February 2020, just a year after Eliud Kipchoge broke the unofficial sub-2-hour marathon record, World Athletics banned the Vaporfly from being used in professional racing.
Rules were put in place to have a maximum sole thickness on running shoes to prevent brands putting carbon layers in them and also a limit to the number of layers. It was then decided that other brand and models of super shoes would be legal, just not the Vaporfly as they didn’t align with the new rules.
Another rule that came into place, which we see in other sports such as cycling, is that the shoes (like equipment in cycling) have to be in retail and available to buy by the public for at least four months before competition.
Moving forward to 2025, every runner from amateur to professional tends to be wearing the latest and fastest, carbon plated running shoes. Competitions have them everywhere and most running brands have their own super shoe. Whilst some are still banned in the Olympics, there is so much choice, you can definitely get yourself a pair of new or second hand.
So are these innovations ruining sport?
Just like in life with the development of electric cars and the internet, the enhancement of technological innovations within sport is something that is pushing sport to be better and faster, and as we get faster those margins of winning get smaller, which makes the sports we watch more entertaining.
Like anything new, people will have their issues and opinions with things, like the super shoe allowing athletes to cheat and is the equivalent of motor doping in cycling. The key difference is shoes support the actions of the athlete, motor doping does the action for the athlete. Without development in technology, sports would become stagnant and sitting still would be boring.
With the right rules and regulations to keep boundaries on what can and can’t be done, technological innovations can help sports to grow, athletes to improve and keep people wanting to try sports and be more active - which is only ever going to be a good thing. So no these innovations are developing the future of sports, not hindering it.
References:
Coaching, A. (2025) Ahi Affiliated Lab, Aidan King Cycling Coach. Available at: https://www.akccoaching.com/ahiaffiliatedlab (Accessed: 30 January 2025).
England, S. (2019) Latest activity figures on children and young people published, Sport England. Available at: https://www.sportengland.org/news/active-lives-children-and-young-people-survey-academic-year-201819-report-published (Accessed: 30 January 2025).
Ingle, S. (2022) Banned British sprinter CJ Ujah cleared of deliberately taking drugs at Olympics, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/oct/10/banned-british-sprinter-cj-ujah-cleared-of-deliberately-taking-drugs-at-olympics (Accessed: 30 January 2025).
King, A. (2025) Sweat analysis data - the innovation that can prevent ruining our performance., Aidan King Cycling Coach. Available at: https://www.akccoaching.com/blog/sweat-the-bodily-fluid-that-can-ruin-our-performance (Accessed: 30 January 2025).
