I Tested Nike’s Top Secret Shoe

So, when you think of Nike, you probably

think of a nice, simple pair of everyday

trainers. That might be about to change.

I've just traveled all the way to Nike

HQ in Oregon to go hands-on and feet in

with four of the company's NextG

products, and using them is pretty clear

that Nike is becoming a tech company.

So, the first product I tried is the

most futuristic jacket I've ever seen.

Because there's a bunch of different

materials that jackets can use to keep

you warm. Like some of them use wool,

some of them use feather. But Nike's

NextG jacket uses air. And the benefit

of that is that you can now adjust your

temperature on the go by just changing

how much of that air is in the jacket

using this little pump that comes in the

pocket. Let's do a live pump.

>> It's very immediate. And the interesting

part of it is while the air is coming in

from one particular point, it's managed

to flow to every nook and cranny of the

jacket. Like it's even in the collar

evenly across both sides. feel like

anymore. And we're about to recreate the

movie Up.

>> So, you can think of this like an

interconnected system of really tiny

airbags on the inside that when fully

inflated can keep you comfortable in

temperatures 20° cooler than when the

jacket is deflated. The temperature

difference is actually massive. Like

suddenly I feel hot in this quite cold

room.

>> So, like Nike often does, this thing's

initially being released for

professional athletes and then it will

trickle down for us mere mortals to buy.

But I will almost definitely be doing

that because to have one item of

clothing that's going to take up almost

zero space when it's deflated that can

keep you at your perfect temperature

through day and night is kind of like

the dream thing to pack for a holiday.

And then if you want to deflate it,

wo

that's almost immediate.

>> So then we went to Nike sports research

lab for product two. Essentially 4,000

athletes a year come here to train and

play sport. And while they do that, Nike

is consensually spying on them. They're

using the world's largest set of motion

capture cameras combined with the

world's largest set of force plates

under the surface to essentially find

out the stress points on the athletes

bodies so that Nike can build shoes that

counter them. And there's some pretty

cool outcomes from all this data. Like

they realize that grip in the forward

direction is really useful cuz it means

your feet stay planted as you're running

and you preserve your momentum. But also

that too much grip as you're rotating is

associated with injury. Which is why

Nike's newer cleats now have these

V-shaped studs which are specifically

for grip when you're sprinting forward

on the fronts of your feet, but then

these rounded ones at the back which can

release more easily when you stop and

you want to pivot. Or as part of this

lab, they also take really detailed 3D

scans of the athletes feet. And by doing

this enough times, they figured out the

subtle ways that feet are different

between gender and ethnicity. Which is

why when you go to Japan, for example,

if you buy the same shoe that is

technically the same size, then for a

lot of models, that shoe will still

actually have a slightly different shape

to the same one in the US. But then the

other finding is that some people would

benefit from a shoe that propels you

forward. So this is Nike's project

Amplify, which they're calling the

world's first powered footwear system.

When it actually launches in most likely

2027, it will look like this. And so

what I got to test is the latest working

prototype which looks little simpler,

let's say, but it is a super interesting

glimpse into the potential future of

footwear. So there's a few parts to

this. There's the shoe, which

importantly is actually a pretty great

shoe without anything else added to it.

I'm liking the fact there's no laces.

Wo, they're really um foamy. So then

that shoe connects upwards to this arm,

which is what contains the motor and all

the processing power. Yes, processing

power in your shoes. And then at the

very top is the cuff, which totally

doesn't sound like something you would

wear when you're on a watch list. Also

though, really satisfying to loosen and

tighten. And then you just start walking

or running. You take six to eight steps

and by the time you've done that, your

shoes have used their processing power

to figure out how you're walking, your

stride, your gate, and then they start

to lift your feet for you, giving you

about a 20% increase in the total power

of your legs.

>> That's the last they saw of this sample.

>> You kind of feel the pulling force at

the back of your foot. So, your heel

lifts up like that and then you take the

rest of the step by yourself. There's

also an app where you can specify

whether you want to walk or run or how

you want that to feel. But you don't

actually need to use it. The shoes

figure it out by themselves.

>> So the moment you start running, it's

initially heavier than usual. You can't

run quite as fast and then very quickly

you can run a lot faster. Now there are

some obvious questions. My first

question when I look at that is who is

it for? It wouldn't be a fair gadget for

an athlete to use. And then I actually

like the idea when I go out to town that

I'm just burning calories and I'm kind

of doing a good thing for myself. When I

think about who it's for, we build a

marathon shoe today that returns more

metabolic effort to you than 10 years

ago. People don't run less because of

that. It actually, I think, unleashes

the opposite.

>> It's a fair point. I mean, the way I see

it, I think it's going to be a long time

before the average user is going to want

to start charging their shoes every

morning. But there are three scenarios

in which I could actually see it being

useful. Now, these things mean that you

can put in normal amounts of effort, but

get to your location 20% faster. So, if

that extra 20% speed would be the

difference between you choosing to walk

somewhere and you hopping in an Uber,

then I guess it would be an investment

into your health and the pace increase

is real. I kept finding myself just

ahead of the group that I was walking

with without really realizing it was

happening because I was just walking.

And interesting thing I've noticed,

everyone around me is panting. I'm not

out of breath. Oh, wo.

So, I'd say it it probably perfectly

counters the incline, the pretty steep

incline of this hill. So, I'm walking

up, but with the same amount of effort

as if it was flat ground. And then

third, I run. My mom walks the dog

around the block. Maybe we could jog

together. There's some things that

you've probably never been able to do

that could be interesting.

>> Someone who couldn't usually keep up

with you suddenly being able to. And

then what I think is really clever here

is the battery because it is customd

designed so that it can just wrap around

that cuff. That's super important

because this is not a small battery.

This is enough for 10 km of powered

walking or running. But by wrapping

around your leg, it still keeps it, I

would say, looking discreet while also

not adding an obvious weight to one side

which might start pulling you in one

direction. So, I found this product not

mind-blowing since I have used a few

similar exoskeletony things before and

they've been about as effective, but

still impressive in that this is the

most lowprofile, realistically usable

everyday execution of the idea.

Thankfully, there is a pair of shoes I

tested that did blow me away. But before

that, I got the chance to test product

three, Nike's nextgen sports clothing,

which I was initially expecting to gloss

over, but it's actually really

interesting. So, you might know that

over the years Nike has had a bunch of

different lineups of clothing. They've

had dry fit to keep athletes dry.

They've had thermopit to keep athletes

warm, storm fit to keep athletes

protected. And so, the new one is

aeropit. And it's designed to fix a very

specific problem. See, the world's

getting hotter. Athletes are having to

play physically demanding sports in

often desert-like temperatures. So,

they're going to sweat a lot. The issue

is though that the purpose of sweat is

to cool your body down, but that that

cooling is only happening if the sweat

is specifically evaporating off your

body, not soaking into your clothes

first. Nike actually has these insanely

impressive, but also super gross lab

simulations of all this stuff, including

dummy models that produce artificial

sweat as they walk, and even an exercise

bike in a hot room that actually has a

pool of real human sweat on the floor.

They're actually measuring how much

liquid comes off of athletes that use

the room because the way they see it,

every drop that hits the floor is a drop

that isn't being evaporated off the skin

and is therefore wasted. And the

learnings from all of these very strange

studies have been bottled together into

a fit. So, it's a new set of materials.

It's stitched together in a looser way

to let more air pass through the gaps in

the fabric. But the thing that I find so

interesting about it is the company has

looked at athletes playing each sport

separately in their laps. They've

realized that air travels in a different

way around the athlete depending on

which sport they're playing. And then

they've tweaked the stitching

accordingly for each of these sets of

clothes to make sure that the maximum

possible air is guided across the body

to get that sweat absorption from the

skin. So for running, for example, the

vast majority of the air is coming in

straight from the front. So this middle

area here is where most of the air is

going to be allowed through the fabric.

And then these dense meshes keep the air

inside the cloth so that it travels

around the sides of your body until it

reaches the back where it's then guided

out kind of like an exhaust. With a

sport like tennis, a lot of the air

comes in from the sides. So that is

where you find the larger perforations

on the tennis top. And with weight

training, your core is relatively still

with much more of the motion happening

in the upper half. So that's where the

training tops are designed to have max

air intake. Okay, I am a fitted. It just

feels like a shirt right now. But I'm

going to try and sprint in a straight

line backwards and forwards to see if I

can notice the way the air moves around

me. Does this actually work?

Oh yeah, I'm actually a little bit

chilly. Oh god. It's a bit like running

topless or at least what I would imagine

that feels like, which is quite

surprising considering how opaque the

material actually is.

>> I think the average person doesn't think

of jerseys as an ever evolving thing.

You think surely by now we've been

making them for 100 years, they're done.

That's right. The numbers that we got

from the NSRL is that the air

permeability is 238% more than our

legacy dry fit.

>> And that's just the one that's being

used now, the legacy one.

>> Correct.

>> Okay. So, then we come to product four.

I sat down. I was introduced to the Nike

Mind. My brain started flipping out at

the possibilities of a mind control

device I was going to get to test. And

then I was handed a shoe. But here's the

thing, it kind of is one. So, as well as

the traditional footwear departments

that build shoes by looking mostly at

your feet, Nike's also got this

completely separate mind science

department in the HQ, which has been

working on this set of shoes by instead

looking at your brain. And that journey

has led them to these bumpy little

things. So, you've got the mind one,

which is the slider version of this

concept, and then the mind two, which is

the sneaker version. And the best way

that I can describe this to you is you

see all these little orange bubbles at

the bottom. These are nodes. There's 22

of them and each is positioned kind of

like with acupressure at specific points

in your feeds that they found trigger

the biggest reaction from the brain. You

see, unlike the chassis of the shoe,

which is firm, you can push these nodes

in. And because there's only a very thin

layer between the nodes and your feet,

you can feel a sort of massaging effect

every time you take a step. It kind of

feels like I have a layer of bubble wrap

beneath my feet. And as I raise and

lower my heel, I can feel pop. But see,

this isn't just acupressure. It's not

just that you can push the notes in.

They can be pushed in any direction. And

because your feet feel so connected to

them, you can feel how they're being

pushed, which is the weirdest thing

because it means while you're wearing

these shoes, you can feel the texture of

the surface that you're on. Feels like

the weirdest thing to say, but I can

tell this is concrete. I tried them on a

racing track. I tried them on astroturf.

And you can actually feel the blades of

grass. So, I just found these addictive

to wear. The massaging feeling, but also

how being able to feel what you're

walking on is quite grounding. And that

makes complete sense with what Nike is

trying to do. Because I mean, have you

ever tried meditating? If you have,

you'll know that the first thing they

often tell you to do is to direct your

attention to the sounds around you or

focus on the surface you're sitting on.

They do that because this kind of stuff

brings your mind back to the present.

And it kind of feels like these mind

shoes are going for a very similar

thing, to force you to mentally lock in.

They're primarily designed for athletes

to wear in the changing rooms to make

sure that they hit peak performance when

they step onto the pitch. But I kind of

like the idea of wearing them in my

living room to make sure that I hit peak

performance at well, lunch. The only

thing I would say is I found the effect

kind of underwhelming on the sliders.

It's much better on the sneakers, I

guess, because they stay in contact with

your foot more consistently. So, fun

fact, I'm actually writing this video

from a little cafe in Oregon, like 10

minutes from Nike's HQ. Amazing

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