Adidas’ AdiZero Technology – Part 3 (Football)

adiZero 5 STAR - Introducing the Lightest Cleat EVER Made, starring Eric Berry and CJ Spiller

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you!

In the last post on the adidas adiZero technology, we focus on the adiZero 5 Star cleat for football.  Adidas launched this cleat on Friday April 1 and, as with their adiZero footwear for soccer and basketball, the 5 Star currently is the lightest football cleat created weighing in at 6.9 ounces, 3 ounces lighter than anything else on the market.  Similar to the adiZero F50 cleats for soccer, the 5 Star upper is composed of a lightweight synthetic material called SPRINTSKIN and has a SPRINTFRAME base.  The cleats are a new triangular design to improve traction and acceleration.  This design significantly reduces the weight but does not compromise on support and stability when rapidly changing directions or making quick cuts.¹

  

The lighter the shoe, the faster the player and in football, speed kills! The 5 Star’s goal is to make players as fast as possible on the field. As with the adizero F50, it will be interesting if the miCoach technology will be implemented in later versions of the adiZero football cleats to measure and track player performance on the field.

Feedback from players on the shoe has been positive for the most part. Players are impressed with the how light the shoes are while still providing plenty of support and they feel faster and quicker on the field. Some players have complained about the lack of comfort and padding however, so depending on what’s important to a player, these cleats may not be the best choice. These football cleats are probably best for the skill position players (e.g. running backs, wide receivers, defensive backs) and not for linemen who need more support or might get their feet stepped on often. Also these cleats do not come in high-tops. See comments from adidas' adiZero 5 Star Facebook page.

Adidas will release the "adiZero Smoke" (shown in the video above), its next version of adiZero football cleats, to the general public in the spring of 2012. These cleats are lighter than the adiZero 5 Star and feature a SPRINTSKIN upper and a molded SPRINTFRAME outsole chassis.²

  

See what people are already saying about the adiZero Smoke cleat in comments from adidas’ adiZero Smoke Facebook page.

With Adidas' adiZero footwear product line for soccer, football, basketball and other sports it is clear the company is trying to emphasize speed as the best way to gain an advantage in competition. With their lightweight design, the adiZero footwear allows athletes to be able to reach maximum speed faster, make quicker cuts and improve endurance throughout a game. Adidas already has a majority of the market in footwear for soccer, but it will be interesting if these new shoe designs can help them gain more of the market in footwear for basketball and football which is dominated by Nike at this point.

References

1. adidas adiZero 5 Star Cleat Press Release
2. Counterkicks.com adidas adiZero Smoke Preview

adidas’ adiZero Technology – Part 2 (Basketball)

Adidas Derrick Rose: adiZero Crazy Light commercial

I’m really feeling the beat in D Rose’s commercial!

On April 14, 2011 (yeah I know I’m a bit late with this) Adidas declared the adiZero Crazy Light to be the lightest basketball shoe ever at 9.8 ounces for a size 10 foot, approximately two ounces lighter than the nearest competitor. The adiZero Crazy Light gives Adidas the lightest in three sports, including football (see my next post "Adidas' adiZero Technology - Part 3 about the adiZero 5 star cleat) and soccer.

It took over two years to design this show and the adidas Innovation Team started from scratch with just a bare foot.  The upper is composed of a SPRINTWEB exoskeleton that is less than 1mm thick and is bonded to a nylon textile base.  This design reduces the weight of the shoe, provides great comfort and the web layout provides plenty of support when cutting and changing directions rapidly.  The SPRINTFRAME external heel counter and TORSION SYSTEM are bonded together.  This again reduces the weight of the shoe, and also allows for maximum energy return and motion control to support the player when accelerating or changing directions.¹

I am curious if adidas will try to implement its miCoach technology into later versions of their basketball shoes as ways to further track player movements and improve upon their designs.  I imagine this may depend on how much of a benefit this would provide given the investment.  This may depend ultimately on sales and gaining a larger share of the market.

Nonetheless, the introduction of this new basketball shoe shows Adidas’ commitment to developing the lightest athletic shoes in major sports and reinforces their idea that lighter means faster and faster means better performance.  See the video below from Elysia Davis, a sports researcher for Adidas America talking about the technical process that the team went through to design the Crazy Light:

Adidas America announces new basketball shoe

Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 1:25PM

Elysia Davis, sports researcher for Adidas America, describes the technical process of developing the adiZero Crazy Light basketball shoe at the Adidas America headquarters in North Portland.

The adiZero Rose 2

Adidas also launched the “adiZero Rose 2” basketball shoe on October 1, endorsed by Derrick Rose.  “All Flights Cancelled” is stitched to the top of the tongue of this shoe which references how D Rose’s play on the court will alter this opponent’s chances of “taking off” or having any success (I like Derrick Rose, but not sure what I think about that).

The design and technology for this shoe is very similar to that of the Crazy Light with the SPRINTWEB upper and but adds a few extra bells and whistles to appeal to consumers who want to wear them off the court (e.g. a solid leather toe cap).  As a result, this shoe weighs in at 12.4 ounces², which is pretty light, but no where near the Crazy Light’s 9.8 ounces.

With these new shoes and their marketing efforts, it will be interesting to see if Adidas is able to gain a larger share of the basketball shoe market which has long been dominated by Nike and the Jordan Brand.

References

1. Adidas Crazy Light Press Release
2. adiZero Rose 2 – Product Description

adidas’ adiZero Technology – Part 1 (Soccer)

In 2004, Adidas released the first version of its F50 shoe line.  F50 is short for Football 50 marking the 50 year anniversary of when the West German national team won the World Cup in 1954.¹ 

The adiZero product line has the lightest boots in the market, the lightest being the F50 Prime with the Sprint Skin upper at 5.1 oz (the leather upper weighs in at 6.0 oz).  Even the stud configuration was redesigned to more efficiently transfer a player’s energy while moving on the field and thus help endurance.

Perhaps the coolest and most innovative version of the adiZero line to come into the market is the new adiZero F50 miCoach which brings intelligence to a soccer shoe for the first time. 

  

The miCoach is a removable chip that is attached to a port on the bottom of the shoe and gathers data about the players' in game performance including recording stride rates, distances, average speed and sprint times.  The information from the chip can then be uploaded to a computer or mobile device via USB or WiFi connection to analyze the data.²  That’s pretty high-tech!  I wonder if teams are now going to need data analysts who can quickly gather and analyze players’ data (just kidding but you never know).  They can then make tactical or formation changes at halftime or even on the fly to improve efficiency or try to preserve a player’s endurance throughout a game.  Teams may also make changes to maximize a player’s performance in a game.  I’m not sure if it would be possible for the miCoach to upload data in real time at this point (maybe that will be included in the miCoach v2 chip), but I can see teams attempting to set up wireless hotspots on their benches in attempts to download data and use any opportunity available to gain an advantage over their opponents.  Before long you’ll see managers sitting on the benches with laptops or holding mobile devices!  Now that would be crazy!

It’s the start of a new evolution in shoe design technology and it will be interesting to see what Adidas’ competitors introduce into the market to counter the miCoach technology. 

See video from the Adidas News Stream below:

References
1. Adidas F50 Wikipedia article
2. Soccer Cleat Breakthroughs – How adidas’ Innovations are Leading the Industry

3. Photos courtesy of gizmag - http://www.gizmag.com/adidas-adizero-f50-football-boot/20030/

Introduction

Hello, my name is Brent Brown, I live in Northern VA and am a big sports fan.  My favorite sports are soccer, football, and basketball.  I played all three in high school and played intramural soccer and basketball in college.  Soccer is my favorite sport to play and Football is my favorite sport to watch.  In addition to sports I am a bit of a techie.  I have always liked technology and majored in engineering in college.  I therefore decided to create this blog for fun to highlight new sports equipment and apparel and the technology behind it.  I find the research and development of new technologies for the benefit of sport to be really cool.  I would have to say my dream job would be to work for Adidas, Under Armour, or Nike in their R&D departments researching new technologies to improve sports equipment and apparel. 

In this blog I will post entries on my three favorite sports about new footwear, clothing, equipment, protective gear, and anything else that I think is interesting to post as it relates to sport technology.  So without further ado, let’s get to it!