Research reveals 3.6% improvement in running economy<\/h5>\n
The recently released PUMA Fast-R Nitro Elite 3 promises to improve running economy and in turn, help propel you to a new personal best.<\/p>\n
While all brands will make these claims, a study at the University of Massachusetts Amherst tested the new marathon shoe with computational design and found it improved running economy by up to 3.6%. This overcomes a 1 to 1.5% improvement plateau in the advanced footwear technology (AFT) space since the inception of \u201csuper shoes\u201d in 2016.<\/p>\n
The four models of \u201csuper shoes\u201d tested by Wouter Hoogkamer and his team at UMass Amherst.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cFrom the outside, the Puma Fast-R3 is a regular advanced footwear technology \u00a0shoe,\u201d says\u00a0Wouter Hoogkamer<\/a>, assistant professor of kinesiology at UMass Amherst, senior author of the paper and director of the UMass Integrative Locomotion Lab (UMILL). \u201cBut Puma mixed the ingredients in a way that it\u2019s a substantial step up.\u201d He notes that the only other time he has seen such robust results on running efficiency was when AFT was first introduced to the running world.<\/p>\n For this study, funded by PUMA, Hoogkamer and his team evaluated running economy of four AFT models, without further involvement of PUMA: the Nike Alphafly 3, Adidas Adios Pro Evo 1, PUMA Fast-R 2 and the prototype of the PUMA Fast-R 3.<\/p>\n \u201cRunning economy is basically equivalent to your car\u2019s gas mileage,\u201d Hoogkamer explains, adding that some cars can drive more miles per gallon. \u201cIf I go out there and run at a 7-minute-mile pace, I would be using a specific amount of energy. If I train for years, I will improve my running economy, and at that same 7-minute pace, I will use less energy.\u201d<\/p>\n However, in 2016, marathon running changed when Nike introduced the first AFT footwear.\u00a0Hoogkamer\u2019s previous work<\/a>\u00a0found that this design improved running economy by 4%, essentially bypassing years of training simply by swapping footwear.<\/p>\n These days, AFTs are ubiquitous in the marathon space, and Hoogkamer says that, on average, there is about a 1% difference in running economy between different AFTs. \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen huge improvements recently, which made everybody in the field think that we sort of have reached this plateau,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what we also thought until PUMA mailed us this shoe.\u201d<\/p>\n Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite 3<\/p>\n<\/div>\n They found that the PUMA prototype is 3.15% to 3.62% more economical than the other popular AFT models. \u201cThese are substantial differences,\u201d says Hoogkamer. \u201cYou\u2019re talking about minutes off a marathon time, and I train years to shave a minute off of my marathon time.\u201d<\/p>\n Consider the performance of Kenyan professional long-distance runner\u00a0Edna Kiplagat at the 2024 Boston Marathon: She finished third with a time of 2:23:21. A 3.15% running economy improvement would have allowed her to finish at 2:20:13, more than 2 minutes faster than the winning time.<\/p>\n Monty Bertschy, a doctoral candidate at UMass and research assistant at UMILL, explains that running economy improvements are typically small or inconsistent between participants when comparing existing AFTs.<\/p>\n \u201cOn a group average, we normally see maybe 1 to 2% differences, but that average is a result of some people responding very well, and some people not responding very well,\u201d he says. \u201cHowever, with this shoe, we see that, universally, everybody responds positively to this new footwear condition.\u201d Unlike other comparisons between AFTs, none of the 15 participants ran with a worse running economy. Even the worst responder still saw a 1% improvement in running efficiency.<\/p>\n PUMA used a data-driven computational design process. Instead of building a shoe, testing it on a person and tweaking the design, they created a digital version and used data-driven finite element analysis to play with the properties to see how that affects the shoe\u2019s performance before it ever sees real feet. This process identified the optimal foam placement, material properties, carbon fibre layering and overall geometry to minimise weight, maximise energy storage and return, and achieve the desired carbon plate stiffness \u2014 all properties known to improve running economy and running performance.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, it\u2019s still a little murky on which features we need to turn the knobs higher on and lower on, but the process is really what has gotten them there,\u201d says John Kuzmeski, a doctoral student at UMass and research assistant at UMILL.<\/p>\n Puma PWRPLATE<\/p>\n<\/div>\n While the FR3 is 80 grams lighter than the previous PUMA model, weight alone could not explain this pronounced improvement. Using an Instron E10000 at UMass\u2019s\u00a0Institute for Applied Life Sciences<\/a>, the research team was able to mimic some of the peak forces in the shoe and look at some of the foam properties over the full bed of the midsole.<\/p>\n Through this, they suspect one of the most meaningful parameter changes was about a 3% improvement in energy return compared to other AFTs, which means the shoe acts more like a trampoline and less like wet sand.<\/p>\n Hoogkamer also notes that this demonstrates the feasibility of creating computationally optimised custom footwear. \u201cThis shoe was developed based on average data for several runners at a specific range of speeds,\u201d he says, but it theoretically would be possible to put in an individual runner\u2019s data to generate a shoe that meets their specific needs.<\/p>\n The full report of their findings can be found in a\u00a0pre-print article. The study was funded by PUMA and\u00a0Hoogkamer\u2019s UMILL research team has previously received multiple research grants from PUMA and Saucony.\u00a0Laura Healey, another author on the paper, is an employee of PUMA.<\/p>\n The authors declare that PUMA did not have any influence on the views presented in the article.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Puma](\"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Puma-Fast-R.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Puma](\"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Puma-PWRPLATE-750x442.jpg\")
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