Effects of Advanced Footwear Technology in Trail Running Shoes on Running Economy

Joubert, DP and Sanders, J. Effects of advanced footwear technology in trail running shoes on running economy. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000-000, 2026-Advanced footwear technology (AFT) in both road racing shoes and track spikes improves running economy (RE). AFT features are now used in trail running shoes, but the efficacy has not been determined. Our purpose was to measure the effect of AFT trail shoes on RE over trail surfaces. Eight trail runners completed a single outdoor trail running session consisting of 4 × 1,500-m trials at self-selected 50 k race effort wearing both an AFT trail shoe and a control trail shoe with a 5-minute rest between trials. Shoes were tested in a duplicate, mirrored order in either an ABBA or BAAB sequence, counterbalanced across subjects. Oxygen consumption (V̇O2) was measured with a portable metabolic device, and the average values of the final 1000 m of each 1500-m trial were calculated. RE was calculated as V̇O2 expressed as cost of transport (CoT; ml·kg-1·km-1) to normalize for running speed. RE was compared between shoes with a dependent sample t test. There was a significant difference in RE between shoes (p = 0.036, dz = 0.92) with AFT (219.5 ± 15.4 ml·kg-1·km-1) offering a 1.1 ± 1.1% RE benefit relative to control (221.9 ± 16.9 ml·kg-1·km-1). Average running speed across all trials was 11.5 ± 0.7 km·h-1. Although the RE benefit of AFT in trail shoes was significant, it was smaller than RE benefits of AFT previously observed in road racing shoes when tested at faster speeds on a treadmill. Nonetheless, the RE benefits of AFT should result in meaningful performance improvements in trail races.