VICON MOTION CAPTURE GIVES ATHLETES AN EDGE IN SAUCONY SHOES

Over the last decade, academic research has shown runners can make significant performance improvements using advanced footwear technology. Saucony is turning this research into real world gains for its runners.

Saucony’s Lab has eight Vicon Vero cameras and an instrumented treadmill running through Vicon Nexus. The lab also includes markerless motion capture cameras, a metabolic cart, and EMGs that all provide additional insights towards the influence of the shoe on the runner. The metabolic cart measures oxygen consumption, a key tool which enables the team to directly compare the amount of energy used by athletes when they’re running a fixed pace in different shoes.

“Through the experimental technique of metabolic testing, our system’s able to predict how much energy you’re consuming during a given task,” says Allen. “That means you’re able to tell the difference between shoes and how that affects the energy that you’re expending. If you measure a normal marathon shoe that was standard just 10 years ago, compared to super shoes with advanced footwear technology, you actually notice leaps and bounds in reduction of energy costs.”

“We use the Vicon motion capture systems for understanding more of our athletes’ movements as well as the general population in different types of footwear,” says Allen. “If we change something, such as a specific piece of the footwear itself, we are able to see how that alters the movement of the runner.”

“Often we’ll make multiple variations of the same shoe model, whether it’s with a different plate, a different foam, a slightly different geometry, or a different upper fit,” says Lynch. “We’ll then test that in Vicon Nexus, and both objectively and subjectively decide whether one of those models is the best way to go.”

“Testing shoes is really a fun and rewarding process, seeing the changes over time and getting on the treadmill,” says Malindi Elmore, a Saucony athlete heading to Paris in August. You’re trying to understand the nuances between the different shoes and what the small, subtle changes are that could make a big difference over the course of a marathon.”

Vicon Nexus is a crucial part of the team’s workflow—Saucony’s Vicon system is essentially the nervous system of their Human Performance & Innovation Lab.

“The ease of integrating it into other systems, as well as its use for validation of other systems, is essential,” says Allen. “We use our instrumented treadmill every time we run the Vicon cameras. It’s very easy for us to collect forces as well as kinematic data, and we’re able to process all that together to look at not just the movement, but also the forces that created that movement.”

“What all this allows us to do is capture the forces from the treadmill and that, along with the data from the motion capture cameras, means we are able to perform inverse dynamics. Essentially that’s reading the ground reaction force, and it’s able to calculate all the joint contact forces and the joint torques during the movement based on the motion that the Vicon cameras were able to capture, all while being able to collect metabolic data and see which shoes are more efficient for a runner.”

Lynch uses a recent experiment with Malindi Elmore as an example of Saucony’s marker set up. “We’re using a full-body marker set, which is a combination of the Oxford foot model as well as the Plug-in Gait upper-body model. We had her run at 11mph in four different shoes: a baseline shoe, and then three different options. We also had her connected to the metabolic cart to see her metabolic savings in each shoe. Once we gather enough data, we can post-process and analyze the data, perhaps seeing if there are benefits from certain shoes that she’s not getting in others. That’s data she can use, whether in Paris or just in her normal training cycles.”

Allen credits Vicon Support for helping make the lab’s work possible. “The team at Vicon Support has been tremendously helpful to us in making everything go smoother and faster. They’re always able to get on the phone very quickly, usually the same day, and they’re always a tremendous help. They never give up on the issue and they’re always looking for a solution for us,” he says.

Lynch notes that Vicon Nexus helps Saucony maintain its high throughput rate. “My favorite part about the Vicon Nexus system is how easily everything is displayed on the screen, whether it’s the marker set or all the marker options that you have. Also, when you’re reconstructing and analyzing the trials it’s all very seamless and easy.”

The motion capture system was pivotal in one of Saucony’s recent key innovations. “We decided to pivot from our usual stability platform, and we adjusted it to more of a center path technology,” says Lynch. “We did that using the Vicon Nexus system. We discovered that instead of using a plastic medial post in the Guide 17, simply the geometry of the shoe would guide the runner forward, straight and true, whether or not they were pronating inwards, supinating outwards, or continuing to ride straight.”

For all Saucony’s technical innovation, however, one piece of learning comes back again and again. “The biggest thing I learned here is that not every shoe works for everybody,” says Lynch. “We have elite athletes who prefer our more entry-level or mid-range models, and sometimes entry-level runners have much better performances in our elite-level shoes.”

The Human Performance and Innovation Lab aims to support runners at both ends of the spectrum.  “I hope that our lab and Saucony are able to make better products for the entire running community,” says Allen. “We like to call it democratized innovation.”

“Saucony is taking the time to fully understand the product that we create,” adds Lynch. “We are here for everybody, whether you are winning the race or simply trying to get across the finish line or just get through the day. And these shoes were designed and tested with the help of Vicon.”

To see Saucony’s Human Performance and Innovation Lab in action, watch our video case study.