SHREVEPORT – Aaron Adams received a prototype weightlifting shoe from a personal friend who was seeking Adams’ input.
Adams, a former weightlifting collegiate national champion and LSUS’s weightlifting coach, could have simply offered his thoughts on the shoe’s structure and composition.
Instead, the manager of the LSUS Human Performance Lab decided to run tests on the shoe and provide the data.
A research and development relationship was born as Tyr, a leader in gym footwear and apparel, trusted the LSUS Human Performance Lab to independently test its new shoe, the CXT-2 Elite Carbon Trainer. The shoe debuted in June.
“Research on weightlifting or crossfit shoes doesn’t really exist,” Adams said. “Cross training is an area where research is more prevalent and, of course, running is the big one.
“But what LSUS was able to provide is an opportunity not to just test the shoes on regular people but on college weightlifters and other college athletes like basketball and soccer players.”
Adams conducted comparative research with other industry market leaders as LSUS athletes and volunteers from the Shreveport weightlifting community completed a battery of tests wearing a variety of shoes.
Those tests included balance testing, running, jumping as well as extensive measurements.
“Balance testing can tell us the limit of stability, meaning how far can you lean forward without falling,” Adams said. “In strength sports, that’s really important because it can tell us how stable a shoe is.
“We tested the carbon fiber insole to see if it actually aids an athlete in jumping. Does it make you jump higher, or does it require less energy to jump the same height? Is a particular movement using forefoot force driven from the heel or the toe?”
The testing results? The CXT-2 Elite Carbon Trainer produced a 29 percent increase in prolonged performance and a 25 percent greater force production.
“For us, the overall improvement is out of this world,” said Corey Berger, Tyr director of marketing, in an interview with the website FN. “If you look at any statistical analysis from a study, you’re not seeing that type of performance improvement coming out of technology, so we were pretty thrilled with the data that came back from those studies.”
Tyr featured some of its own athletes working out in the new shoe at LSUS facilities in a marketing video on the company’s home page.
Adams added that the partnership with Tyr could be just the beginning of research opportunities using the Human Performance Lab.
