European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 6, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Rhion require lacing Hetero s the thing. The variety is phenomenal with shoes for virtually every physical Endeavor known to the human race irom walking to volleyball to Squash the game. No1 . In terms of dollars the Allelic shoe Industry is very big business. Gone Are the Days when a pair at sneakers were $9.95 and National sales were measured in millions of dollars. Most Allelic shoes in he United sales no hover in Price in Ine $30 to $40 Range while Soma of the fancier pairs Cost upwards of $100. Most of the shoes Are mate in the fat East. In 1986. Sales of athletic shoes in the United Stales were about $2.7 billion according to sport Ink a financial newsletter for the sports Industry based in Yardley a. Worldwide the figure was More than $5 Biff on. Thai is a lot of sneakers. Think the  reasons that have caused this Are tied to the til Nass and head la Boom o the last 20 years said Mel Cheskin author of the Complete handbook at athletic footwear a history of die Industry. The people who Wear Iheson shoos Liko to be associated with fitness whether they Are or not. They also recognise the Comfort of Iheson shoes. The traditional shoe Industry does t have Hall of the Comfort features put into these  athletic shoes were True to their name until the 1950s they were found on basketball courts baseball diamonds and football Fields. But in the 1950s, athletic shoes exhibited their first hint of stylish Ness. Pro keds were popular As Well As Converse All slain autographed by Amateur basketball Star Chuck Taylor and affectionately known As  Taylor. Who played for the Buffalo germans and the original new York celtics a precursor of the current Boston franchise was Norm Reading  Converse inc s ambassador to basketball in the 1920s and As its leading Salesman became Friendly Wilh High school and College coaches paving the Way for the Brand to be the shoe of Choice Lor learns. Teenagers wore sneakers to school and the drive in and soon they were mainstream. In the late f960s, he popular but Plain chucks began giving Way to More technically creative and aesthetically pleasing some had stripes training shoes Cheskin credited the live telecasts of the 1968 summer olympics from Mexico cily earlier ones had been Lope delayed with fueling the . Fitness Boom. Then came the running Boom and the rest is footwear history. According to footwear news Itie vast my Jongyol Al Leta shoes perhaps 80 percent Are used for Street Wear nol athletics. You can see just As Many of Nike s air Jor fans hanging out on the Street Corner As in the backcourt. Waste natural Energy of feet work Al Cross purposes to tie Bare loot absorbing Energy and wasting it. The researchers belong to a Loose group of zoologists engineers physiologists and experts in biomechanics who Are putting together a Complex. Picture of How people and animals run a process that proves anything but obvious to energetic terms they find that the Best analogy May be a bouncing Ball. Some of Ham believe that an improved running shoe Wilh soles that were highly elastic instead of just soil amplifying he body s Spring Ness instead of cushioning in could let athletes run Aster than Ever. The soles of running shoes Are not very Good elastic material said r. Mcneill Alexander a zoologist at the University of Leeds in Britain. You squeeze the rubber when your fool hits the ground but you Don t get very much of the Energy Back. With the springy sole that we re advocating. The Energy you use in squashing the running shoe would help to throw you off the ground  manufacturers already engaged in an increasingly research intensive business Are interested but wary. They must also consider factors such As stability and stress on joints. Nevertheless we do need to take into account the elastic characteristics of the foot said Martyn shorten manager of the Nike sports research Laboratory in Beaverton Ore. Nike has gone so far Aslo make prototypes of super resilient running shoes about which shorten preferred to remain silent. But he said mechanical elasticity meant Little in itself. A Concrete Block can be very highly resilient if you drop a steel Ball bearing on it it la give nearly 100 be cell of the Energy Back but it does t make a very Good prototype of a running  he said. In voting up the balance Sheet of Energy used in running biomechanics experts have to consider a variety of components. A runner s Forward mome Lurn is preserved on the whole although some is continuously lust to air resistance Bui most Energy goes into Landing and taking Oil again. Ii none of the Energy absorbed on Impact were returned runners would use twice As much oxygen and twice As much Energy researchers have calculated but muscle tendons particularly the Achilles Tendon in the Back of he Caff Are known to stretch and contract like rubber bands some especially bouncy seeming animals such As kangaroos and Gazelles have tendons that Are longer and even More efficient Alexander recently Lound him sell wondering whether of Toni parts of the Bod might be contributing to in cig storage As Well we treat animals As sort of Pio Blums in engineering he said we had been doing some experiments on animals Leet and we looked Al our own feet Anco said gosh maybe there s Art unsuspected Jpong there " the researches Camcy Oul a program of putting pressure on rods inserted into Leel removed irom corpses. They Lound that the forces of running pushing upward on the Ball of the fool downward on Itie Bones of the leg and upward on the Achilles Tendon flattened he ligaments thai make up he Arch As much As 70 percent 01 the Energy absorbed in i his process is released Wilh each step the remaining 30 percent is wasted As heat. Even a Good running shoe wastes 50 to 80 percent Al each step. Other forms of human locomotion work quite differently including walking. Two scientists Al the University of Milan Giovanni a. Cavagna and Rudolpho Margaria first noted in the 1960s that a Walker uses legs like shits constantly falling Forward. That allows an celtic sent conversion of potential Energy which depends on Gravity. Into kinetic Energy the Energy of motion in research on running the most productive results in the past concerned the mechanics of tracks the great breakthrough in track technology came me years ago Al Harvard University where Thomas a. Mcmahon a professor of applied mechanics helped create the firs tuned track made of Wood lopped by polyurethane. Wilh a Spring Ness carefully matched to the natural resonance of a runner. Mcmarion agreed Edh the Leeds researchers thai the Neil technological improvement should be a Springer running shoe ii seems to be a Niche that needs to be  he said ruining shoes Are gelling boiler and Beller Cury year bul they re arc All made Oul of basically the same plastic and synthetic rubber Loiis. And those Maleu als Are nol particularly distinguished in being Able to return the Energy thai is stored in them " More elastic versions of such materials Are Al Eady feasible the tuned track not Onty improved running limes by 2 percent bul also reduced the number of Oniunes. Researchers Lound in 1980. The new indoor track Al Madison Square Garden was built according to the Harvard design and runners on in quickly broke a succession Al indoor records because such tracks Are already in Silien indoor ii Frieis Fjone Rasy use shoes with deals Lor traction bul a minimum of padding on outdoor surfaces however most runners Lind some padding essential uly 6. 1967 the stars and stripes Page is