When the most decorated 100-meter sprinter ever stepped to the line for a final time, she told herself what she knew: That she was prepared, powerful, and this race was hers — for her. The next handful of seconds were to honor everything that had brought her to this moment.Green, yellow, and black hair whipping behind her — a self-proclaimed “daughter of the soil,” who chose to wear the colors of her nation’s flag for her final finish —&nbsp;gold-hued nails splayed in front of her, <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-celebrates-shelly-ann-fraser-pryce" target="_blank">Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce</a> exploded off the blocks in the World Athletics Championship final in a capacity-filled Japan National Stadium in Tokyo. She ended her 100-meter career in the same way she began racing 18 years ago in Japan — with fierce speed, strength, and composure. It was a bold tribute to Jamaica, the nation whose unyielding support has carried her through two decades at the top of the sport.In her decades of dominance — from becoming the first Caribbean woman to win Olympic gold in the 100-meters in 2008, to returning as World Champion in 2019 after giving birth to her son, Zyon — Shelly-Ann has embodied the power of duality.&nbsp;The ability to have longevity in track and field’s shortest, most intense discipline; exuding femininity and self-expression in a physically demanding sport; proving motherhood and greatness can coexist.What athletes everywhere, and especially young girls, can take from Shelly-Ann’s lead: The courage to run your own race, on your terms. To trust that setbacks don’t define you, only your response to them. And the assurance that, if you believe in yourself and work with discipline, harmony is possible. Dreams and family, career and legacy.For that, and the now 276 incredible races and finish line moments, thank you, Shelly-Ann.Below, go behind the scenes of the G.O.A.T.’s final meet days in Tokyo.

The shoes. The hair. The finish. At the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Shelly-Ann, a five-time world champion, ended her career her way.

Sofieke van Bilsen is a 29-year-old Dutch photographer with a passion for storytelling through imagery. She is in-house photographer to the German women's national football team, and was team photographer for the German Olympic Team in Paris 2024. She works closely with Nike athletes such as Faith Kipyegon, Eliud Kipchoge and Sifan Hassan.In her photography, she aims to create compelling visual narratives, focusing on the deep connection between emotion and athleticism. She strives to capture the raw moments behind the scenes, the untold stories of the journey,and everything in between, bringing the spirit of sports to life.Sofieke's personality creates instant connections with people, and she is loved by the athletes she works with. Her relaxed and enthusiastic personality complements an incredible skill level and ability to work in high pressure environments for athletes.

Sofieke van Bilsen

Photo Essay

Icon Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Ran Her Final 100 Meter On Her Terms

Over the course of his career, LeBron James has shared his passion for the game globally, partnering with Nike to travel throughout Greater China during his offseason, galvanizing a nation in its love for basketball and hoops culture. Just as LeBron’s career has evolved through different eras, his tours have represented different values over the many times he's visited since 2005. Below are some of his most memorable moments in the country.

2005-2009

LeBron began his debut tour in Beijing in August of 2005. He was invited to watch the awards ceremony of the Nike Battlegrounds tournament, but he’d depart as more than just a spectator. From the moment he stepped down in China, he believed his tour could become a cross-cultural exchange rooted in a shared love of hoops and a mission to inspire the next generation of young players in China. “Basketball is not only a sport, it's also a bridge that connects people," he said.&nbsp;“This is a great learning experience for everyone. I hope I can continue to help grow the game globally and inspire the youth in China to reach their dreams."

LeBron's legacy in China is woven into special China-specific iterations of his signature footwear. In 2007, LeBron James appeared alongside NIKE, Inc.'s then-President &amp; CEO Mark Parker to debut his Nike Zoom LeBron V "China" colorway.

LeBron returned to Beijing in 2009 after his MVP season where he enjoyed a hero's welcome. As part of his trip, he donated equipment and provided scholarships for the Zhenhua School, a school for the children of migrant workers in suburban Beijing.

To celebrate his season, LeBron was presented with an exclusive pair of the Nike Air Max LeBron VII, featuring a Shenyang-inspired design dubbed “Loyalty” created by the local artist Ray Lei, and a Shanghai-inspired design dubbed “Family,” created by the local artist Sic.

2011-2015

LeBron embraced his role as a global ambassador for the game, focusing on the opportunity to inspire China’s young players. In 2011, his tour expanded to eight days over four cities, promoting grassroots basketball through a series of skill clinics and tournaments.

In 2012, with a fresh gold medal to pair with his championship ring, LeBron James made a triumphant arrival in Beijing to kick off a four-day tour as part of the&nbsp;Find Your Greatness campaign. "Greatness is defined by how much you want to put into what you do," said LeBron. "Greatness comes with victory. It also comes with being able to come back from adversity."

In 2013, LeBron returned to China with plenty to celebrate: his second straight NBA championship and MVP awards for both the regular season and the Finals.

In 2014, LeBron James was the first mentor to announce the roster for the Nike RISE, designed to help players raise their competitive game and improve their skill.

In 2015, Nike RISE 2015 evolved with LED Courts and motion-tracking drills to create a pinnacle training experience, teach the fundamentals of basketball and push the boundaries of sports training.

An emotional finale saw four players chosen to represent China at the World Streetball Championships.

2016-2019

After winning another NBA title in 2016, LeBron entered Guangzhou to a massive championship parade, the streets flanked by tens of thousands of fans, many of them in Cavs #23 jerseys. It was a signal for just how widely James’ legacy had expanded throughout Asia.&nbsp;His More Than an Athlete campaign inspired young players to see basketball as one of many tools for affecting social change.

After a warm welcome from thousands of fans, he spent most of his time in Beijing working out with and coaching members of the Chinese Junior National basketball team.

Visiting primary schools throughout Beijing, LeBron shared his personal basketball experiences with young athletes, emphasizing the role that hard work, dedication and self-belief played in his path to success.

In 2018, the first day of his "More Than an Athlete" tour in Shanghai began with a panel discussion with students at the Shanghai Theatre&nbsp;Academy, and ended with a park shootaround. Hundreds of fans gathered outside the court to watch him play, hoping to catch a glimpse of the icon.

This month, LeBron flew to China for his "Forever King" tour, his 15th in the country and marking the 20th anniversary of tours in Asia. There, he joined some of the world’s most passionate hoopers and basketball fans, reiterating his commitment to giving back to the game across the world.

Over the course of his career, LeBron James has shared his passion for the game globally, partnering with Nike to travel throughout Greater China during his offseason, galvanizing a nation in its love for basketball and hoops culture.

Journey of an Icon: 20 Years of LeBron James in China

Hours of powering up steep ascents and navigating gnarly descents. Whipping mountain winds, glaring direct sun and biting evening temps. Getting mentally right with the fact that the next aid station is far, far away. Ultra trail running can sound like a grueling, relentless sport reserved for the wildest, most hardcore athletes among us.According to our <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-acg-all-conditions-racing-department" target="_blank">All Conditions Racing Department</a> runners — six of whom just conquered pinnacle UTMB races across the French, Italian and Swiss Alps, on trails spanning 15 to 174 kilometers, with elevation gains of 1,200 to nearly 10,000 meters — the grit, determination, joy and freedom trail running gives you is worth every ounce of work. See for yourself.

<h3>ROSS GOLLAN</h3>Race: ETC; 15km with 1,200m elevation gain Global finish rank: 29th

<h3>MARIE NIVET</h3>Race: Experience Trail Courmayeur (ETC); 15km with 1,200m elevation gain Global women’s finish rank: 7th

CESARE MAESTRIRace: ETC; 15km with 1,200m elevation gain Global finish rank: 2nd

<h3>BAPTISTE COATANTIEC</h3>Race: Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB); 174km with nearly 10,000m elevation gain Global finish rank: 11th

<h3>ANTHONY COSTALES</h3>Race: Courmayeur – Champex – Chamonix (CCC); 101km with more than 6,050m elevation gain Global finish rank: 15th

<h3>DREW HOLMEN</h3>Race: CCC; 101km with more than 6,050m elevation gain Global finish rank: 3rd

Powering up steep ascents. Navigating gnarly descents. Whipping mountain winds. Ultra trail running is a relentless sport. But the payoff is well worth the grind.

Ultra Trail Running Can Take Everything You’ve Got — and Give You Even More

NExt volume

Davis Jones is a Nike innovation, design and product editor. His areas of interest include sport science, performance product design and the history of sport.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Born and raised in Oregon, Davis attended the University of San Diego. Upon graduating, he worked as an editorial intern for Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He was a writer and editor for Surfer magazine before returning to the Pacific Northwest to work for Nike in 2018.&nbsp;

Davis Jones

John Shiel photographs the truth of Innovation—unpolished, intimate and in progress. He explores the choreography of art, science, and athletes, documenting an honest record of Nike Innovation’s inner life, covering the rebels, dreamers, and makers who are forging the future of sport.He leads the Creative Studio in Nike Innovation, tracking the next frontier of Innovation stories that have the power to inspire athletes everywhere.

John Shiel

In July of 2026, more than 10 hours into her race, ultra runner and ACG pro <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/trail-runner-yao-miao-is-running-down-new-goals-with-acg" target="_blank">Yao Miao</a> hit the final wall. Specifically, the eleventh and penultimate section of Camins d’Hèr, a 68-mile ultra race in Spain’s Pyrenees mountain range, which passes through the small localities of Arties to Escunhau, a distance of about 5 kilometers. The stretch is a grueling, exposed vertical climb that squeezes every last drop of mental fortitude out of a runner before they tackle the remaining 8 kilometers to the finish. Even the fittest athletes reliably bonk when they reach it.For Miao, the wall was simply one more obstacle to climb. She’d later cross the finish line, fist raised in the air, completing the race in 13:04:34, the course’s fastest-ever time in the women’s field. Yao Miao is one of the most accomplished racers of her generation. She’s one of only six runners worldwide to win two different UTMB finals events. But she also had a secret tool in her race prep: insights from the Nike Innovation Farm Team, an 18-strong ultra runner cohort who trained in a four-month residency at the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-sport-research-lab-environmental-chambers" target="_blank">Nike Sport Research Lab</a> (NSRL) in Beaverton, Oregon.

A Nike team of applied physiologists combined the data from Miao’s springtime visit to the NSRL with a four-hour resilience run done by the Farm Team and crunched the numbers through a predictive model to map out the pace that would land her in a hypothetical finish window. They shared the formula with Miao in the weeks before Camins d’Hèr. The team estimated she'd finish between 12:37 and 13:44, and to put ink on a specific number, 13:09. She’d cross the arch in Vielha within five minutes of that prediction.Thanks in large part to the data from the Farm Team, there was less guesswork to the milestones Miao needed to hit. The group acted like a roster of teammates in her corner, bringing a sharper clarity to her plan.

And that was the whole point. The 15-week Nike Innovation Farm Team, which kicked off in April at Nike’s Philip H. Knight Campus, was created to help Nike innovators uncover the levers behind ultra-endurance running.The science of endurance performance under two hours is fairly well understood. The longer a runner goes, however, the less we know about what causes some to succeed and others to crumble. The standard factors of endurance performance become more dynamic, and unpredictable, especially in ultra-distance mountain running. The distances are outrageous. The terrain shape-shifts in a flash, covering high-altitude climbs and steep descents. There’s a mix of unforgiving surfaces, and the weather can change rapidly. What’s more, a race can last for days, and it’s largely a solo endeavor. You’re likely to be running by yourself for extended periods of time, sometimes for hours. The opportunities for a scientist to intervene naturally and observe how the runner’s body is negotiating the work are few.

What the Farm Team gave Nike researchers was a rare 15-week window to dig into all aspects of the sport and, maybe most important, its elusive performance enhancer: resilience.“In a race, everyone slows down over 13 hours,” says Brett Kirby, PhD, Senior Principal Scientist of Applied Performance Innovation in the Nike Sport Research Lab. “The winner is the one who slows down the least. In other words, the most resilient runner wins. We wanted to study resilience in three main ways: physiologically, biomechanically and psychologically.”With the Farm Team, NSRL scientists wanted to create a realistic, uninterrupted environment to gather enough data to better understand this resilience. The bonus was that the outcomes of their studies should help all runners dial in their training. This could be picking the right program (e.g., what could help you blast through an uphill sprint in hour eight of a race), or the right product to wear for a race course. This scientific foundation for new product solutions extends beyond the pros too, and can help any runner who hits the wall of the mountain and wants to break through.

Nike’s vast backyard in the Pacific Northwest became the Farm Team’s research center. They were embedded in the NSRL and set free in the surrounding Portland area, including the sprawling Forest Park trails and the stunning routes in the Columbia River Gorge.&nbsp;“Time under effort is the variable that makes or breaks an ultra runner’s race,” says Brad Winn, Lead Researcher of Applied Innovation, who served as the program’s head coach over the 15-week protocol. “Time is also the critical piece on the research side. We wanted to spend as much of it with these athletes as possible.”

The program’s name came from two places. One borrows from the farm team concept popular in sports like baseball, where a farm team serves as an important talent pipeline for a franchise. The other comes from one of Nike’s foundational employees, Jeff Johnson. In the mid ’90s, he and Stanford track coach Vin Lananna co-founded the esteemed sub-elite distance-running track team, in many ways a precursor to today’s track clubs. Both inspirations draw from the same purpose: to explore how a dedicated pipeline can, through athlete talent and the exploration of their potential, improve a larger community.There were 18 spots, nine men and nine women, up for grabs on the Farm Team’s roster, and runners applied online beginning in March 2026. Criteria for the program was strict. Selected runners needed to complete all 15 weeks of training, and have the ability to run up to four hours at a sub-elite pace. Nike Innovation received thousands of applications, and had the daunting task of selecting the handful who would be invited to relocate full-time to Beaverton.

The residency’s embedded nature was undoubtedly a challenge. “Moving away for four months has been difficult, on top of working a full-time job," says Alec Hewett, a Farm Team runner who works as a Senior Manager of National Teams at USA Triathlon and is in his first year of marriage. "But the sacrifices were still a no-brainer for me and my wife. Having full support from her and from my job has been awesome.”The 18 runners were divided into two cohorts, each focusing on a different training protocol over 10 weeks. One was a concentric-dominant, more traditional uphill program (concentric refers to the shortening of the muscle under force). The other was an eccentric-dominant program, or one that focused on the lengthening of the muscle under force, translating into downhill workouts. In addition to run-specific workouts, both groups applied their concentric or eccentric focus to assigned strength training workouts. The eccentric groups, for example, would do lifts like descending lunges, paying close attention to the lowering of the weights, whereas the concentric group did a contrasting lift, like a weighted step-up.&nbsp;

The team was given a full array of Nike’s diagnostic tools in the NSRL to help scientists better grasp what was happening under the hood of each runner. For example, every runner’s gait was analyzed through <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-nsrl-form" target="_blank">Nike Form</a>, an algorithmic tool developed in-house by the NSRL to study a runner’s unique biomechanics. Through this data, scientists could study the athletes’ mechanics during long runs, how training impacted their mechanics over the course of the study, how their body interacted with footwear over time, and how race simulations impacted fatigue. After 10 weeks of training, each baseline test was measured again, charting how runners progressed their fitness according to their program.&nbsp;The Farm Team played an important role in testing some of the latest breakthroughs coming out of Nike Innovation, like the recently announced Picklejus, the new ACG model with a cushioning system optimized for big-mountain racing. The roster tested the shoes in the lab, trialing Picklejus during a challenging four-hour treadmill test with changes in both speed and gradient to simulate mountain-like terrain.The team’s comments on the shoe and, specifically, their ability to describe in clear terms what they needed to feel from it helped show what was working well. For example, many runners voiced a need for protective stability without sacrificing snappiness for uphill surges. The Farm Team also tested apparel prototypes that ACG pros like Miao wore for her Camins d’Hèr race.With a trove of scientific data over the 15-week residency (the Nike Form sessions alone gathered some 13 gigabytes of data per runner) the insights move in all directions. They travel down to the general product level and move up to ACG’s roster of pros, who are wringing every possible advantage out of their pre-race training, race-day strategy and post-race recovery.&nbsp;Take Caleb Olson. In October 2025, the NSRL Applied Performance Innovation teammates met with the Western States 100 winner for a mini camp in the desert of St. George, Utah, talking about his typical training and how he’s preparing for UTMB. That exchange cued unanswered questions in trail running, especially the power of downhill running. Olson asked how he could run downhills at full effort rather than conserving energy for the last descent. That question was an impetus for Nike Innovation Farm Team training: to build a training regime that could fortify Olson's body. Nike Innovation teammates created Nike products that would give him an edge — the same products tested at length by the Farm Team cohort.

“Lab data doesn’t win races,” says Kirby. “Conversations do. The data doesn’t mean anything if we can’t connect it to meaningful relationships with our athletes.”The Farm Team program wrapped in late July. Nike scientists now have their own mountain to climb in sorting through the data, and some intriguing results are bubbling up. One of them, says Kirby, is the improvement in physiological, biomechanical and psychological testing in the eccentric training group, which doesn’t resemble a traditional, blue-chip fitness program. On the mega ramp outside the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/lebron-james-innovation-center-nike-sport-research-lab" target="_blank">LeBron James Innovation Center</a>, while the runners completed punishing repeats, some of them assigned to the downhill regimen barely felt like they were breaking a sweat. This gives credibility to a convention-bucking point in the world of training: Eccentric tolerance is a training variable that must be worked into your plan.While the study’s conclusions are ongoing, the takeways are immediate. And that brings us back to Yao Miao, Camins d’Hèr and the wall.

The morning Miao began the race, she had a dedicated physiological cheat sheet at her fingertips, translated into pacing charts by the second over the technical course. It was like a menu at each stop describing which interventions to take, like whether to apply sunscreen, what fuel to eat and why, as well as researched recommendations for what product to wear. This data-backed advice came from Farm Team insights.Miao hit the cooling station at the eleventh stage. The Nike Innovation team had prescribed options: an ice bandana, cold water to pour over her head, salt tablets. They also created a cue card for her technique to help her efficiently scale the ascent: “Head down, shortest stride, poles fully engaged.” Included on that card was a concise summary of the plan to finish the race. It summed up in 27 words what Miao was feeling after more than 10 hours of peak physical exhaustion: “Final Wall. 57 minutes. Heart rate will be 96% the whole time, that IS the plan. You will feel awful, everyone does. From the top, only 8km remain.” Nobody knows exactly what will happen during the twists and turns of an ultra race. But thanks to residency programs like the Farm Team, there’s less mystery in knowing what makes an ultra runner tick.&nbsp;“The people who know athletes best are the ones who spend the most time with them — it’s that simple,” says Winn. “There’s no better way to do that than bringing them here to our house, inviting them in, and doing everything we can to support them.”

See how athlete insights from the new residency program help create better products for every ultra runner.

Innovation

Trail Running

How the Nike Innovation Farm Team Is Pushing the Science of Ultra Running

About Nike - Stories from Inside NIKE, Inc.

Words: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/rachel-cavanaugh-contributing-writer" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Rachel Cavanaugh</a> Images: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/dan-vernon-contributing-photographer" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Dan Vernon</a> and <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/company/people/sofieke-van-bilsen-contributing-photographer" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">Sofieke van Bilsen</a>

The boldest ideas don’t begin with guarantees. They begin with a dream — and an audacious commitment to make it real. That’s exactly how Nike FlyWeb, the company’s newest performance material, came to life. The first-of-its-kind 3D-printing innovation was born through years of experimentation and a resolve to do what had never been done before.&nbsp;Nike FlyWeb represents a radical shift in how performance apparel is made and what it can feel like.Unlike traditional athletic apparel, which is typically knit or woven from yarn, FlyWeb is made from TPU — a soft, pliable polymer — and 3D-printed to form the desired product.&nbsp;Three-dimensional printing is nothing new for the footwear industry or Nike. This is, however, the first time Nike has applied the manufacturing method to high-performance sports apparel for an athlete, says Janett Nichol, Nike VP of Innovation.&nbsp;

Creating Nike FlyWeb

“What works on a shoe doesn’t just translate to something you wear on your body,” she explains. “It took years of re-engineering — not just the materials but the design approach itself — to make FlyWeb feel soft, breathable and beautiful enough for apparel.”The first product Nike design teams chose to tackle in the new material? One that hasn’t changed in material form since its inception: the bra.The Nike FlyWeb bra is an ode to minimalism. The FlyWeb material is one single, seamless layer, built through computational design so that Nike designers could control the fit and support down to the millimeter, adjusting density, airflow and stretch across different zones of the garment.“We had to re-engineer everything — dismantling what we knew, then putting it back together — to make it wearable next to skin,” says Nichol.

The result is something athletes have never felt before. The Nike FlyWeb bra doesn’t just reduce bulk or manage moisture more efficiently. It creates an entire sensory shift. For women athletes, it eliminates the multi-layer barrier found in most sports bras, unlocking airflow and comfort in ways traditional construction simply can’t.“It’s soft. It’s light — so light, it feels like you’re not wearing anything at all,” adds Nichol. “That’s the No. 1 thing testers tell us: It disappears on your body yet somehow delivers incredible support.”That support doesn’t come from compression or layering but rather from the structure itself: The computationally-designed pattern is specifically engineered to be denser in areas that need more containment.

Nike FlyWeb fluidly engages when the athlete moves, creating responsive athletic support without relying on seams, straps or extra material. That means pure freedom of movement.“You can actually feel the air on your chest,” says Nichol. “Most women have never experienced that while running. We don’t even think about it because it’s just not something we’ve ever expected to feel.”On June 26 in Paris, Faith Kipyegon will attempt to become the first woman in history to break the 4-minute mile, an effort that’s been dubbed “Breaking4.” And as she takes to the track for the legacy-defining attempt, she’ll be wearing a one-of-one sports bra made from the breakthrough material.

Nike FlyWeb material will debut during Faith Kipyegon's historic attempt to break the 4-minute mile.

Because of its light, breathable design, Faith's Nike FlyWeb Bra will help her body stay cooler during her all-out sprint.

Faith's FlyWeb Bra has a gossamer-soft hand feel and weight that's barely there.

It was her ambition — and the scale of that goal — that helped push Nike FlyWeb from bra prototype to bespoke product.“Everyone was a thought partner; we really put our heads together,” says Lisa Gibson, Senior Product Manager, Apparel Innovation. “And when you have a team working in synergy, believing in Faith and this moment, that’s when things start to magically unlock. It’s that Nike magic.”

FlyWeb’s debut isn’t only a material milestone. It’s the start of a new era in how performance apparel is made.What began as a moonshot of its own — an experiment to reimagine how we think about apparel — quickly accelerated into a breakthrough once Kipyegon’s goal came into view.&nbsp;“We knew that it was an opportunity for us to look at what we had in our arsenal and what we could really use to help her break this goal,” says Nichol. “We realized a gift had been dropped in our laps, and it was up to us to rise to the moment.”Now&nbsp;that the material is here, its potential is beginning to unfold.&nbsp;"We’re just scratching the surface," says Nichol. "This is a true unlock, not just for bras but for how we design and build high-performance apparel going forward. It opens the door to entirely new ideas for how athletes experience sport through what they wear."

Featherweight, soft and breathable, Nike FlyWeb — a first-of-its-kind 3D-printing innovation — is a sports apparel material like no other.

Feature

The Future of Performance Apparel Is Here

Basketball is a nuanced game of human movement. At the LeBron James Basketball Court, Nike scientists use an advanced blend of methods to study it.<h3>What It Is</h3>The LeBron James Basketball Court is a FIBA regulation-size basketball court housed in the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL), on the fourth floor of the LeBron James Innovation Center.&nbsp;Every aspect of the building is enormous in scope, and the capabilities of his basketball court, located in a lab that has more than 80,000 square feet of data-collection space, is no exception. Nestled inside the largest sport-focused force plate and motion-capture installation in the world, the LeBron James Basketball Court sets the gold standard for gathering basketball data.

NSRL Basketball Court Jumping 1

Underneath the hardwood sit 11 force plates arranged at key spots on the floor, like around the three-point line and inside the key. The plates measure an incredible volume of data, at a frequency of 2,500 contact force data points a second. The plates are so sensitive that they can pick up an athlete’s heartbeat. All of the force plates are mounted on a subfloor disconnected from the surrounding floor so that they do not pick up footfalls from across the court.&nbsp;With the court, scientists can observe from the ground up how athletes interact with footwear. Using a special version of the ground reaction force plate with a translucent window flush with the hardwood, scientists shine a special LED light through the surface of the window, allowing them to observe on camera how a shoe’s traction pattern responds during certain movements. Scientists can also translate the high-res video through light-intensity imaging software to quantify areas of highest contact on a shoe’s outsole; this can influence design details, like the traction pattern itself, the rubber compound and even the midsole composition.&nbsp;

No other basketball court has the same motion-capture capabilities as this one. Researchers fit athletes with markers across their bodies to enable high-fidelity capture of minute changes in athlete movements, interpreted through advanced software. High-speed video from the many cameras suspended by the court’s outer rigging can break down the ways a player dribbles, pivots, sprints and slides. Meanwhile, physiological data, like a player’s oxygen consumption and heart rate, can be recorded in real time through wearable devices.&nbsp;

NSRL Basketball Court Cutting 2

<h3>What It Helps Us Do</h3>If a basketball product is to be measured objectively, it should be done by how it influences a player’s movement. No surprise, this is best seen in a real, unrestricted game. Last winter, the lab concluded its first season of the NSRL Basketball League, a women’s evening tournament featuring four squads with teammates recruited from both inside and outside of Nike. All players competed either collegiately or professionally. The games are a full four quarters, on a full court, with a team of referees. The rules are as core as you’d expect from any basketball scrimmage. What’s different about this league is how the NSRL’s tools are seamlessly integrated into the gameplay. For example, motion software depicts the common paths that players take by position, from a perimeter-oriented guard to a big who protects the paint. It’s through tools like these that scientists can measure whether a player is moving with more speed or agility based on the shoes they are wearing. Heart rate monitors can help researchers understand whether a shoe can mitigate fatigue throughout a game.&nbsp;

The ingenuity of the league stems from a challenge inherent to the sport: Basketball movement is complicated. Its style is not as linear as other sports. Basketball is like jazz, filled with unexpected changes of direction, speed and rhythm. A research setting for basketball has to include enough features to allow players to cut loose, break outside of a contrived environment, and play as they would naturally, in addition to controlled protocols that break down all the variables of the complex sport. That’s why the LeBron James Basketball Court, as a research facility, is as nuanced as the sport itself.

NSRL Basketball Court Drone 1

Nestled inside the largest sport-focused force plate and motion-capture installation in the world, the high-tech court helps scientists study players in an unrestricted environment.

Sport Science

Next Level

The LeBron James Basketball Court

What would the back of your athlete trading card say? That’s what Nike’s Baseline testing is for: A way for all athletes to understand their physical tools.What It DoesNike's Baseline testing, made up of five assessments, is as foundational as it sounds. The assessments are borrowed from the worlds of biomechanics, physical therapy and exercise science, and can be completed in a matter of minutes: a 3D body scan, a foot scan, a barefoot pressure test, an ankle range of motion test and countermovement jumps. In many ways, Baseline is the most ubiquitous tool that the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL) offers. Every professional athlete who visits the NSRL has the option of doing the testing, no matter their itinerary. But that doesn't mean it's a resource exclusive to a precious few. Baseline is the one test series in the NSRL that's also open to every Nike employee.Considered together, the test results form the baseline of a person’s athletic profile — how powerful they are, how mobile they are, how explosive they are, and other traits. Knowing these attributes gives Nike researchers, scientists and designers a clearer picture of how to serve an athlete's needs.

Baseline helps provide foundational knowledge of an athlete’s body, connecting anatomical structure, foot and lower body mechanics, and functional movement.

The three-dimensional foot scale measures foot shape during normal standing. The reported sizing can be a starting point for shoe or product fit.

Barefoot walking helps asses areas of high and low pressure underfoot. Seeing these areas of elevated pressure can help uncover an athlete’s gait pattern.

Range of motion in the ankles and the toes, tested in different directions, can help determine joint function.

Performance jumps can be an indication of lower body strength, power and asymmetry.

Data from Baseline testing go beyond describing an athlete's current state. It can also shed light on an athlete's past, like what sport they played or what injuries they sustained.

What It Helps Us DoJackie Shea, Baseline Operator, Innovation, says Nike researchers selected each of the&nbsp;Baseline tests to set an experiential, diagnostic tone for every athlete interaction within the NSRL. Before the opening of the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/inside-the-nike-sports-research-lab-lebron-james-innovation-center" target="null">LeBron James Innovation Center</a> in October 2021, athlete engagement in the lab was largely reserved for testing footwear and apparel prototypes. There’s nothing wrong with that, says Shea, a former D1 athlete who studied kinesiology and exercise science. But that process largely treats the athlete as a test pilot secondary to the vehicle — the product — they are steering. “We wanted Baseline to help bring athletes to the center of the lab, distinct from product,” she says.&nbsp;Through their Baseline results, athletes can see nuances in their athletic profile. Are you geared toward slower endurance or more explosive power? Your vertical jump results might point you toward an answer. Does your anatomy from the 3D body scan suggest you have any imbalances in your proportions? These results are valuable to athletes for their own sake. You don’t need to test a product to gain a better awareness of your own body.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

After guiding more than 4,000 athletes through Baseline, Shea has learned to spot trends in physical profiles among different sports while offering remedies via other Nike tools. For example, runners tend to have weak posterior strength, so in their back, glutes and hamstrings. They stand the most to gain from consistent weight training, provided in the hundreds of workouts from the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.nike.com/ntc-app" target="_blank">Nike Training Club App</a>. Athletes who play lateral sports, like basketball, tend to have limited mobility, so a Nike yoga class at a nearby store might be just what they need to balance out.Key to Shea’s job is a fair amount of myth-busting when discussing test results. An athlete might comment on how running hurts their knees, but when they test their ankle mobility, the athlete grimaces, looking stiff as a board. They test their gait on <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-nsrl-form" target="_blank">NSRL Form</a> — a recent addition to the test lineup — and are clearly overstriding. With each step, most of their force is displaced through their knees and their back instead of transferred evenly through their body. Running doesn’t hurt their knees, the way they run hurts their knees. Baseline results help give athletes a course of action for what troubles them the most.&nbsp;

Baseline does play a role in ensuring that Nike researchers test products efficiently and orient them toward real solutions. For example, Baseline results are a common way for NSRL researchers to recruit for new studies. An athlete with strong results in explosive vertical jumping power is an ideal fit for a future basketball jumping study that tests a new hoops silhouette. A distance runner, on the other hand, might find a steady-state treadmill run in the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-sport-research-lab-environmental-chambers" target="_blank">climate chambers</a> a better match, which in turn can help scientists evaluate the latest sweat-wicking material innovations like <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-aero-fit-official-images" target="null">Aero-FIT</a>. As more and more athletes do Baseline, the lab’s research specificity gets sharper and sharper. The same is true for product development.&nbsp;That process is ongoing. A Baseline evaluation is never the end of the story. It’s the beginning of a conversation.&nbsp;“Baseline creates relationships with athletes that aren’t passive, but active,” says Shea. “The conversations between athletes and their test results are in a constant cycle with each other. One of my favorite parts in this job is getting to ask follow-up questions. You’re showing some imbalance between your left leg power and your right leg. Did you have some kind of injury to your leg early on? Tell me more. There’s always more to every athlete’s story.”

What would the back of your athlete trading card say? That’s what the Nike Sport Research Lab's Baseline testing is for: A way for all athletes to understand their physical tools.

The NSRL Baseline Testing

This game is beautiful, and even more so when it’s broken down into its fundamental parts. The Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL) Football Pitch is where scientists take the game into the future.&nbsp;What it is Under the crossbar, a soccer ball soars to the back of the net. The footballer who kicked it is covered in reflective motion capture markers across their lower body. A group of biomechanics researchers stand nearby, collecting data from their command center. With the motion capture system, the researchers are measuring the velocity of the player’s kick, the force they’re exerting into the ground, and the exact coordinates of where the ball lands inside the goal.&nbsp;This pitch is inside the NSRL, a worldclass sport science facility on the 4th&nbsp;floor of the LeBron James Innovation Center. At 8,600 square feet, the pitch is one of the most advanced football spaces in the sport. The artificial turf surface, used in many professional stadiums, is embedded with force plates. Motion capture cameras strung across rigging, timing gates that are set underneath different zones of the pitch, high-speed video, and shot tracking are all tools used by the research team. Together, they allow researchers to better understand what footballers need to help them perform.

Sophia Wilson NSRL Testing Loop 1

What it helps us do Those who love football will tell you it’s unlike any other game in the world. Joe Helseth, NSRL Principal Researcher, says that feeling holds true even when the sport is put through a biomechanical filter.Football is an extremely complex and fluid game, he says. The physical demands on the player are immense. Throughout a match there are rapid changes of direction, bursts of accelerations and decelerations, and sustained periods of moderate intensity movements. Players also must be able to manipulate and strike the ball with power and precision. Products need to be designed to meet those various demands of the game.&nbsp;

That’s why the NSRL has audacious goals that are meant to take the game’s players into the future. For example, the Phantom Luna boot, released in 2023, was the result of years of research on the NSRL pitch which helped Nike scientists and engineers create Cyclone 360, a circular cleat pattern designed to reduce the rotational traction between the boot and the surface, which is believed to be related to the risk of knee injuries. This study of traction has its roots in the lab, but it has since reverberated outside the walls of the NSRL and into Nike’s bigger commitment to help players stay in the game. In April, Nike’s New York City Headquarters hosted the launch event of Project ACL, a joint 3-year research study between Nike, FIFPRO, Leeds Beckett University and the NWSL, with a goal to better understand how to reduce ACL tears among female footballers.&nbsp;Moving this grade of research forward starts and ends with the boot. Understanding how a football boot performs largely comes down to three qualities: fit (comfort), ride (underfoot technology) and traction. The cutting-edge tools on the NSRL pitch allow researchers to break down these variables. For example, force plates can reveal the amount of force a player is putting into the ground while sharply cutting, providing insight into how players use the available traction provided by a new stud orientation. Timing gates, combined with motion capture during an agility drill, clock how a player sprints through zones, and exactly where they may be gaining or losing ground.

This year’s Mercurial Superfly, seen on pitch during this summer’s tournament, was tested in the lab to harness the full power of Zoom Air for the footballer (2022 marked the first time that football-specific Zoom Air appeared in a Mercurial). Incorporating Zoom Air into a boot can’t just be done on a whim; the team studied the right shape, placement and volume to act on the athlete during push-off.&nbsp;How can Zoom Air work harmoniously with the sport’s movements&nbsp;and&nbsp;the variety of playing surfaces so players can hit their top-end speed?&nbsp;Throughout the innovation process, designers and developers worked with researchers in the NSRL to evaluate the functionality of various Mercurial prototypes. Researchers examined how different Zoom Air units influence the way players move on the pitch. This can be studied through tests that measure metabolic power, sprinting performance, and lower extremity biomechanics using those precise tools on, above and surrounding the pitch. After years of prototyping, the Mercurial Superfly coming to the pitch for this summer’s tournament landed on an 8mm bag, tuned to provide energy return to a player at the moment they need it most. It helps give the feeling of kickback that players need at a full sprint.&nbsp;“Ultimately, the boot is a tool for footballers to wield,” says Helseth. “Our research process is an important component of how we develop boots. “Utilizing the data we can capture and the expertise of our researchers, we can guide development through an objective lens. That allows us to make systems that take human performance somewhere new.”<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/topics/nike-football-2026" target="_blank">See more of our Universe of Nike Football.</a>

Marcus Rashford NSRL Testing 1

This game is beautiful, and even more so when it’s broken down into its data-driven parts.

Welcome to the Most High-Tech Space in Football: The NSRL Pitch

Less than 400 meters from the Santa Monica coastline, curious runners lined the corner of a vacated parking lot. It was February of 2022. Blaise Williams, PhD, MPT, remembers the conditions well. He was ushering runners who were competing in a Redondo Beach 10K race through a pop-up experience of <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.nike.com/nike-sport-research-lab-form" target="_blank">NSRL Form</a>, the Nike Sport Research Lab’s newest movement-analysis tool, which was still in beta testing. Williams, a Principal Sport Scientist in the NSRL, had brought his team to gauge interest among the participating runners.&nbsp;To the naked eye, the testing area featured a tent, a treadmill and 10 high-speed cameras mounted onto struts. But the reality was much more rigorous, culminating years of professional research inside and outside the lab. The cameras tracked an athlete’s biomechanical gait as they jogged for two minutes on the treadmill. Afterward, they’d receive a one-on-one consultation and a customized head-to-toe report on their movement pattern once it was fed through an NSRL-generated algorithm. The report was supplemented with running form suggestions, salient NTC workouts, and shoe recommendations based on the runner’s current profile to help them achieve their goals.That day, things were not going to plan. The computer monitors tracking the data inputs were fizzling out in the sun. The cameras were overheating. Later that night, Williams and the team would stay up until 3 a.m. trying to help bulletproof the equipment against the mid-afternoon heat for the following day’s testing. They woke up that morning exhausted, struggling to keep their eyes open, which made the sight in front of them that much more remarkable: a line of runners trailing outside the tent, ready to get in on this first-of-its-kind feedback tool.&nbsp;The moment sealed the notion that NSRL Form was a tool athletes wanted, says Williams. “Even though everything seemed to go wrong, to see that kind of curiosity from runners — we knew we were onto something.”

Williams began putting pen to paper on NSRL Form three years ago, though he had been ruminating on the idea of such a tool for years. Prior to Nike, Williams’ two decades of experience as a physical therapist and biomechanist had taught him that runners craved more self-awareness of how they moved, be it for enhancing performance, preventing injury or even knowing where to start. But actually being more self-aware of their movement was almost like telling a person to evaluate themselves brushing their teeth. It was difficult to be in a state of reflection with such a natural act.Someone else — or something else — needed to be in the room, another pair of eyes to help athletes see themselves move. Moreover, the process for evaluating the runner needed to be scientific. It couldn’t be like a typical gait analysis that you get at a running boutique store, which is usually based on footage of a runner taken below the shin and then analyzed by a store employee who may or may not have any professional experience in biomechanics.&nbsp;The employee would then funnel you toward a shoe to purchase based on your foot shape and your video footage.Instead, the analysis had to be more rigorous, more comprehensive. If NSRL Form was to succeed, it had to be specific to every runner, bringing a depth of insight that observed and interpreted the unique ways in which every runner moves through their world. No runner is alike. Neither is their running profile, nor their opportunities for improvement, nor their prescription to reach their goals. Every piece of data from NSRL Form had to come together to reveal, in effect, a runner’s biomechanical fingerprint.“Nike has the unique ability to know the whole athlete. NSRL Form is expansive. The tools we develop study the entire human body as one complete unit,” says Kathleen Poe, Sr. Director of Field Services, NSRL. “That means every human body, not just an elite athlete’s. With a tool like this, we can bring the insights of the NSRL outside of our walls, to all athletes.”

Williams (pictured), Poe and a team of researchers in the NSRL imagined the method that NSRL Form would take: Cameras mounted around a treadmill would analyze a runner’s movement, and then an algorithm created by Nike’s data scientists would use the footage to create a score across different movement variables, like how much your body bounces up and down, how far it leans or how deep your hips drop with every step.

The team started with 18 variables but quickly realized that volume of info was overwhelming for a runner who wanted to apply the score’s feedback to actionable steps. “Sometimes runners will unknowingly kick their legs out to the side as part of their natural stride,” says Williams. “What’s a runner really going to do with that feedback?” Williams eventually narrowed down the variables from 18 to six.

Three variables were related to force created by the runner, and three were related to control of the runner’s body. When the analysis for each variable was quantified and displayed on the results screen, the rubric would resemble a hexagon, the data points stretching into a constellation, becoming a one-of-one biomechanical score.

Landing on the Variables

Williams and Poe began field research in January of 2022. The early tests for the tool were unassuming, almost covert: They set up a treadmill and rigged together monitors and cameras in a colleague’s garage in Northeast Portland. Poe remembers waving in volunteer testers from the sidewalk. She read the looks of confusion on some of their faces, wondering what exactly they had signed up for.&nbsp;The research team used field sessions like this, along with the pop-up testing site at Redondo Beach, to dial in NSRL Form’s overall experience for a visiting runner. Satellite locations in Nike running stores like Blue Ribbon Sports in Santa Monica, Calif., and Heartbreak Hill in Chicago and Newton, Mass., helped the research team understand what the customer impression in a brick-and-mortar store needed to be. “The experience for the feedback had to be smooth,” says Williams, adding with a laugh that “waiting 15 minutes to receive your results is about 13 minutes too long.” Around 15 seconds is all the program needs to collect 150 data points across your body to give you your custom readout.&nbsp;

The initial feedback was promising. Hundreds of tested runners who wanted to learn more about their running patterns filled out contact sheets for future news. They wanted to learn what the tool could see about their running form that they couldn’t discern for themselves. Over time, the testing helped the team arrive at an important conclusion. When purchasing shoes without any consultation, runners generally chose shoes that didn’t accommodate their movement pattern — like how a runner with a far reach might need a more cushioned midsole to help absorb ground impact. However, when presented their NSRL Form data with recommended footwear to fit their unique running needs, runners tend to pick the shoe that best fits their movement profile.As for NSRL Form’s next steps, the NSRL is already considering where the tool will expand (it’s now made its way to Shanghai at retail while winning two awards at a national innovation summit in China). Just as exciting, say Williams and Poe, is&nbsp;how&nbsp;NSRL Form will expand. Given NSRL Form’s method as a self-learning, ever-refining algorithm that studies how the body moves, the possibilities of scaling it to other devices, sports and products are nearly endless. Hypothetically, a future where you could upload a video clip of a treadmill session onto a phone app and have it send back your biomechanical reading isn’t far off. Neither is a tool that could study movement patterns specific to other sports, such as basketball or football. New athlete needs could be identified and new Nike products created to solve for them. Or NSRL Form could be applied to other products, such as sports bras, that have nuanced relationships with the individual athlete, their body type and their movement pattern.

What Does NSRL Form Measure?

Williams, Poe and the team of NSRL researchers are intent on following an important point: NSRL Form was never meant to be&nbsp;just&nbsp;a product-recommendation tool, and it never will be. In discussions about how a runner’s final report would look, the team discussed whether to include shoe recommendations at all. The reason goes back to what the team observed during those early field tests, like in that blistering parking lot in Redondo Beach, where the queue of runners stretched out the back, wanting to try Form firsthand.&nbsp;“You’ll notice the shoe recommendations are at the very end of the eight-page report,” says Williams. “That’s by design. We’re empowering athletes through information to make decisions based on how they move, regardless of the shoe they wear or even the sport they play. NSRL Form isn’t just a runner’s tool. It’s a&nbsp;running&nbsp;tool, designed to study your whole body. Nike knows its athletes. NSRL Form gives athletes the power to know themselves.”

Form Header

Using motion-capture technology and a self-learning algorithm developed by the Nike Sport Research Lab, NSRL Form is a head-to-toe analysis of how you move — and how to reach your goals.

The 2-Minute Test That Helps Every Runner Move Better

A single Nike Aero-FIT jersey begins as recycled yarn on a spool. Before it reaches an athlete on the world’s biggest stage, it will move through a specialized creation process — knit on a proprietary circular machine; dyed in precise lots; and extracted, finished, sublimated, cut, printed and hand-stitched panel by panel.&nbsp;&nbsp;Each step exists to protect the performance built into the material itself, a highly texturized knit that combines open and closed mesh zones to move air across the body, lift the fabric off the skin, and deliver more than twice the airflow of legacy Nike fabrics. That’s not nothing during a summer of sport that’s delivered some of the hottest conditions footballers have ever seen.&nbsp;Fitting, then, that <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-aero-fit-official-images" target="_blank">Aero-FIT</a> is also Nike’s first elite performance apparel made from 100 percent textile waste. Nike’s contract manufacturing suppliers use a textile-to-textile system enabled by advanced chemical recycling, creating a process that produces yarn comparable to virgin material.That material comes together through a blend of technology and human expertise, yarn and machine, hand and eye, made for the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/collections/nike-football-unveils-2026-federation-kits-featuring-aero-fit-performance-cooling-technology" target="_blank">athletes taking the pitch</a> and the fans standing with them in the same colors.See exactly how here.

How We Create Aero-FIT

When you’re playing for your country, nothing should distract you, least of all heat and sweat.

Global Football

The Making of Aero-FIT: The Material Innovation Keeping Footballers Cooler on the Pitch

Athletes don’t compete in a vacuum, but having them train in a controlled setting can help Nike researchers design the most innovative apparel to help them compete. Introducing the environmental chambers in the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL), which can mimic nearly any environment an athlete might face. <h3>What They Do</h3>Thermoregulation, or the study of how you regulate your temperature when you're moving, happens in your body through a natural, physiological response: sweat. When your sweat evaporates, your body can cool down.&nbsp;Nike's environmental chambers help researchers study thermoregulation up close and personal with athletes. The NSRL has three different chambers for athlete testing, each named after a different Olympic venue (Rio, Sydney and Athens) and each studying the crossover between thermoregulation, apparel design and athlete performance. The chambers allow scientists to test how different variables impact either the heat load on an athlete's body or the regulation of an athlete's body temperature through sweat evaporation.In the chambers, researchers can dial the temperature anywhere from -4 degrees F to 122 degrees F. Radiant heat with special bulbs can match the intensity of the sun's rays (there’s variance within perceptions of “hot”; anyone who does a summertime road run in Los Angeles will tell you it’s a very different setting from running in the streets of Miami). Scientists can also generate wind speeds up to 11 mph.“In the chambers, we can fine-tune our regulation of temperature, humidity, airflow, and radiant heat so we can re-create the conditions in which athletes perform,” says Grant Simmons, PhD, Sr. Principal Researcher, Thermoregulation. “These tools help us understand athlete challenges, their interaction with clothing, and the benefits of product solutions designed to make them better."

The Nike Sport Research Lab’s environmental chambers help Nike researchers study the interaction between athletes, their apparel and their environment.

Ultrarunner Drew Holmen testing the new Nike Radical AirFlow top in the Sydney environmental chamber.

At the end of a session in the Rio chamber, scientists measure the athlete’s weight, the weight of the sweat in their apparel and the weight of the sweat in a pan underneath them to isolate the exact amount of sweat that’s evaporated.

In the Sydney chamber, athletes wear body sensors as they run on a treadmill that cover a range of data: skin temperature, heart rate, core body temperature and more.

After an athlete works out, they drape the sweaty garment they wore over a manikin and a thermal camera displays where the sweat is accumulating in the product.

<h3>What They Help Us Do</h3>In the Rio chamber, scientists study athletes in the heat to identify new opportunities for Nike DriFIT innovation. Here, the NSRL uses custom methods, developed specifically for the LeBron James Innovation Center, where the NSRL is housed, to study an athlete’s sweating efficiency, or the percentage of your sweat that evaporates to cool you during exercise. If you have sweat pouring down your forehead or dripping down your back or soaking your shirt or bra, you’re not sweating efficiently. The more efficiently you sweat, the slower you dehydrate, and the longer you can run, dance, play basketball, or compete in your chosen sport. As an athlete works out on a stationary bike, scientists use several different weight scales and custom engineered equipment to break down their sweating response into separate parts. By isolating the evaporated sweat from the sweat that drips off the body, beads up on your skin, or is absorbed and retained in clothing fabric, scientists can map the outcome of every gram of sweat secreted during exercise. This allows them to study the sweating response like they’d study a household budget; identifying areas of waste and opportunities to be more efficient by reducing excess sweat that dehydrates the athlete, but doesn’t cool them down.Nike scientists also need to pinpoint where athletes tend to sweat so apparel designers can embed sweat-wicking properties in high-need areas. This is the kind of detective work that happens in the Sydney chamber. Recorded by surface-mounted cameras, athletes wear a range of body sensors as they run on a treadmill. The sensors cover a range of data: skin temperature, heart rate, core body temperature and more. The goal of these studies is to understand the distinct needs for individual athletes during exercise, revealing preferences based on different metabolic states and environments. After an athlete works out, they drape the sweaty garment they wore over a manikin and a thermal camera displays where the sweat is accumulating in the product (the sweat is cooling the apparel fabric as it evaporates). Nike scientists ask athletes to drape the apparel over the manikin, versus evaluating it on body, so they can get past the complications in variations in skin temperature, which can influence the thermal imaging. Apparel designers use this info for computational design to “zone” a garment with the right kinds of sweat-wicking materials, tuned for areas of high or low sweat. The Sydney chamber helps scientists see sweat in a new light, literally.When scientists need to control even more variables, they tap the Athens chamber. It houses two of the NSRL’s primary tools to study sweat: a pair of thermal manikins named Hal (male) and Haley (female). These adult-sized manikins have a copper shell with a precisely-regulated temperature; the shell measures heat loss across 30 different zones over their body surface. That measurement helps Nike scientists assess the thermal properties of specific apparel worn by the manikins as the figures swing their arms and legs. For example, data collected across the chest helps scientists zero in on the ideal material properties for a sports bra. Scientists can test apparel in a matter of days using the thermal manikins, reducing a timeline that would take weeks with human volunteers.

NSRL Climate Chambers

The science of regulating your temperature is serious business in the Nike Sport Research Lab.

The NSRL Environmental Chambers

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Short Stories

On the second floor of the LeBron James Innovation building in Beaverton, Ore., Nike designers huddle around a table studying a 3D-printed shoe prototype for Victor Wembanyama’s size 21 foot.

The shoe looks as mind-bending as the 7’4” forward himself. Its upper is embedded with a tight, brain-like geometric pattern, inspired by the bismuth crystal Wembanyama wore around his neck on draft night last summer when he was picked No. 1 in the league. Across the lateral midfoot and down the outsole run a fissure-shaped Nike Air unit never before used in a basketball shoe, like a crack in a comet that fell to Earth. Here, the Air unit is being used not only for cushioning underfoot, but also to forgivingly contain Wembanyama’s feet for sharp movements side to side during gameplay. Much like its athlete, every feature of the prototype is subversive. Nothing quite like it has ever been made. But it still needs refining — and fast.&nbsp;Members of the team share detailed feedback with each other on the giant prototype, which is cast in a Sail color and is punctuated by hits of quintessential Nike Total Orange for the Air unit. The designers want to accent the unit with a darker gradient to highlight the jewel-like textures inside the orange. Someone notices that the pattern’s tread depth is slightly too shallow for this prototype, and the drop shadow over the texture doesn’t catch the light.&nbsp;“Can we print out a new version of this Air unit?” one of the designers asks. “And can we deepen this tread?” A project manager jots down notes before rushing across the hall to the Concept Creation Center to program the changes into a large 3D printer. The chatter from 12 other shoe design review sessions hums in the giant room behind him. Surrounding the room are 13 giant mood boards, each one devoted to a different athlete’s prototype, with digital renderings and sketches and material samples practically spilling over the 8-foot tall boards.

The design studio in the LeBron James Innovation Building has been the incubator for A.I.R. — Athlete Imagined Revolution — a new co-creation process between teams of Nike designers and innovators and 13 of the brand’s elite athletes, from Wembanyama to Sha’Carri Richardson to Kylian Mbappé. A.I.R. brings together some of the world’s best athletes and Nike innovators and the most cutting-edge technologies, amplified by AI, to co-create the future of Air.Perhaps no project in Nike’s history has united so many next-gen disciplines to create a new working process among designers, athletes and technology.&nbsp;Using Nike Air as the canvas was the perfect choice. The beauty of Air is that it will never reach its final form. It represents constant reinvention and never-ending progress. And with the advent of expanding technologies, some of Air’s wildest ideas are no longer fantasy. As the world prepares for Paris, the moment was right for Nike to envision a new frontier of Air, partnering with athletes to let their imaginations run wild.“For these prototypes to be successful, they must stir emotions,” says John Hoke, Nike, Chief Innovation Officer. “They must evoke a sense of awe for what lies just beyond the horizon, an optimism for the future. What I really hope this project stirs up is a sense of unlimited potential. Nike Air is a nearly 50-year-young technology. We’re only at the cusp of harnessing Air’s potential, its full expression. And these footwear prototypes show we’re nowhere near done.”The A.I.R. design techniques used in this building — known as the epicenter for advanced creation at Nike’s World Headquarters —stretch the furthest ends of computational power, the sharpest edges of manufacturing capabilities, and the most inspired touch of human craft. The prototypes showcase the imaginative possibilities for Nike Air but are grounded in a specific reality — the world in which the athlete performs and competes.A.I.R. is creating a new definition for craftsmanship at Nike: combine the expertise of top creative talent and the most cutting-edge design tools to serve athletes at a specificity never achieved before.

Phase 1: Inform and Inspire

To kick off, Nike innovators organized into design teams for the 13 Nike athletes across four sports: track, global football, basketball and tennis. As with anything at Nike, the first move was to listen to the voice of the athlete. The teams approached their athletes with a searching list of questions&nbsp;for their ideal footwear designs. Did they want something conservative or wild? A holistic design or something defined by an individual component? Something monolithic or fractal? Other questions tapped into the athletes’ backgrounds. What people, places or things inspired them? How could the shoe practically embody the athlete? Their personality, their playing style, their physical presence. Everything. Nothing was off limits in these listening sessions.That embodiment means tapping into the “athlete’s truth,” says Roger Chen, Nike VP, NXT, Digital Product Creation — an almost cellular understanding of the design that helps an athlete think, feel and perform at their best. Chen says the phrase served as the cornerstone for the entire design process. When a sprinter lines up for the 100-meter and she feels a soul-deep confidence that every element, including her spikes, has prepared her to win — that’s&nbsp;the athlete's truth, he says. And it’s a data point that can’t be quantified and requires extreme trust from both sides.“Getting to an athlete’s truth requires authentic relationships,” says Chen. “You need to know who you’re serving. At Nike, everything hinges on how well we know our athletes.”Once designers compiled the athletes' answers, they entered them iteratively through detailed AI command prompts to refine their ideas. After the command prompts ran their course, the output was overwhelming: hundreds of examples of AI-created visuals for each athlete, all created in an instant, to give Nike designers plenty of inspiration points for what would become the 13 final prototypes.&nbsp;For Chen and his team, AI-generated outputs became tools to help deepen relationships with athletes in a faster, more specific way.“AI exponentially increases our creative process,” says Chen. “Creating these starting points used to take us months to do. Now, we can create them in seconds. We liken AI to a sharper, more intelligent pencil. The designer is still in control. It’s what you do with the pencil that creates the magic. We gave these generative programs entire worlds to reflect back to us, and they did that. But that doesn’t happen without the thorough listening sessions our teams conducted with our athletes.”

An early concept for basketball player A'ja Wilson. The AI outputs featured above were inspired by Wilson's goals in helping ignite her team, leading to special interpretations of light, flow and rhythm.

A'ja Wilson

An early concept for Kenyan runner Faith Kipyegon. Some of the AI outputs from Kipyegon's listening sessions are featured above, inspired by her love for training in trail shoes, for traditional Kenyan artwork, and especially for her young daughter.

Faith Kipyegon

An early concept for tennis player Zheng Qinwen. The placement of Air throughout the upper was inspired by the effusive joy that Qinwen brings on and off the court, while the AI outputs featured above were shaped by emotions like happiness and playfulness.

Zheng Qinwen

Phase Two: Ideate and Build

After taking stock of the hundreds of AI visuals, the teams put the intelligent pencil down and did what they do best: design to the exact specifications of championship athletes. The 13 teams used the forms, textures, generative figures, and even the entire worlds of the AI images as inspiration to zero in on three radical shoe concepts that manifested a new expression of Air, which was easier said than done. In some cases, designers had to work against the bias of the AI algorithms to create homogenized concepts surrounding Air.&nbsp;“We noticed that a lot of the AI images interpreting Air were bound by a similar fluid aesthetic,” says Chen. “The programs tend to naturally express Air as more organic, more flowy. We focused on the inspiration points that would push each concept in a specific, distinct direction.”After designers land on the three concepts, now comes the ultimate feedback — the athletes' assessments. Every detail of the concepts was discussed, including features they’d like considered for aesthetic, functional or expressive reasons.Chen recalled an early session the team had with Eliud Kipchoge as the marathoner gave his feedback on an initial concept. The shoe had a scooped, beveled heel carved out at the end, resembling a carbon spring on a racing flat. On paper, the aerodynamic design seemed like a sure bet.&nbsp;After quietly studying the digital rendering, Kipchoge took out a sheet of notebook paper and started making his own sketches.Kipchoge drew a version of the concept himself but added a twist. He asked the team to connect the caved-out area toward the heel.&nbsp;His reasoning was that the debris from unpaved trails would catch in the spring-like shape of the platform while he ran, says Chen. “He saw problems in how his shoe would operate in his training environment that we hadn’t yet considered."&nbsp;Innovative design happens when every player — designer, athlete and AI — can challenge unintended assumptions. When Chen and the design team were listening to feedback from 100-meter champion Sha’Carri Richardson on her concepts, a descriptive word she used for her design hung in the air: graceful.“When you think of Sha’Carri, you think of strength, power and determination,” says Chen. But when the design team talked to Sha’Carri about her concepts, she told the designers she didn’t want a spike that looked like a battle sandal. “Her dream was for her foot to have this oneness, this harmony with the plate construction of the spike, which is why we focused on the underfoot unit beautifully blending into the upper and up the leg sleeve,” Chen says. “It was a great example of how our athletes embody so many traits at once. We wanted their prototypes to do the same.”

As the designers received feedback from the athletes, the next step was to make it real. The teams dove into the meticulous work of creating the prototypes through their disciplinary expertise, an instinct that the team calls “an intuitive read.”&nbsp;Many of the inspiration points kicked back through the AI programs are laughably wild. If they were translated into a prototype, the shoe would never hold up to the rigors of a three-hour tennis match on a sweltering Melbourne hard court or the 360-degree movements of an exhausting full-court NBA game. Does this read like a basketball shoe? The designers are tasked with asking, if not, why not? Conversely, a successful prototype, flickering with potential to become a real performance product, made the teams ask themselves, if so, how so? What insights from A.I.R. could someday help shape future product? To get the answers, the teams tapped every advanced tool at Nike’s disposal to create the prototypes, like immersive 3D sketching, computational design and 3D printing and simulation, along with traditional methods like hand sketching.Take paralympian and tennis player Diede de Groot. Diede needs her feet to be locked into her wheelchair, and her shoes can’t be a distraction from her game. The team couldn’t use Air as underfoot cushioning in the traditional sense, but the expression of Air still needed to be authentic to her vision. The solution: design her shoe to quickly and easily clip into her wheelchair and lock her in, similar to a cycling shoe, while using Air on the upper to provide the containment she needs. Digital methods like simulation allowed designers to test the support, containment and durability of de Groot’s shoe computationally before a real prototype was even printed.“A beautiful part of the project was getting such diverse minds all around the table creating together, layering different techniques and technologies over one another,” says Chen. “We were constantly learning from each other. It’s the Nike way of uniting different disciplines to create something new.”&nbsp;Nike’s manufacturing power gave the teams the ability to produce physical components quickly to evaluate design forms in person, in real time. This is when the full horsepower of Nike’s facilities is on display, from rapid 3D printers in the Concept Creation Center that verify design theories to Nike’s Air MI machines —&nbsp;located in a building a mile away from the World Headquarters — that can mold a never-before-seen Air unit proposed by an athlete.&nbsp;Manufacturing added another benefit to the design process: seeing subtle imperfections within the real object that can then be improved.Tennis pro Zheng Qinwen’s concept was inspired by her Chinese heritage, with Nike Air appearing in the form of a coiled dragon to provide support and containment, the dragon scales acting as a durable traction design.Back in the workspace, a designer holds up Qinwen’s sample, the light above the table illuminating the Total Orange of the serpentine Air unit. The indentations of the clip, an arrangement of dragon scales made to perform like traction, perfectly line up to the geometry of the Air unit beneath, a feature that’s clear only when examined up close.In an earlier prototype, the textures of the clip didn’t mirror the textures of the unit underneath, so Nike’s computational designers made a new sample and went deep on the pattern so the scales matched the geometry of the unit perfectly. Plus, the pattern was computationally reinforced in high-wear areas, an insight that followed extensive tennis wear-testing data pulled from the NSRL.&nbsp;“Not many people will see the level of obsession that goes into these final designs,” the designer says. “The important thing is that we did it.”

Inspired by the excellence of high fashion, the British sprinter wanted an underfoot experience tailored for both functionality and beauty. The forefoot Air unit is computationally engineered for lightweight stability, sitting underneath a sleek, sport-mesh upper. The TPU heel clip, modeled after an elegant slingback, easily detaches once Asher-Smith hits the starting line.

Dina Asher-Smith

The hurdler’s passion for cycling helped shape the design of his spike, both literally and technically. Air needed to act as a form of suspension through extreme forces, so its concentrated in the forefoot and heel, bridged by a ribbed, hurdle-inspired midfoot plate designed with the idea to spring him forward. On his right spike, the forefoot AIR unit is contained on the lateral side and exposed on the medial side, resembling a dual-density construction to help Benjamin bank on the turns.

Rai Benjamin

The tennis champion wields a style of play that’s smooth and constantly in motion, occasionally mixed with explosive bursts of speed. She wanted Air to provide strong internal containment throughout the upper without weighing her down. Also important to de Groot was ease of entry while in her wheelchair; the heel tailgate takes inspiration from Flyease technology, while the clipping mechanism under the outsole attaches to her wheelchair quickly and easily.

Diede de Groot

The special shape of Haaland’s design represents a moment frozen in time — the curvature of the foot upon striking. The upper, with its unique Air pattern and design, evokes striking power that gives the ball a pop in response to contact.

Erling Haaland

The Aussie striker knows she gets serious bounce from Air, especially when she launches into one of her rare backflips, a playful celebration that inspired her design. The heel and forefoot feature big, bold, exposed Air units across the plate. Micro-textures across the forefoot are designed with the idea to help her control the ball, while an upside-down Swoosh runs across the collar.

Sam Kerr

The greatest marathoner in history was drawn to a design that ran the continuum from overtly technical to quietly naturalistic. Believing that “the more you squeeze, the more juice you get” from Air cushioning, Kipchoge added a visible forefoot Air unit detailed with sap-like tensile fibers. The rocker throughout the beveled heel is inspired by his meticulous insights into helping develop the historic Alphafly line.

Eliud Kipchoge

The middle-distance champion loves the sensation of training in trail shoes, and she wanted full-length Air to provide an uncompromisingly supportive ride in her design, powering through any sudden turn in the weather. The lugged outsole design easily sheds mud when conditions are harsh. The upper features a secure, bootie-like fit, while the computationally beaded textures are inspired by a bracelet she wears in honor of her daughter, who’s also symbolized through a small Swoosh on the heel.

Air is all about universal speed for Mbappé, its benefits translating across all sports. His design features full-length Air integrated through the underfoot plate for responsiveness, while the boot’s profile is inspired by the function of a track spike and the velocity of a fighter jet. The traction underfoot is constructed for pure, linear speed.

Kylian Mbappé

In Qinwen’s design, Air is both all-encompassing and precisely tuned. The Air unit coils completely around the shoe’s forefoot and midfoot with a serpentine construction inspired by the Chinese lunar calendar’s Year of the Dragon. In areas needed for extreme lateral containment, the traction is reinforced by a pattern computationally modeled after dragon scales. The stippled texture of the collar is designed after the bone structure of real wings. 

For Richardson, Air needed to embody three key descriptions: confident, relentless and graceful. Her design’s forefoot Air unit fades from Total Orange to neutral to clear toward the raised high heel, a visual cue inspired by her desire for a sense of oneness between her foot and her spike. The computationally designed upper flows beautifully into a double-helix pattern wrapping up the shin.

Sha’Carri Richardson

The Brazilian footballer is like lightning on the pitch, and his Air unit harnesses his speed through the design’s sleek, responsive profile. The boot’s studs slant outward to help with quick turns and cuts when dribbling. Viewed up close, the upper features a distinct computational pattern that transforms down the forefoot, reinforcing areas where he needs elite grip for ball control.

Vinicius Jr.

At home, the 7’4” forward loves to be barefoot, feeling as low to the ground as possible. He wanted Air in his design to be tuned for low-profile responsiveness, with the Air unit traveling from under the forefoot and across the shoe’s lateral side for containment. The pixelated, fractal appearance of the unit is inspired by both his love for science fiction and for jewelry, like the bismuth stone he wore on his draft night. Additionally, the upper features an abstract computational print.

Victor Wembanyama

Just like her game, A’ja’s design was crafted to adapt and thrive in every situation on the court. For the dynamic and versatile player, Air signifies support and a catalyst for unexpected moves with every step. The concept embodies her essence of unpredictability, echoing her unparalled skills as a left-handed player. When she drives left, slits on the upper of the shoe gracefully widen, unveiling the Air design. The unexpected reveal serves as a visual testament to her agility and finesse, allowing her to soar while maintaining a steadfast connection to the ground.

A’ja Wilson

The Final Athlete Concepts

The Unreal Becomes Real

The process repeats itself, with designers collecting more feedback on the samples, refining the prototype’s details, printing more components, and going back to the drawing board when needed. Mood boards in the workspace showing an athlete’s latest samples are taken down and built back up with updated renderings and materials in just hours. At the end of an unprecedented timeline, the Nike A.I.R. prototypes are ready to be revealed in Paris. It’s the textbook definition of the iterative process. And it also signals the creative process, each form a piece of stone being chipped away from all sides to reveal the art underneath.&nbsp;For Hoke, from the minute the project was briefed, it always carried a vision as lofty as its A.I.R. acronym. Athletes are at the core of who Nike builds for, says Hoke. Imagined is the inspiration Nike gleans from AI as a partnering tool. Revolution means exactly that: a revolution for how Nike works.“Our mastery of our generative tools allows us to hear athletes with a specificity that’s unmatched,” says Hoke. “In unskilled hands, AI can create designs that are full of generalities. But after listening to our athletes, we harness the conceptual power of AI and use it to get at the heart of what an athlete needs, creating a new working process. We can obsess over a product, and AI becomes a creative co-conspirator with us.”&nbsp;

A.I.R.

In fact, Hoke says that emergent tools like AI give Nike designers the ability to go beyond listening. He calls it parametric innovation, a spin-off of parametric design. Algorithms churn out raw concepts based on inputs — and then the process stops. Here, the relationship between human and machine becomes linear and transactional, almost like a baton handoff in a relay race. A.I.R. challenged Nike’s design teams to create new, iterative relationships with their generative tools, sharpening inputs between program and person, refining a shoe’s features until it channels the athlete’s core being.Hoke agrees that listening with unrivaled specificity begins with relationships, which Nike has been clear on since the company began more than 50 years ago. What is new, and at times breathtaking, he says, is the “velocity and the fidelity” with which Nike designers can create by combining AI and their relationships with athletes. The future of design at Nike is not its tools. It’s Nike’s relationship to its tools, and the bridge those tools build to deepen the relationship between athlete and designer.&nbsp;On April 11, the 13 reality-bending prototypes were displayed on lit pedestals as a climactic reveal at the Nike On Air event. But Hoke was right. A.I.R. is just getting started.“There’s no going back,” he says. “Form and function — meet fantasy.”

What could happen if Nike tapped cutting-edge design tools and a team of its top creative talent with 13 of the world's greatest athletes? Where would their imaginations take them? 
Welcome to A.I.R., Athlete Imagined Revolution.

On the track, court, pitch, street and beyond, Nike serves the world’s best with unparalleled product innovation, leveraging its proprietary Nike Air, the power of new digital tools, and the incomparable data collected in its Nike Sport Research Lab.

Innovating For Athletes

Creating the Unreal: How Nike Made Its Wildest Air Footwear Yet

Athletes generate indelible moments on <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-air-blueprint-pack-official-images" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nike Air</a> and these moments possess an atmosphere all their own. Each moment is a world built on winning. On Air, records are shattered; milestones, set; championships, won. On Air, athletes change culture and capture the collective imagination.She scored how many? He ran how fast? It would seem unattainable.But on Air?On Air, it actually happened.To revisit Air’s greatest moments is to understand both their impossibility and their inevitability. No record is safe. On Air, the athletes are coming.In a world without Air, we’d lose every aspect of these treasured triumphs.In a world with Air, we’ve already won — and we will keep on winning. Here, the 10 greatest sports moments powered by Nike Air.

Eliud Kipchoge, Breaking 2 and the Nike Alphafly Prototype

Eliud Kipchoge personifies limitlessness, smashing records and redefining what’s possible for an entire sport. During 2017’s Nike’s Breaking2 challenge in Monza, Italy, Kipchoge bettered the standing marathon world-record by nearly three minutes, a jaw-dropping feat. Two years later in Vienna, Austria, wearing a prototype of Nike’s Air Zoom Alphafly Next%, Kipchoge became the first person to do the unthinkable: finish a marathon in under 2 hours. Kipchoge’s time of 1:59:40 will always represent his credo: no human is limited.

Kelvin Kiptum, the marathon world record and the Nike Alphafly 3

Kelvin Kiptum raced in three marathons in his life; he won them all. In 2022, at Valencia, Kiptum set the record for fastest-ever marathon debut. In April 2023, Kiptum set a course record at the London Marathon before winning the Chicago Marathon in October. Crossing the finish line in Chicago in the Nike Alphafly 3, Kiptum recorded the fastest-ever marathon in a record-eligible race. In February 2024 Kiptum tragically died in a car accident. He remains the marathon world record holder.

Sheryl Swoopes, WNBA dominance and the Air Tuned Swoopes V

Basketball trailblazer Sheryl Swoopes is the WNBA’s cornerstone player, the first ever to sign with the league in 1996. She recorded the league’s first triple double, was the league first 3-time MVP and its first 3-time Defensive Player of the Year. In Swoopes’ first 4 years in the WNBA, she helped lead her team, the Houston Comets, to the league’s first 4 championships. There was never any argument about who would be the first female athlete to have a Nike signature shoe—it had to be Sheryl Swoopes.

Kobe Bryant, an 81-point game and the Nike Zoom Kobe 1

Between the years 1963 and 2006, no NBA player scored more than 70 points in a game. On January 22, 2006, Kobe Bryant—in Nike Zoom Kobe 1s—hit the court against Toronto and broke that 43-year spell. Kobe dropped 81, the second highest single-game total in NBA history. No NBA player has broken 80 since. The magnitude of 81 is staggering, eternal.

Sha’Carri Richardson, the fastest woman in the world and the Air Zoom Maxfly

In August 2023, Sha’Carri Richardson blazed her way to the title of Fastest Woman in the World upon winning the 100-meter final at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary. Wearing Nike’s Air Zoom&nbsp;Maxfly, Sha’Carri set a new event record with a 10.65-seconds finish.<h3> </h3>

Michael Jordan, highlight-reel hang time and the Air Jordan 14

Down 1 and with seconds remaining in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, Michael Jordan steals the ball from the Utah Jazz and takes matters into his own hands. At the top of the key, Jordan fakes acceleration, stops on a dime, pulls up, hangs in the air with a broken defender beneath him. Of course, the shot is perfect. Jordan’s Bulls win their sixth championship, completing their second three-peat. No athlete has ever carried us into the Air like Jordan. His last championship moment is among his finest.

On Air, records are shattered; milestones, set; championships, won. On Air, athletes change culture and capture the collective imagination.

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