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

Emily Abbate is a Brooklyn-based, veteran journalist on a mission to empower women to live healthier, happier and more-motivated lives. Now a 15-time marathoner, the certified wellness coach and former fitness editor at SELF is the brains behind <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/bit.ly/hurdlepodcast__;!!KLCbKzk!koJf4niKivkRTNFXiKFGc-Rp9X7CYwLRzeMh0OM15o--0KLEXrR41gHvdUO5ts-iOJJwalmx8rzIkSs$" target="_blank">Hurdle</a>, a podcast acclaimed by The New York Times as “addictive,” with over 10 million downloads with listeners in more than 120 countries. You can find her most recent bylines in Marie Claire, Runher, and Women’s Health. Plus: Learn more about her in <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/introducing-the-after-dark-tour-series-embracing/id1692035962?i=1000775769561" target="_blank">her interview</a> kicking off the After Dark Tour on Coach Bennett’s podcast.

Emily Abbate

The 800-meter race is the ultimate collision in track and field: a brutal, oxygen-deprived effort where the power of a sprinter smashes directly into the relentless engine of a distance runner.&nbsp;You don’t just run an 800. You survive it.Among the best to ever dance at this ragged edge of human endurance is the reigning Olympic champion <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/keely-hodgkinson-nike-interview" target="_blank">Keely Hodgkinson</a>, whose unapologetic personality, fierce competitiveness and elegant style have made her an unmistakable icon of the sport.For the latest step in her unyielding pursuit of every fractional advantage against the clock, Hodgkinson has worked alongside the Nike Innovation team to create a one-of-one system of speed she’ll unveil in front of a home crowd in London.Built to Hodgkinson’s exact performance and design specifications, her custom suit is meticulously engineered to help her push the limits of contemporary track and field — marking the latest chapter in Nike’s history of supporting athletes with custom performance innovations.

The Anatomy of a Uniform

Most athletes step onto the track dripping in color and pattern. But when Hodgkinson takes the starting line in London, she’ll be wearing stark, uninterrupted black.

“Keely has an immense amount of personal confidence when she wears black,” says Hannah Amis, Director, Innovation Apparel Product Design. “It’s sleek, it’s brave, and it allowed us to celebrate her vibrant personality through color-shifting, 3D-printed vortex generators instead.”The suit’s striking silhouette is a product of 4D design methodology, a system that charts apparel patterning through a body moving across time and space rather than across a flat plane or static 3D form.&nbsp;“Our team studied every detail of how Keely moves through space, ensuring the suit works with her stride, her mechanics and her race demands, creating a distraction-free fit that allows her to focus solely on performance,” says Amis.The pattern itself is designed to accommodate Hodgkinson’s maximum stride length without creasing or bunching, a consequence of less-than-perfect fit that could slow her down. To complement this handcrafted second skin, the back also features a massive, dramatic cut-out.&nbsp;“The large opening at the back has been a favorite of Keely’s since day one,” says Amis. “She loves that it’s so different from any other race suit — marrying her vision with our innovation to offer a new expression of performance apparel on the track.”

The Aerodynamic Frontier

To fight back against the wind, Nike innovators leaned heavily on a fundamental truth of sport science: Skin is slow. To maximize aerodynamic efficiency, the design team doubled down on coverage by introducing a sleek speed hood.“When she first tried the hood on during a fitting session in South Africa, she stepped out laughing and smiling so big, saying, ‘This is mental!’” recalls Amis. “But it’s a true performance piece. The hood streamlines the hairline and manages the chaotic aerodynamics of hair in motion. Of course, Keely’s ponytail is iconic to who she is as a person, so we engineered an exact, strategic opening to let her hair flow out the back flawlessly.”Look closely, and you’ll also see that there are structural slits in the sides of the hood so Hodgkinson’s 18-gram Nike Vision Airelon Force E sunglasses can slot directly against her temples without stretching the fabric, completing the look and providing a psychological edge.

Inevitable turbulence is further tamed by Nike’s fastest vortex generators: 3D-printed delta shapes computationally arrayed along the shoulders, thighs, torso and hood. These tiny devices generate targeted “mini tornadoes,” forcing fast-moving air to attach to the slower airstreams trailing the body rather than separating into a drag-inducing wake.“There’s a beautiful, healthy tension between mathematical function and visual aesthetic,” says Amis. “We spent six months endlessly tweaking, shifting and obsessing over every detail. Even during our final meeting in Manchester, I checked in to see if she wanted to back out of the hood. She told me she was completely all in. When she pulls it up, it creates an absolute zero-distraction zone. She's locked in.”

A Lineage of Bespoke Innovation

Handcrafted almost entirely within the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/lebron-james-innovation-center-nike-sport-research-lab" target="null">LeBron James Innovation Center</a> at <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-philip-h-knight-campus-announcement" target="null">Nike’s Philip H. Knight Campus</a>, Hodgkinson’s speed suit continues Nike’s tradition of creating athlete-specific innovations while showcasing the next evolution of the company’s innovation process. By bringing athletes, designers, engineers and scientists together under one roof, Nike can move faster from insight to invention, turning athlete feedback into performance solutions with unprecedented speed and precision.This culture of innovation began with co-founder Bill Bowerman’s obsession with <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/bill-bowerman-nike-s-original-innovator" target="null">creating custom track spikes for his runners</a> and expanded over Nike’s early years to include bespoke apparel and footwear for elite athletes across disciplines.In 1988, for example, Nike outfitted the U.S. rowing team with an array of bespoke aerodynamic innovations, including a hooded full-body suit. Wheelchair racer Craig Blanchette’s early body suits of the same era helped inspire Nike’s Project Swift, which outfitted Australian sprinter Cathy Freeman in a full-length suit that used zoned aerodynamics to both reduce drag and help regulate muscle temperature.

In 1988, Nike outfitted the U.S. rowing team with an array of aerodynamic suits, including a seamless tank top, shorts, a hooded full-body suit and custom shoes.

1988

Craig Blanchette, a wheelchair racer and 21-time world record holder, signed with Nike in 1988, when the two began experimenting with aerodynamic racing tops and body suits for speed.

The early experiments with Blanchette’s speed suits helped inspire Project Swift in 2000, culminating in a full-length body suit worn by Australian sprinter Cathy Freeman. The suit used principles from zoned aerodynamics to both reduce drag and help regulate muscle temperature.

2000

While the Swift Suit grabbed headlines in Sydney, the Swift Skin became a game-changer for the sport of speed skating. Appearing in both the 2002 and 2006 Olympics, Nike’s body suits helped advance research into efficient airflow and drag reduction on the ice. Nike spent more than 900 hours in wind tunnels and drag tanks testing the product.

2002 and 2006

Following breakthroughs from the Nike Pro TurboSpeed kit in 2012, Nike carried its aerodynamics expertise into single articles of race gear like tops, bottoms, sleeves and socks in the form of Aeroblade technology: tiny geometric, silicone-based nodes designed to help reduce drag. The tech would later be applied to kinesio tape for greater application across the arms and the legs.

2012

Nike’s endeavor to break the 2-hour marathon in 2017 didn’t just mark the advent of the super shoe. It progressed Nike’s deepest research around aerodynamics in apparel design. Every article of gear — from the top to the half tight, from the sock to the tape — was textured with Aeroblade technology to reduce drag.

2017

Marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge attempting to break the 2-hour marathon for Nike's Breaking2.

Designed for Faith Kipyegon’s attempt to break the 4-minute mile, the 2025 Nike Fly Suit brought a new level of precision and specificity to body suit design. Some of the half-sphere Nike Aeronodes on the suit and its sleeves were smaller than a pencil tip.

2025

Middle-distance champion Faith Kipyegon attempting to break the 4-minute mile at Nike’s Breaking4.

Nike carried forward learnings from Freeman’s gold-medal performance in Sydney, debuting Swift Skin speed-skating suits that helped advance research into efficient airflow and drag reduction. The brand’s TurboSpeed and Aeroblade race apparel from the 2010s then raised the bar by including tiny geometric, silicone-based nodes designed to help reduce drag.That technology took on a new level of precision in <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/faith-kipyegon-breaking4-speed-kit-behind-the-design" target="null">Faith Kipyegon’s 2025 Nike Fly Suit</a>, which included half-sphere Nike Aeronodes, some smaller than a pencil tip, to split the air in front of Kipyegon to reduce drag like never before.Hodgkinson’s speed suit advances this decades-long commitment to innovation, empowering her to lock in and pursue her dreams in confidence.Learn more about Hodgkinson’s <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-unveils-keely-hodgkinson-speed-suit-a-bespoke-expression-of-racing-innovation" target="_blank">one-of-one Nike speed suit</a> and her <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/keely-hodgkinson-speed-and-style-converge-in-her-first-signature-nike-running-collection" target="null">first signature Nike Running collection for all athletes</a> in the NIKE, Inc. Newsroom.

Built to Hodgkinson’s exact performance and design specifications, her custom suit is meticulously engineered to help her push the limits of contemporary track and field — marking the latest chapter in Nike’s history of supporting athletes with one-of-one performance innovations.

Nike Running

Making It

How Nike Teamed With Keely Hodgkinson to Create Her Zero-Distraction Speed Suit

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

Innovation

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.

Nike Sports 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.

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

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.

Nike 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.

Sport Science

The NSRL Environmental Chambers

Dive Into Our Sport Science

Stories from inside NIKE, Inc.

Story Landing

Georgia Hunter Bell Takes the Nike FlyWeb Bra to Athlos London

Basketball

Behind the Design of the Caitlin 1

The Move

The Move: Creating Space for Shai’s Stepback

Creating Space for Shai’s Stepback

Short Stories

If golfer Tony Finau had to name his Flu Game moment, it was during the 2018 Masters. He had just sunk a hole-in-one on the par-3 course at Augusta National. He celebrated by taking off sprinting toward the hole, when improbably, he took an awkward step and dislocated his left ankle (fair warning for anyone who wants to look up the video: it was gnarly). In grimacing pain but undeterred, he popped his ankle back in place himself and resumed play, where he’d complete the week with a top 10 finish. Oh, and two months later, he’d make the final group at the US Open. And he’d qualify for his first Ryder Cup. All in a year when he could put barely any pressure on his left foot.Digging deep to test his physical limits is a signature quality of Finau, who joins Jordan Brand this month as the newest member of its Golf roster. You wouldn’t know any such challenge existed just by looking at him. The lithe 6’4” athlete has one of the most powerful drives on the pro tour, able to crush the ball at over 200 mph since he was 17 years old. He was recruited for hoops out of high school, and he descends from a proud lineage of skilled Tongan and Samoan athletes, particularly in football. When his personal calling to golf was too great to ignore, he worked as hard as possible to reach the sport’s top level, rolling the dice by auditioning for a reality TV golf show, then undergoing a brutal mini-tour schedule for years that forced him to travel at a ruthless pace across the country. Was it worth it? No question. Below, Finau talks about the twists his career has taken, his moments of greatest perseverance and all things drive.&nbsp; Certain career moments cause you to flip your definition of what winning means. Take that Masters in 2018. It was an incredible moment, that hole-in-one, followed by the most embarrassing moment of my life on national TV. Fast forward to the end of the tournament. I birdied six out of my last seven holes. I shot 66 that Sunday. Walking off the 72nd hole, I truly felt like I won. I felt like somebody should’ve given me the green jacket. In life, we’re going to fall down a lot more times than we’re going to win. But does that actually mean that we lost? I don’t look at it that way.

There’ll be windows of your life where you need to gut it out just to see what you’re really made of. I turned pro in 2007, but I didn’t get onto the PGA Tour until 2013, so there was a six-year period where I had to tough it out on the Mini-Tour life and learn how to play the game, travel and take the small wins where I could. On the Mini-Tour, you’re fighting for every dollar, your literal livelihood. There were plenty of nights I slept in my car and I went without eating just so I could scrape by. Those were some of the hardest years of my life, but also some of the greatest, because I learned what I can become with a little bit of sacrifice.&nbsp;Individual sports demand a certain kind of passion. In a sport like golf, you don’t have any teammates to lean on. It’s just you out there. Some people have a hard time without that team component, but when I started golfing at a young age, I found I really enjoyed the game’s individual aspects. It was on me to figure it out, to piece together the ways I could improve. When I got on the golf course, it was a matter of locking in and learning how to focus.Composure has nothing to do with your athletic skill but has everything to do with the life of an athlete. My brother and I went on The Big Break, a reality TV competition on the Golf Channel, in 2009. I was 20 years old at the time. We were around the camera 24/7. Everywhere we went, they were recording us. It was crazy, and it took some getting used to, but I remember leaving that experience and telling myself, “You’re going to be a great golfer. This media exposure is how it’s going to be if you turn pro.” Being on the show got me to the point where it didn’t really matter who was watching me. I just needed to stay focused and play my game.&nbsp;Sport was only part of my family’s background. Being Polynesian, my mom had a luau show as I was growing up, so I learned how to play a lot of different instruments as a performer in her show. One of the first instruments I learned was the to’ere, which is like a Tahitian drum. I also did traditional Polynesian fire dancing as a kid. Music and dancing were as core to my identity as sport was.&nbsp;It’s easy to be an on- and off-switch person. But greatness means being your best at all times of the day, not just when it’s convenient. My mom used to tell me, “The way you do one thing is the way you do all things.” Golf is just one example. Trying to be great at a game that’s impossibly hard, a game you can’t perfect, doesn’t mean that you stop trying. You keep trying to reach for more out of yourself. I’m trying to be great in all aspects of my life, whether that’s on the course, in the gym, being a husband, being a father. I’m trying to push past my own limits in all aspects of my life.&nbsp;

Golfers tend to be pretty superstitious people. One of my rituals is that I wear green every Sunday. My mom, she passed away in 2011 — her favorite color was green. Wearing green is a way I like to honor her, a way to remember she’s with me all the time on the course.&nbsp;Joining the Jordan Brand marks a new chapter in my career. Obviously Michael represents excellence at the highest level. Jordan Brand is incredible to be a part of and Michael is an incredible individual to represent. I met him for the first time when I was 17, and during the times I’ve played at his private course in Florida, The Grove, he’s always told me, “Anytime you’re in this area, you’re welcome here.” So in 2024, I’m playing a playoff event. I know I’m going to be in West Palm after the playoffs, for a shoot I was doing with one of my sponsors. My son was with me on the trip, and the thought crossed my mind, “It would be the coolest thing on Earth if I could bring my son to play The Grove.” I texted Michael on a whim and asked him. He got back to me 30 seconds later: “We’re actually closed for the weekend, but I’ll open the course just for you and your son. Please bring him and we’ll make it happen.” We played 18 holes that day and had the entire course to ourselves, just me and my son. That single experience is something I’ll never forget. That’s the effect Michael has on people. You can download more images as well as an accompanying film welcoming Finau to the Jordan Brand family by clicking <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://media-assets.nike.com/en/pitches/jordan-brand-welcomes-tony-finau-to-its-golf-roster?secret=29e440c91211da0d9af84d3e374afd15" target="_blank">here</a>.

The pro golfer and newest member of the Jordan Brand Golf roster has never backed down from a challenge.

Jordan Brand

For The Win

For Tony Finau, Going the Distance is a Mindset

January 25, 1964. Saturday.The Beatles registered their first number-one hit song in the United States: “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”And on a cold, rainy day in Portland, Oregon, a coach and his former athlete met for lunch at the Cosmopolitan Hotel to discuss a possible business partnership.One hour later, Phil Knight and <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/bill-bowerman-nike-s-original-innovator" target="_blank">Bill Bowerman</a> stood, reached across the table and shook hands. Blue Ribbon Sports was born.To understand how two Oregonians arrived at that moment — and why it held — we have to go back a decade, to a teenager who had just been cut from baseball.

The Handshake That Started It All

The Beginning

Phil Knight grew up in Southeast Portland and went to Cleveland High. As he tells it, he was the last cut on the sophomore-and-under baseball team — a decision that stung.“I was heartbroken but my mom said, ‘You are not going to mope around the house. You’re either going to get a paper route or go out for track.’ Well, that was easy. I went out for track.”That decision set him on a course that would change his life, and, eventually, the sports world.Knight tried out for track and quickly found his stride. While he was physically smaller than his teammates, he was fast, competitive and willing to work.At one early meet, his father, William, a labor lawyer who would later become publisher of the Oregon Journal, introduced him to Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman. The two older men had gone to college together at the University of Oregon. That day was his first introduction to the coach who would later shape his life.By then, Knight was already starting to win and place in local races, enough to earn a name in Oregon’s competitive prep scene. During his junior year, he spotted a headline that stuck with him: Bill Dellinger, a runner from the University of Oregon, who had just won the mile at the national championships under Bowerman’s coaching.“It was startling,” Knight said. “It was a huge headline in The Oregonian and that’s when I became aware of Bill Bowerman and what a phenomenal program he had.”

The Hamburger of Runners

Although small and lean, Knight never let size hold him back. In 1955, he played on Cleveland’s city-championship basketball team, finished second in the league 880-yard run and took fourth at the state meet. By fall, he’d earned a spot on Bowerman’s track and cross-country teams at the University of Oregon.Long before his first practice, though, his father had already turned to Bowerman for guidance — an early glimpse of the connection that would define both men’s careers. Curious to get the coach’s perspective on whether Phil should attend college or join the military, William Knight wrote to him that fall.Bowerman replied with his trademark mix of bluntness and care.“My first concern is for your young man’s education,” he wrote. “All will not be fun and frolic. It takes hard work for success in anything … it is a privilege to have your son here, also a responsibility for me, for you and for him.”

Like many freshmen before him, Knight soon learned what that meant, struggling under the bombastic Bowerman. “After my freshman year, I had to sit down with myself and ask if I was going to go back to that crazy man, or not,” Knight recalled. “I realized if I go back, I’m just going to have to do things his way because he’s not going to change. So I went back.”That decision proved pivotal. Bowerman saw potential in Knight —&nbsp;not as a star runner but as an ideal test subject. “I wasn’t one of the best runners on the team,” Knight admitted. “Bowerman knew he could use me as a guinea pig without much risk.”He called Knight the “hamburger” of runners — hearty stock, forgiving, determined — and began using him to test early shoe prototypes. In August 1958, Bowerman sent Knight a letter outlining his summer training plan and added a postscript: If you have a pair you think would make good flats, send them down. They’ll be ready when school starts.The pair Knight received that fall featured an experimental white, rubber-coated fabric — “the kind you’d use for a tablecloth you could sponge off,” Bowerman later said. They were crude, functional and a glimpse of what was coming. The coach was still years from finding a manufacturing partner but his drive to build a faster, lighter shoe had already found its first willing tester.

From Track to Business

By the time Knight graduated from Oregon in 1959 with a degree in business, his competitive drive had shifted from the track to the classroom. The next stop was Stanford where he enrolled to pursue his MBA.At first, his path seemed uncertain. But during his final year, a class called “Small Business Management” caught his attention. It was a class that would quietly spark the idea of a lifetime.“It was the only entrepreneurship class so it was one of the classes that I was most interested in,” Knight said.&nbsp;He developed a strong rapport with his professor, Frank Shallenberger, who assigned the students a simple but open-ended project: invent a new business, define its purpose and create a marketing plan to support it.Knight had recently overheard a conversation among photographers at the Oregon Journal, where he’d worked summers during college. They were talking about a surge of inexpensive Japanese cameras that were starting to rival the more powerful and costly German models.“Electronics was a popular topic at that time and the smart kids chose to write about things like that,” Knight said. “But I didn’t know anything about electronics so I wrote about something that I did know about — shoes.”Drawing from his experience as one of Bill Bowerman’s wear-testers, he built his hypothetical company. By 1962, German sports shoes were on the rise in the U.S. — high quality, yes, but expensive. Knight saw an opening.He turned the idea into a paper he wrote almost literally overnight with a single bold hypothesis: Can Japanese sports shoes do to German sports shoes what Japanese cameras did to German cameras?Knight argued that Japanese-made running shoes could compete on both price and quality with the dominant German brands. Knight received an “A.” When the assignment was over, he couldn’t shake the idea. “I wrote a letter of inquiry to virtually every Japanese shoemaker that I could find.”Only one company replied: the Kow Hoo Shoe Company of Hong Kong. The letter, written in imperfect English, was polite but discouraging.“It is with regret to inform you that due to lack of [such] equipment and material, we can hardly manufacture [such] type of shoes and trust that every shoemaker in Hongkong (sic) fails in doing so. We are expert in manufacturing Golf shoes, Skating boots and Bowling shoes etc.”It wasn’t the answer Knight had hoped for, but it didn’t matter. A seed had been planted that would soon take root.Shaken but not deterred, he was about to face the opportunity of a lifetime.That story — and more — will come in future Department of Nike Archive features on The Record.

Born of need and elevated by expertise and diligence, today the Department of Nike Archives (DNA) cares for hundreds of thousands of artifacts and a limitless vault of connected stories.&nbsp;The brand archive began organically in the 1970s and officially became DNA in 2006. The department’s purpose is to both preserve and accelerate the ever-evolving and interconnected story of Nike. “Knowing who you are and the fights you’ve come through can do huge things for morale, inspiration, and creativity. That’s what DNA provides.” - Phil Knight

Department of Nike Archives

Go behind the scenes of the famous business deal between Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman — co-founders of Nike.

Nike Heritage

Every image tells a story. Here, a Nike photographer breaks down one of their favorite photographs and the unique sport moment it represents.

Photographer Geoff Lowe reflects on the Nike Cross Nationals

Geoff Lowe on building his NXN composite shot

“The finish line of a cross-country meet turns into a canvas of exhausted bodies. It’s a scene where runners are finally coming to terms with giving their full effort. This year would be my first time shooting <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-cross-nationals-2024-official-images" target="_blank">Nike Cross Nationals</a> in Portland. The anticipation for this shot in particular began weeks before the event. I knew I wanted to use an overhead drone at the finish line, and I knew I wanted to make a composite image of the men’s and women’s races, so I could share the unified experience of the runners completely gassed at the end.In reality, I was going to have one to two minutes to get the shots I wanted after each race, when the competitors made it to the finish line. I worked ahead of time to fly the drone directly above the finish line and above the NXN logo with an unobstructed view. But there were a lot of things I had to consider, like accounting for the gusting winds, the possible changes in exposure as the light changed with the moving clouds, and coordinating air space with the other drone pilots, to name a few. As I started piecing the image together, I knew it was getting at the emotion I wanted: showing the exhaustion from these runners in their pursuit of glory, giving everything they had.”

— Geoff Lowe See more of Geoff’s work on Instagram <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.instagram.com/geofflowe/" target="_blank" class="ql-size-small">@geofflowe</a>

Geoff Lowe is a dynamic sports photographer originally from South Africa, now based in Italy. With a background in track and field, he brings a unique insider’s perspective to his photography, capturing the emotion, rhythm, and intensity of athletes in motion. His images go beyond documentation; they turn athletic performance into visual poetry. Known for his artistic composite technique, Lowe uses ultra-fast sequences to create layered images that reveal movement over time — sprinting, jumping, swimming, and diving — all unfolding in a single frame.

Geoff Lowe

Nike Cross Nationals famously takes everything a cross-country runner's got — here's what the sum of that looks like across dozens of runners, from photographer Geoff Lowe.

The Nike Moment

What It Looks Like to Finish On Empty

In running shoe jargon,&nbsp;pronation&nbsp;is a word that gets a bad rap. If you pronate, the thinking goes, you need correction. But there’s more going on than that.<h3>How to Understand It</h3>Everybody pronates when they run. “It’s a natural motion,” says Emily Farina, PhD, Senior Principal Researcher in the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL). With each step, your foot rolls inward and a bit forward as it hits the ground. Technically, this is what pronation is: a combination of ankle eversion and external rotation.&nbsp;What’s the point of pronation? When you walk or run, your ankle needs to help stabilize your body mass as your foot crashes into the ground. That stabilization requires three-dimensional movement at the ankle to act like a shock absorber and keep the body headed where it wants to go.

Pronation is one step in the sequence of how we run, says Farina. It can’t be isolated from the rest of your body. “When we design and test our running shoes, we study pronation holistically and look up the kinetic chain to examine effects at the knee. Then we research how pronation can be supported through product choice.”The kinetic chain, which is how your joints, muscles and other parts of the body work together to produce force and movement, treats your body as a system. Each part of your body has a role to play. Take your ankle. It might roll from side to side too fast, too much, or at the wrong time in relationship to the rest of your body. For eversion, when the ankle rolls inward, the research is mixed on the outcomes of trying to mitigate it. But literature suggests that for those who need it,&nbsp;focusing on ankle motion and&nbsp;the forces acting on your knee from either side are important to cut back on running-related injuries. It’s not&nbsp;either-or but&nbsp;and, because&nbsp;not all joints move in the same way.&nbsp;Your ankle can handle some eversion. Your knee isn’t meant to torque sideways.&nbsp;Again, think of the kinetic chain. The body is a system.To address pronation and still help reduce the pounding from running, it’s essential to solve for both cushioning and stability, which is what NSRL researchers have done in the new Structure 26.How We Approach ItTo keep your ankle from being too&nbsp;loose, you’ll find a host of “stability shoes” throughout the market, many of which&nbsp;try to address the ankle-movement issue with features that focus on the angle of eversion, or how much your ankle is moving side to side. The most extreme of these “motion control” stability shoes use medial posting — tough components that are attached to a rigid midsole — to force your ankle through a more limited range of motion. But research from the NSRL has found that this can send harmful loads up the chain to the knee.Nike designers found a more natural approach to controlling eversion in the Structure 26.&nbsp;

Structure 26 in the NSRL

Here, the foot’s arch sits above a wide base and is wrapped in a supportive midfoot system. The midsole has a full bed of ReactX foam, which helps you roll forward smoothly from heel to toe-off (the Structure 25 had a Zoom Air unit in the forefoot and Cushlon 3.0 throughout the midsole). The shoe’s outsole has added rubber in areas that can get worn down due to the ankle’s side-to-side movement, like the inside edge of the heel. All of this gives the Structure 26 increased durability and can help lead the runner through a more confident eversion pattern.&nbsp;The true pronation needs for each runner come down to a combination of perception and personal history, says Farina.“Our research tells us a few things hold true: Find the right balance of cushioning with inherent stability, and you can help a runner address their unique pronation pattern."

A Nike running expert unpacks a common misconception.

Ask a Sport Scientist

Is It Bad That I Pronate When I Run?

The 200-meter track in the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL) is more than a workout space. It’s a supercharged testing environment that allows Nike scientists to study how athletes move while wearing new shoes and technologies — and how to make those products the best in the industry.

<h3>What It Does</h3>Look up, and you’ll see one example of the track’s capabilities: Above the two lanes and rigged onto steel erectors is a collection of high-res motion-capture (“mo-cap”) cameras that can collect 250 snapshots of reflective marker data per second as an athlete moves around the track. Look down: Force plates situated beneath the track’s rubber surface collect up to 2,500 contact-force data points per second as an athlete hits the ground.NSRL researchers can set an LED pace light system, or “rabbit,” along the track’s innermost lane for paces from casual walking all the way to simulating world record times. The track also has practical features ideal for testing product across a variety of surfaces. For example, both the backstretch and the homestretch have a concrete lane to simulate running on sidewalks and roads.

<h3>What It Helps Us Do</h3>An athlete like Faith Kipyegon makes running look effortless. The NSRL track's capabilities help scientists quantify the poetry of her elite athleticism. Last year, in preparation for her attempt to break the four-minute mile, Kipyegon visited the NSRL, undergoing multiple tests on the track. Scientists placed mo-cap sensors over her body to analyze how a range of Nike spike prototypes influenced her gait pattern. In another test, a data-informed resistance sprint device was attached to Kipyegon to measure her power output at full speed. Near the track, Nike researchers tapped into an array of testing tools to measure Kipyegon's aerobic and anaerobic profile, such as her V02 max.

Faith visited the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL) for tests that would guide the team in creating one-of-one products to help her achieve her goal of breaking the 4-minute mile.

An athlete's foot strike can change from spike prototype to prototype, so researchers placed mo-cap sensors across Kipyegon's footwear to see how her spike selection influenced her running efficiency.

Above the NSRL track is a collection of high-res motion-capture cameras collecting 250 snapshots of reflective marker data per second as an athlete moves around the loop.

Testing for Breaking4

When Nike researchers create the sports innovations of the future, they tap into this one-of-one space.

For Tony Finau, Going the Distance is a Mindset

The Handshake That Started It All

What It Looks Like to Finish On Empty

Is It Bad That I Pronate When I Run?

The NSRL Fieldhouse Track

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