The Nike Pegasus Premium: You’ve Never Felt Zoom Like This Before

Air is Nike’s most versatile and performance-enhancing cushioning technology, and the company is constantly innovating how the proprietary platform can better serve athletes. Never taking its eye off the future, Nike is raising the bar with the unveil of the Nike Pegasus Premium, which features Nike’s first sculpted, visible Air Zoom unit. Designed with the same ambition that’s inspired Nike’s boldest Air creations, the Pegasus Premium optimizes Nike Air to deliver an efficient, responsive sensation unlike any other Air Zoom cushioning system to date. 

The visible Air Zoom unit is sculpted from the forefoot to the heel, contoured to carry a runner’s power efficiently from their heel strike to their toe-off. The unit cushions a runner’s landing and smoothly transitions them into their next step. For decades, Nike innovators have designed around flat Air Zoom units to deliver full energy return. But with Nike’s mastery of emerging tools like computational design, AI engines and rapid prototyping, designers can contort Air units into new curvatures that more closely resemble the shape of the foot, leading to new levels of efficiency. 

The addition of Nike’s proprietary ZoomX foam in the midsole and ReactX foam in the heel creates a new cushioning system — a smooth, propulsive ride mile after mile — that optimizes energy return for runners. In fact, with its unique Air Zoom unit and strategically placed foam, the Pegasus Premium returns more energy to the runner than any other model in the Pegasus franchise to date.

For Kathy Gomez, Nike VP NXT Footwear, the Pegasus Premium is significant not only for its technological breakthroughs, but also for the access it presents to all runners by bringing them world-class cushioning systems — along with a brand-new way to unlock Air Zoom. 

“Air is Nike’s separator in the footwear industry — no one can create cushioning innovations like we can,” says Gomez. “In running, when we combine Air with components like midfoot plates and with platforms like our proprietary foams, we create superior systems for performance. For the Peg Premium, we wanted runners to get the most energy return possible out of the sculpted Air Zoom unit. Not only does it double as a spring-like mechanism, the Air unit is also designed to engage with the entirety of your foot, no matter your gait pattern or stride length.”

Nike’s designers, engineers and scientists at Nike Air Manufacturing Innovation, the Nike Running team, and the Nike Sport Research Lab worked together to deliver an entirely new underfoot Air sensation for runners. Digital capabilities such as finite element analysis, a computerized method for predicting how a product will react to physical forces, helped Nike teams test the sculpted Air unit to predict how it would react to the repeated pounding of running. 

To create a secure fit over the footbed, the upper is engineered with a circular knit. Together with the same dynamic midfoot system used in the Pegasus line, the upper is reinforced in specific areas of the lateral and medial forefoot that need more support during a run. 

Both a signal of Nike’s innovation super cycle and proof of the power of its proprietary Air, the Pegasus Premium embodies the company’s ability to listen to and serve athletes.

The Nike Pegasus Premium releases in the Airscape colorway on nike.com, on the Nike App, and at select running specialty stores. Launch details to come.