John Kim 
Beginning on Tuesday, the Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, OR celebrated “The Opening” – a summit that gathered the nation’s top high-school football talents for a showcase of speed, agility, and the “it” factor. It was the perfect time to launch Nike US Football’s latest innovations in the Lunar TR1, a supremely lightweight training shoe, and the Lunar Vapor Ultimate, the first Flyknit football cleat. These two models are the perfect example of the convergence of Nike’s most advanced footwear technologies and the cohesive nature of the package.
Several notable Nike figureheads kicked off the event, but the newest face of the team was none other than Nathan Van Hook, who was named the Design Director for Nike Athletic Training Footwear a few months ago. Superbowl Champion Richard Sherman was on hand as well to talk about the benefits of Nike’s lightweight footwear, but as we typically expect from the outspoken defensive back, he walked the walk as well. The next stop of the tour? The Nike Sports Research Lab.
After Nike wrapped up the official presentation for the Nike Lunar TR1 and the Lunar Vapor Ultimate Cleat, we were given guided access to one of the most private sectors of the entire Nike campus – the Nike Sports Research Lab. It’s here that the shoes we lace up are tested rigorously by the world’s best athletes using state of the art equipment. Being situated adjacent to the Innovation Kitchen means that these two groups work hand in hand in developing the most advanced and performance-boosting sneakers.
Richard Sherman played the role of test dummy during this round. Several motion-capturing sensors were placed around his body to capture his movements down to the millimeter, and all of the gathered data was monitored in an effort to discover the advantages of the lighter Lunar TR1. Sherman did just fine, but now it was time to lace them up ourselves.
Following the NSRL demo, the media group was led to the famed Bo Jackson athletic field to put the two new footwear models to the test. We gathered on the clean green turf field suited with the new gear – some with the Trainers, others with the cleats – to get a first-hand experience at how such lightweight footwear could help in agility exercises, sprinting with parachutes, and football drills.
The following day, the lead trainers selected one volunteer to wear a VO2 mask during the morning’s workout. This mask, which wraps around the mouth and connects to some machinery strapped around the back, measures oxygen intake data, which has proven to be one of the key drivers of the Nike+ Fuel study. Using heart rate and oxygen intake, the Fuel team extrapolated that info to fine-tune to definition of the Fuel currency, which is universal to all people regardless of gender, size, etc.
