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Some running shoes swagger into town, stirring up hype, making big promises. Like the Nike Vaporfly or the Puma Fast-R Nitro 3 Elite, the Adidas Hyperboost Edge ($200) promises to usher in “a new era of road running,” with brand-new supershoe DNA—a giant stack of new super foam, lightweight uppers, and a bold new design.

Courtesy of Adidas

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Adidas

Hyperboost Edge

$200 Amazon (Men's)

$200 Amazon (Women's)

$200 Adidas (Men's)

It certainly looks a lot different than the shoes we might have laced up just a few years back. But what’s really different about these so-called super trainers like the Hyperboost Edge? Here, I'll break down what's going on inside the new wave of high-performance running shoes and if they'll really make you faster.

If you're not really worried about cutting a minute or two off your mile, don't forget to check out the rest of our outdoor buying guides, including the Best Running Shoes, the Best Gravel Running Shoes, and the Best Running Socks.

What Is a Super Trainer?

The Adidas Hyperboost Edge joins a growing lineup of running shoes that attempt to translate the high tech of racing “super shoes” into “super trainers,” delivering some of the speed and feel of a race shoe into a more usable everyday package.

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Asics

Megablast

$225 Running Warehouse

$225 Asics

The super trainer recipe often pairs a big stack of high-energy, lightweight super foam with a nylon or carbon plate and weight-saving race-style uppers. There’s also a growing trend for plate-free super trainers in response to fears that racking up too many miles in carbon-plated shoes raises your injury risk. But more on that in a mo.

The Hyperboost Edge is Adidas’ first non-plated super trainer and follows in the max-stack footsteps of shoes like the Asics Megablast and the Saucony Endorphin Azura—surprisingly versatile all-round running shoes that can cover most of your weekly miles. This is the shoe sandwich that lets them protect your legs while helping you run farther and faster.

The Midsole Magic

Carbon plates often grab the headlines, but the midsole foam really creates the super shoe magic. When I started running in 2009, the main midsole material was still ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA), which has been used since the late 1970s and is still used today. EVA is cushioned (to a point), stable, durable, and cheap. But foam technology has bounded on. Gas-infused, supercritical foams, like the polyether block amide (PEBA) Hyperboost Pro in the Edge, are now all the buzz.

Supercritical foams are made by injecting a gas, like CO₂ or nitrogen, under high pressure into the midsole while it's forming in the mold. In a supercritical state, the gas is not liquid, nor gas, but both at once. When the pressure is reduced, the gas expands inside the foam to create bubbles or cells that give the foam its lighter, bouncier properties.

Courtesy of Adidas

These gas-injected, supercritical super foams allow shoe designers to stack more foam underfoot for better cushioning, more protection, and higher energy return, and crucially without adding weight. Bigger-stacked running shoes even come in lighter than traditional EVA shoes.

Supercritical foams debuted in carbon race shoes like the Nike Vaporfly 4%, but we’re now seeing super foams designed specifically for training purposes. Shoes like the Adidas Hyperboost Edge’s put a whopping 45 mm stack of expanded, beaded, PEBA-based Hyperboost Pro foam under the heel and 39 mm under the forefoot, while staying under 9 ounces in a US men's 9.5.

You’re not just getting a higher-energy-returning foam, you’re getting more of it without compromising on weight. When you consider that adding 100 grams to a running shoe increases running energy cost by around 1 percent, that’s a big deal. However, not all foams are created equal.

Sole Searching

While shoemakers stamp midsoles with the branded foam names like ZoomX (Nike), Lightstrike Pro (Adidas) or PWRRUN PB (Saucony), very few brands reveal exactly what’s in their branded foam. To make things more complicated, brands often tweak the foam formula from shoe to shoe. So the Nike ZoomX foam used in the Alphafly isn’t necessarily the same as you find in another Nike daily trainer.

Some shoes also feature what’s called a carrier foam, where only a section of the midsole is made from the top-tier foam and another (often cheaper) foam is used for the bulk of the midsole. That can bring advantages, enhancing stability and durability. But it’s not always 100 percent clear from looking at the shoe what part of the midsole uses the premium foam.

Should You Have a Carbon Plate?

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Saucony

Endorphin Speed 5

$175 Amazon (Men's)

$175 $165 (6% off) Amazon (Women's)

$175 REI (Men's)

$175

The Adidas Hyperboost Edge Is Your New Super Trainer | WIRED