Nike's Project Amplify Is a Powered Boost for Runners

In the last decade, there’s been a significant uptick in interest in e-bikes, with a corresponding boost in sales. The reasons for this aren’t difficult to understand: a system that can supplement a rider’s pedaling is a significant incentive to get someone cycling. The growing popularity of e-bikes in bike share programs is one aspect of that. In turn, this raises another question: what if there was technology that did for runners and walkers what e-bike hardware does for cyclists?

If that question intrigues you, we have good news: Nike is at work at developing a system for runners and walkers that would boost the action of, well, running or walking. The design they’ve debuted looks equally familiar and high-tech: essentially a running shoe connected to a mechanism that wraps around the wearer’s ankle.

“Project Amplify started with a single question: What if we could find a way to help athletes move faster and farther with less energy and a lot more fun?” explained Nike’s VP of Create The Future, Emerging Sport and Innovation, Michael Donaghu, in a statement. “At its core, Project Amplify is about seamlessly adding a little more power to your stride. The fun comes from realizing you can do more than you thought you could — whatever ‘more’ means to you.”

As part of a feature for The Guardian, Sean Ingle described what it is like to run while wearing a Project Amplify prototype. “[A]t one point I jog up the 150-metre ramp on Nike’s campus which has a 15.63% incline – without being remotely out of breath,” Ingle wrote — adding that he embarked on the run with a bruised toe, yet only felt relatively small amounts of pain while trying out the system.

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Nike’s announcement of the project offered a few more details, including who the target audience is: runners with “between a 10- and 12-minute mile pace.” Nike has yet to set a firm on-sale date for the system; instead, there’s a reference to “a broad consumer launch in the coming years” while the company continues its testing. If there’s a comparable market for these to the one for e-bikes — and if the price is right — this could be a literal game-changer.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…