The future of sports science runs through Asics and Ann Arbor

As a proud Penn Stater, it can be hard for me to venture into "enemy territory." I've been to Columbus once and College Park, MD, a few times now that I live here, but I've certainly never taken a flight into a rival Big Ten city - at least until now.

As it turns out, all it really took to get me on an early morning flight to Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, was an email from Asics. Well, an email from Asics and the promise of sports innovation. So, off I went to experience the grand opening of the Asics Michigan Sports Innovation Center (AMSI).

Here's what I saw during my time on the ground.

Smart people, smart partners

I'd say I'm very familiar with the folks on the Asics PR team, and I'm definitely familiar with a lot of the running media that makes its way to events like the AMSI launch, but I'd forgotten one thing: This wasn't a shoe launch. It wasn't going to draw the running reviewers, it was going to draw the business journalists.

So, I couldn't have been more relieved to drop in at a local Ann Arbor pizzeria to meet a few of the important faces. We had a brief introduction, a quick celebration of the signing of Vinny Mauri and the record-breaking marathon debut of Emma Grace Hurley, and then it was time to dig into some pizza, some gelato, and a game or two of bocce - which was somehow my duty to teach everyone on account of living closest to Little Italy in Baltimore I guess?

Anyway, Kodama-San smoked me despite claiming to have never played before.

The next morning, we were up bright and early to learn what AMSI was all about.

Partners in the lab, partners at the starting line

Essentially, AMSI has been developed as a way to streamline the path that sports research takes from the lab to the running shoe. By working more closely with select faculty partners, the product teams at Asics can work animal biology, advanced fabrics, and decision-making algorithms into their development processes.

For us, that took the form of a round-robin-style lab tour, going from one research partner to the next. I was split off into the yellow group (sorry, I can't call it Maize), and away I went to meet the six faculty members and see their research.

Up first, Dr. Richard Gonzalez's team walked us through the decision-making algorithm they're developing. The idea behind it is that they'll be able to use different factors and preferences, like shoe softness, energy return, or upper construction, to both analyze what shoe a runner might prefer but also develop new shoes that better align with data clusters. As anyone who's worked in run specialty can tell you, there's no way it can be that easy.

From there, I hopped on a bus to the Ford robotics lab to see a biomechanics demonstration that turned a smartphone video into a controllable exoskeleton to study the way a person moves through a space and how their body reacts. 

The robotics lab also housed a study on animal biology, with Dr. Talia Moore researching everything from goat hooves to gecko fingerprints to find ways to implement them into wearable products. You can see her Jerboa, used to design shoes specifically for jumping, represented on the tote bag above.

Honestly, though, my favorite research was the work that Dr. Sean Ahlquist and Dr. Max Shtein seemed to be doing in tandem. Ahlquist is exploring advanced knitting techniques and materials that can better wick moisture, expand and contract to fit people more comfortably, and offer sensory relief to groups that may need it. 

Shtein's research centers around the Japanese technique of Kirigami, which is in a similar family to Origami. Instead of folding to create new shapes, though, it involves cutting to modify the structure of one flat plane. From there, his team can use the flat structures to create sensors that you can put into clothing or footwear to gather additional data.

And, for someone whose science journey ended with a few light, fluffy college courses about coral reefs and dinosaurs, I have to say I felt like I kept up with most of the presentations. It turns out that working in running really does teach you quite a bit about, well, running.

When will we see AMSI in action?

As fellow shoe nerds, you might be disappointed to hear that I don't have much more to share with you at this time. As a relatively new collaboration, the AMSI simply hasn't had the time to put all of its experiments through the rigorous testing that they need to make their way to shelves. 

However, the teams we talked to seemed pretty confident that the future is near. The earliest estimate for fully developed products using AMSI research is somewhere around early 2028, which follows about what we'd expect for the footwear development process. If the researchers take six months to gather their data, it will give the product teams a further year to refine it into something you can actually wear - right in line with the standard development process.

In the meantime, keep a close eye on the AMSI for new partnerships and ideas, and if possible, can someone tell Kodama-San that I'd like a rematch?