No, you won’t be running in the Nike x Hyperice Hyperboots, but if you are a runner and have almost a grand burning a hole in your pocket, we think these are a pair of shoes that should find a place into your footwear rotation. We did a full review on these compression boots already, but the TL;DR is that they use compression and heat to aid in the recovery process after a long session of working out on your feet, whether it’s because you ran, played tennis, or just spent a lot of hours putting the dogs to work. What we love about these shoes is that unlike other compression boots, you can walk in the Hyperboots so you don’t need to be immobile while your feet are getting the TLC they need. If peak physical performance is the goal, then the Hyperboots might be the secret to getting there.
Features of a Nike Shoe
Upper Materials: Flyknit was a major innovation for Nike when it first came out. Made of strong yet lightweight fibers, it allowed Nike to build zoned support into its running shoe uppers and reduce overall weight. Flyknit comes in different forms—the Vaporfly’s upper is quite rigid while the InfinityRN 4’s is soft and stretchy—but it’s always in a one-piece, sock-like design. Steamed and stretched, Flyknit becomes Atomknit, a lighter upper material found in Nike’s premium race shoes like the Alphafly. Many other Nike running shoes use engineered mesh, a shoe upper material that’s widely used across the industry.
Proprietary Foams: Much of running feel comes down to the foam, and Nike’s midsoles have enough fast-sounding names it’s easy to get confused. Starting from the top of the line, ZoomX is the company’s lightest, softest, and most responsive foam. To get technical, it’s a polyether block amide (PEBA) material originally used in the aerospace industry, but now it powers Nike’s top-tier racers like the Vaporfly and Alphafly.
Next up is ReactX, the latest version of Nike’s React foam, which is made of an injection-molded combination of thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) and ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA). According to Nike, ReactX provides 13% more energy return and has a 43% smaller carbon footprint than the old formula. It provides a nice balance of softness and responsiveness and you’ll find it in daily drivers like the Pegasus 41 and InfinityRN 4.
Lastly, there’s Cushlon 3.0. Cushlon is a classic compression-molded EVA, a common material in running shoe midsoles. You’ll find it in shoes made for more casual, slower running like the Structure 25.
Nike Air Units: Sometimes referred to as Zoom Air, sometimes just Air, these propulsive pods are a trademark piece of Nike tech that dates back to the 1978 Tailwind. They come in all shapes and sizes but the concept is always the same: pressurized air and stretched fibers absorb the impact of a footfall and release it back into the stride. Nike adds Air to shoes for every sport; sometimes it’s hidden inside the midsole and sometimes, as in the Alphafly 3, it’s right out in the open.
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