Title: How much do track spikes improve times in the sprints? - Freelap USA
Headings: How much do track spikes improve times in the sprints?
How much do track spikes improve times in the sprints?
Anatomy of a Track Spike
Measuring Spikes and Sprinting Speed
What Sport Science Discovered with Track Spikes and Speed
The Spike Test Results
How to pick the right pair of spikes
References

Content: The first is obvious, being light enough not to slow down the leg when it’s swinging in the air and this has not been a problem for 50 years as the weight hasn’t been that heavy in the past. Legs being repositioned isn’t a limiting factor in the research, but nobody plans to compete in construction boots as most shoes now are light weight. Second is the need for a shoe that is hard to help transmit forces through the track. When athletes come to tracks, many can observe the hardness by dropping a ball and seeing how high it bounces back. Athlete want a hard track in competition, and the same rules apply with a hard spike. Cushioning is good perhaps for training with distance runners, but when it comes to speed, hard options rule, but to a limit. The Spike Test Results
In the study Increased Shoe Bending Stiffness Increases Sprint Performance, the researchers concluded that a hard plate is necessary to improving spike performance, but not all athletes respond the same to increasing the stiffness of the spike plate. Some barely got better and some got slower, but most improved their speed. What the researchers did was timed the athletes in a 40 meter sprint and analyzed the 20-40 m segment. What they found was some athletes improved by a few hundredths when wearing harder track spikes, specifically the soles that were made of carbon fiber [2].