Nike Vomero Premium: Is the Swoosh Developing an “Illegal” Running Shoe?

Records are meant to be broken. If you ask Nike, so are some rules — like the one set by World Athletics that pertains to the stack height of running shoes.

Introduced in 2020, largely in response to the record-shattering success of the Vaporfly line, the World Athletics bans the use of any shoe with a midsole measuring greater than 40mm from competition.

Why then would Nike be developing just that?

Codenamed the “Alter G,” a defiantly chunky running shoe has been spotted on the feet of Nike athletes like Connor Mantz and Jakob Ingebrigtsen, as first reported by the Instagram account @the_secret_shoe.

And by the looks of it, it will surely sidestep the 40mm rule by a significant margin — assuming, of course, it ever makes its way to the market.

What are those?

Though details are spare, the rumor mill is already churning out names for a potential release, with “Vomero Premium” and “Invincible Plus” being the odds-on favorites.

The latter does make sense, given that the shoe most closely resembles Nike’s current max-cushioned trainer, the Invincible 3. (Nike recently used “Plus” in the rebrand of the Pegasus Turbo.)

Nike

However, the Vomero is Nike’s original shoe for comfort and support. And calling it the “Vomero Premium” could give the iconic series (which has become more associated with fashion than running in recent years) a long-overdue performance boost.

Doing so also fits within Nike’s confirmed trajectory for next year: in April, the company announced the forthcoming Pegasus Premium — a super trainer equipped with ZoomX foam and a full Air Zoom unit running the entire length of the shoe.

Nike

From the pictures online, it looks like the “Vomero Premium” (or “Invincible Plus”) will feature similar air bag technology to the Pegasus Premium, though it will likely feature two separate units instead of one stretched out across the entire midsole.

Trainers are for training

Regardless of what Nike ends up calling the thing, the question stands: why release it at all if the shoe will feature a stack height that doesn’t fall below the limit set by the world’s foremost sports governing body?

It basically boils down to the fact that trainers — shoes made for training, not racing — don’t need to follow the 40mm rule. Unlike banned substances, professional runners are free to train in whichever shoes they please, even though some models have been dubbed a form of “mechanical doping” for their clear performance-enhancing benefits.

As for those benefits, there are plenty of reasons why runners would want the extra cushioning in a training shoe. Chief among them, of course, is injury prevention when running upward of 90 miles a week.

According to one study, technologically advanced running shoes (TARS) — a.k.a. super shoes — may reduce “cumulative tibial damage” by up to 12 percent. In other words, having a training shoe with similar properties could empower athletes to run faster and longer, with a reduced risk of injury at higher volumes, intensities or both.

Hoka

If Nike does release the super trainer, it wouldn’t be the first on the market to skirt the rules. In fact, it might even help kickstart a trend among manufacturers to design trainers with equally high stack heights.

Earlier this year, Hoka released its own super trainer with a monstrously thick midsole, the Skyward X (48mm). Meanwhile, Adidas, New Balance and other brands have their own models exceeding the 40mm limit.

Whether or not Nike joins them remains to be seen, however, you can count on one thing if it does: the “Vomero Premium” will almost certainly carry a price tag worthy of its midsole.

The Pegasus Premium has reported price tag of $220, suggesting an MSRP here upward of $250 or more. No matter how you slice it, that’s very high, indeed.

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