nsrl-innovation

NSRL Form: Sport Science Made Personal

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 20:33:01 GMT

From Movement to Product

Rethinking the Role of Retail

Running may feel simple, but every stride is a complex, whole-body movement. With each step, an athlete* must produce force against the ground while simultaneously controlling how their body response to that force. The feet, legs, hips and upper body work together continuously as the athlete* moves forward, and no two runners run exactly the same.

One athlete* may move more vertically; another may lean farther forward, while one other’s hips may remain relatively stable, or move more with each stride. Rather than analyzing running from the foot up, NSRL Form studies the athlete* as a complete system.

Product Tag: Nike's Road Running Lineup

NSRL form is also changing what a Nike store can offer an athlete. At Harajuku, athletes are spending a longer time in-store; which is adding value when the athlete* leaves knowing something new about themselves they didn’t know when they arrived.

Nike Harajuku team observed: “It is no longer just a place to try on and buy products—it is becoming a place where customers gain insight into their potential and receive clear next steps.”

The store has become a place for discovery, where athletes* can connect science, self-knowledge and product in a single experience.

Is fit really driven by foot shape, or is something else happening?

That knowledge can also help athletes* navigate one of running’s most complicated decisions: “What should I run in?”

Nike’s Road Running lineup simplifies that choice around three distinct cushioning experiences:

Pegasus for responsive cushioning
Vomero for maximum cushioning
Structure for supporting cushioning

Within each franchise, Icon, Plus, and Premium expressions create Nike’s nine-box Road Running structure. Instead of beginning with a wall of footwear, the experience begins with how the athlete* moves. Their movement profile can then help inform a footwear recommendation and provide greater confidence as they navigate Nike’s running line up.

Research behind NSRL Form found that runners without consultation often selected footwear that did not accommodate their movement patterns. When athletes* saw their NSRL Form data alongside footwear recommendations, they tended to choose shoes better aligned with their movement profile.

Yet, NSRL Form isn’t designed to prescribe a shoe. Footwear recommendations intentionally come at the end of the experience because the first objective is bigger: give athletes* the power to understand themselves. Science provides the insight, Nike’s Road Running system provides the choice and the athletes* decides what feels right.

Category: Athlete Guidance

NSRL Form doesn’t only take science out of the lab but creates a pathway back into it. As more runners participate, Nike gains a richer understanding of how athletes* move across populations, geographies and experience levels, creating a continues feedback loop:

Athletes* ⏩ Data ⏩ Science ⏩ Guidance ⏩ Product ⏩ Athletes*

More athletes* create more insight and more insight strengthens the science to inform better guidance, experiences and products for the athletes* who come next.

NSRL Form was created to translate sophisticated movement science into something immediately useful: a better understanding of how an athlete* moves and what they can do with that knowledge.

NSRL Form begins with two minutes of running on a treadmill.
Athletes* run at a self-selected, comfortable pace while full-body motion-capture technology collects more than 150 data points across their movement data.
From that data, athletes* receive personalized insights they can use to better understand their run, improve how they move and make more informed footwear choices.

Researchers narrowed the analysis to six actionable metrics focused on how an athlete* produces force and controls their body.

Force: How the athlete* creates and manages the forces generated while running

Control: How the athlete* controls their body as it moves through each stride

Together, those six measures create an individualized movement profile. Athletes* can see how they run, understand opportunities for improvement and receive exercises to support their goals.

NSRL form isn’t searching for one perfect running technique or telling every runner to move the same way. It recognizes individual movement patterns and translates them into information an athlete* can understand and act on.

The Science of How We Run

Bringing the Science of the Lab to the Athlete*

Sport Tag: Running

NSRL Form gives everyday athletes* access to elite-level sport science and provides personalized insights into how they move with actionable guidance to help them improve how they run
After a two-minute run on a treadmill, NSRL Form uses full-body motion capture and Nike-developed algorithms to analyze more than 150 points of movement data, translating them into six actionable metrics focused on two fundamental components of running: force and control
Movement science can help runners make more informed footwear decisions. NSRL Form connects an athlete’s* movement profile to Nike’s Road Running footwear system, helping runners navigate Pegasus, Vomero and Structure across Icon, Plus and Premium expressions with greater confidence
There is no single running form that defines every athlete*. Each runner has a unique movement profile with different opportunities to improve
Personalized insights help athletes* make more informed footwear decisions
By bringing sport science into retail, Nike can create a deeper relationship between athlete* science and product
NSRL Form is currently located in Nike Retail Shanghai, Nike Harajuku, Nike London, a Mobile Lab and NSRL, PHK.
In Q4FY27 at Nike Harajuku, NSRL Form generated 1.9k bookings, a 78% show rate and 27% product conversion, demonstrating the value athletes* place on science-backed guidance
Since its start, NSRL Form has served over 17k runners and captured their run data for NSRL learnings sfdsfd
34% of athletes* have made a Nike purchase within 90 days after running through NSRL Form

At A Glance

The Feedback Loop

Helping Athletes* Understand Their Running Form

Every runner moves differently from how the body controls force and how the hips and knees move through each stride to how an athlete* responds every time their foot meets the ground. But those differences can be nearly impossible for runners to understand on their own. Historically, accessing that level of insight meant stepping inside a biomechanics lab, but NSRL Form changes that.

Research in Action: Nike Harajuku Retail Store

At Nike Harajuku, NSRL form is demonstrating what happens when sport science becomes part of the everyday athlete* experience.

In Q4FY27, NSRL Form generated 1.9k bookings, a 78% show rate and 27% product conversion at the Harajuku location alone. Year to date, the location has generated 5.6k bookings and served 4.2k athletes*.

The numbers tell only part of the story. Athletes* consistently value three elements of the experience: understanding their movement, learning how they can improve, and validating their footwear choice. Strong trust in data-driven recommendations is helping athletes* make product decisions with greater confidence.

Science Without Walls

From Shanghai and Tokyo to London, Berlin and mobile experiences, NSRL Form is extending the mission of the Nike Sport Research Lab to serve athletes* where they already are. This is a new way to connect Nike’s understanding of athletes* with the products and experiences designed to serve them.

Protecting Performance: The Science of Staying Cool

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 22:36:08 GMT

Heat is more than a comfort issue; it is a performance challenge. As thermal strain increases, fatigue accelerates during prolonged endurance efforts.
NSRL combines biomechanics, thermoregulation, athlete guidance, and physiology to understand how cooling protects performance.
Summer 2026, the Nike Innovation Farm Team provided an unprecedented 15-week living lab , allowing researchers to study the same athletes* across training, testing and product development.
Continuous athlete partnership, like the Farm Team, helps transform scientific discovery into products built to protect athletes when they need it most. For example, Radical Airflow uses engineered ventilation structures to enhance airflow, accelerate sweat evaporation and support the body’s natural cooling system.

At A Glance

A Living Lab for Endurance Science

Measuring Protection Under Real Conditions

The true value of the Farm Team is that products are evaluated where endurance athletes actually perform, not only inside a lab. Environmental chamber testing is combined with field validation, long-duration wear testing, physiological measurements and continuous athlete feedback to understand how cooling performs under real physiological stress.

Controlled testing demonstrated that Radical Airflow delivered significantly higher breathability while reducing moisture retention compared with traditional performance apparel.

Just as important, athlete perception aligned with the physiological data. Runners consistently described feeling airflow moving across their skin throughout long efforts; while others remarked that they forgot they were wearing the garment altogether.Those athlete insights didn’t simply validate the product; they improved it. Continuous feedback identified opportunities to further optimize cooling zones, garment fit, seam construction, sun protection and ventilation placement, allowing researchers and designers to refine the system while development is still underway.

One of the first innovation platforms to be tested on the Farm Team is Radical Airflow. While breathable apparel has traditionally focused on lighter fabrics or moisture management, Radical Airflow approaches cooling differently. Its engineered ventilation structures are built directly into the garment to help support the body’s natural thermoregulation process.

Strategically mapped airflow pathways:

Increase airflow across the skin
Accelerate sweat evaporation
Reduce moisture retention
Create movement-driven ventilation as athletes run
Deliver cooling where heat and sweat accumulate most

Rather than adding ventilation for appearance, every opening is intentionally engineered to create measurable airflow while maintaining comfort, durability and performance. The objective is to reduce thermal strain so more energy can be directed toward movement instead of cooling the body.

The Farm Team represents more than a new testing program it's an entirely new model for innovation. Every athlete simultaneously contributes to multiple areas of NSRL research:

Thermoregulation explores how apparel protects athletes from heat stress
Biomechanics measures how movement changes as fatigue accumulates
Athlete Guidance translates physiological insights into actionable performance strategies
Mind Sciences investigates perception, resilience, and decision-making during prolonged effort
Product Wear Testing converts athlete experience into immediate product direction

Instead of operating independently, these disciplines continuously inform one another, creating a richer understanding of endurance performance and dramatically accelerating product learning. The result is a research ecosystem where every run, every physiological measurement, and every athlete conversation contributes to future innovation.

For endurance trail athletes, heat is a physiological stressor that can significantly impact performance. As the body temperature rises, the cardiovascular system works harder to meet the demands: delivering blood to working muscles to support energy production while increasing blood flow to the skin to dissipate heat.

Sweat becomes less effective when moisture remains trapped against the skin; heart rate increases, perceived effort increases, and fatigue begins to accumulate. Over the course of hours, these physiological demands compound and contribute to performance losses.

Protecting athletes from thermal stress isn’t simply about helping them feel cooler. It’s about helping them perform longer. To better understand how athletes respond to prolonged heat stress, the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL) launched the Nike Innovation Farm Team: a first-of-its-kind athletes-in-residence research program designed to study endurance athletes over an entire training cycle rather than a single day in the lab . The goal is to generate deeper scientific understanding that leads to better product innovation.

The Farm Team is unlike traditional wear testing. Eighteen trail runners ranging from everyday to sub-elite participate in a 15-week longitudinal research program, allowing researchers to continuously study how physiology, biomechanics, product and environment interact over time.

Each athlete completes comprehensive baseline testing before entering ten weeks of structured training, weekly assessments, product evaluations and ongoing physiological monitoring before returning for post-testing. Rather than collecting isolated snapshots, researchers observe adaptation as it happens. Throughout the program, scientists collect:

This unprecedented continuity creates something traditional research cannot: a complete picture of how athletes change over time and how products should evolve with them.

Protecting the Body’s Natural Cooling System

One Athlete. Five Scientific Disciplines.

Protecting Athletes from Heat

From Protection Science to Product Innovation

Trail running places some of the greatest thermoregulatory demands on the human body. Long durations, changing elevations, unpredictable weather, and sustained physiological stress challenge the body’s ability to maintain optimal performance. The Farm Team allows the Nike Sport Research Lab to study those challenges in ways that have never before been possible.

By following the same athletes over fifteen weeks, researchers gain deeper insight into how heat affects movement, physiology, perception and performance. But the broader innovation is the model itself. The Farm Team transforms athlete access from isolated testing sessions into an ongoing scientific partnership, creating a continuous feedback loop between athletes, researchers, engineers, designers, and product teams. Every mile run, every physiological measurement, and every athlete insight strengthens Nike’s understanding of endurance performance. Protecting athletes begins with understanding the science of how the body responds to stress and using that knowledge to create products that help athletes stay cooler, perform longer and push farther than ever before.

Product Tag: Rad Air

Sport Tag: Running

Category: Protection

The Science of Speed

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 22:35:51 GMT

Perhaps an overarching sentence here about speed being an athlete evergreen. Athletes* want to get faster . However, speed on the pitch is fundamentally different than speed on the road. Midsole energy return behaves differently on natural grass than it does on concrete, requiring an entirely new scientific approach.
The NSRL developed a first of its kind Shuttle Running Protocol that breaks global football down into its key movement demands, including acceleration, deceleration, cutting and repeated sprinting, creating a more representative way to study on-pitch performance.
Those insights gave researchers a new framework for footwear innovation . Based on hypotheses for improving on-pitch performance, the team could iterate on the mechanical properties of the shoe, test their impact and refine the design around the specific demands of the sport.
Studying the sport the way it is actually played unlocked new innovation . By measuring footwear under realistic game demands, researchers could optimize performance for football rather than simply adapting running technology.
Every component of the Mercurial was tuned as a complete system . The placement of the Zoom Air unit, stud elements, plate design, and ZoomX sockliner were refined together to maximize energy return without compromising playability.
The result is a new blueprint for speed . By combining biomechanical testing, metabolic research and athlete* validation, the NSRL redefined how performance is measured, and engineered a football boot built for the realities of the game.

At A Glance

From Running Science to Global Football Science

Engineering the Perfect Balance

With a testing protocol that accurately reflected the sport, researchers could begin optimizing every component of the Mercurial system. The challenge wasn’t simply creating more energy return. Too much cushioning reduced stability, and increased stiffness affected agility. Then there was the fact that traction had to perform without sacrificing speed.

After multiple generations of prototypes and athlete* research, the team refined what became the Mercurial formula:

Precise placement and geometry of the Nike Zoom Air unit to maximize mechanical energy return
A ground-facing plate engineered to activate the air bag while maintaining stability on natural grass
Carefully tuned secondary traction elements on the Nike Zoom Air unit support explosive acceleration and braking while complementing the primary stud design.
A lightweight Nike ZoomX sockliner that increases energy return and complements the mechanics of the air bag.

The result was a football boot that delivers increased energy return to the athlete* at the right moment while maintaining traction, control and stability—and the smooth transition that athletes* need.

One of the most significant breakthroughs behind the latest Mercurial was the creation of the NSRL Shuttle Running Protocol– a novel method designed specifically for global football. Rather than evaluating athletes* through continuous, straight line running, the protocol recreates the building blocks of match play in a controlled scientific environment. Accelerations, decelerations, directional changes and repeated sprint efforts are combined with metabolic measurements to better understand how athletes* Global Football Economy on pitch rather than Running Economy on pitch.

What is Running Economy? Running economy is the energy expended for a given pace.

What is Global Football Economy? Global Football Economy is the NSRL’s estimate of the energy expended during game play. Using running economy would under-estimate global football economy because all of the accelerations, decelerations and stability requirements are different between running and playing global football.

This new methodology gave researchers the ability to quantify footwear properties like energy return and weight impact on Global Football economy, unlocking insights that previous testing methods may over-estimate.

The NSRL research on Mercurial in partnership with Footwear Innovation represents a new understanding of speed for Nike. By recognizing that global football requires different science than running, the NSRL partnered with Footwear Innovation to develop entirely new methods for measuring athlete* performance on the pitch. Those discoveries helped inform every detail of the final design, from the placement of the Zoom Air unit to the geometry of the traction system.

The same scientific principles that guided the development of Nike’s fastest football innovations were on full display during 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. Across the tournament, 152 goals were scored by athletes wearing Nike boots. Even more telling, 60% of all tournament goals came in Nike boots, despite Nike officially sponsoring only 30% of the players.

That gap tells an important story. Many athletes who were not under Nike contract still chose to compete in Nike footwear when the stakes were the highest. For the NSRL, that is the ultimate validation. Years of biomechanics research, athlete testing and iterative design translated into products trusted by the world’s best players.

When the product is informed by NSRL science, athletes* can move faster where it matters most.

When athletes* think about speed, they often think about power, explosiveness and training. In the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL), speed starts with understanding something deeper: how athletes* interact with the ground beneath them.

For years, midsole energy return has transformed running footwear.But global football presents a different challenge. The game isn’t played on a rigid surface. It unfolds on living grass where energy is absorbed into the surface. Unlike steady-state running, global football has accelerations, cuts and decelerations requiring increased available traction and stability compared to running. This means understanding energy return in global football requires looking beyond the footwear to consider how the shoe, surface, traction, and stability work together to influence performance.

When an athlete runs, they contact the ground and store energy into the midsole. We define midsole energy return as the proportion of stored energy that is returned to the athlete. One way to increase midsole energy return is to maximize the use of resilient cushioned materials like Zoom Air units and ZoomX sock liners. Maximizing midsole energy return for Global Football must also consider differences in surface properties. Most soccer pitches absorb around 50 percent of the energy, making it less economical to run on compared to concrete. Surface property differences and in-game stability demands forced the team to create the right shape and placement of a Zoom Air Unit under the metatarsals.

Add the unpredictable movement patterns of global football, and traditional running test methods no longer reflect the true demands of the sport.

Recognizing the gap, NSRL researchers developed an entirely new way to measure performance.

A New Way to Measure Speed

Science That Changed the World Cup

Product Tag: Mercurial Footwear

Sport Tag: Global Football

Category: Performance

Beyond Foot Shape

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 22:34:31 GMT

NSRL’s Learnings from This Perception Science Study

Turning Small Changes Backed by Science into Scaled Impact

Every athlete* knows when a shoe feels right. Understanding why has proven much harder. For years, footwear development focused on anatomy. If athletes* in Greater China consistently described shoes as narrow or tight, the assumption was that their feet must be fundamentally different.

Rather than accept that assumption, the NSRL Perception Team asked a different question.

Product Tag: Nike Running Footwear

Perception researchers discovered that athletes* often formed an opinion about fit before taking a single step. The way a shoe opened, how easily a foot entered, and how the upper wrapped around the foot all influenced those first impressions.

The NSRL partnered with footwear teams to translate insights into practical product improvements. One of the biggest opportunities was the lacing system.

Working with Inline Running footwear engineering teams, the NSRL developed a revised eyelet geometry and a simple, low-cost ($0.01) factory process using a small jig to widen the shoe opening while preserving on-foot performance.

A simple design refinement improved ease of entry, perceived comfort, and manufacturing consistency across all running models since Spring of 2023. Other categories have followed suit, including other fields of play.

Is fit really driven by foot shape, or is something else happening?

Athletes* do not experience fit through measurements of the shoe alone. They experience it through Perception: how a shoe feels. Perception proved to be just as important as morphology. Sizing behavior, expectations, construction, ease of entry, upper geometry, and consistency across models all contributed to whether athletes* described a shoe as comfortable, secure, or restrictive.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was that differences between Nike models frequently exceeded the average anatomical differences observed between China and North America.

Category: Comfort & Experience

The research also identified consumer groups whose fit needs weren’t fully being met. Rather than to resolve fit issues per Geo, the findings encouraged Nike to think more broadly about width, length, model consistency, and athlete* diversity.

The goal became designing footwear that better serves more athletes* without sacrificing performance.

NSRL uses perception science to understand how people experience products—what they see, what they feel, and how they interpret those experiences; and we apply scientific rigor to make that measurable and actionable .

Perception is reality and the NSRL Perception Science team is here to help Nike better understand it to drive the highest business impact.

Great Fit Starts with the Right Questions

The Science of Perception

Sport Tag: Lifestyle, Training

Fit is one of the biggest drivers of athlete* purchasing decisions, satisfaction, and a leading reason of why footwear is returned
Over two years, the NSRL conducted 6 fit-focused studies with 7,000+ athletes* & consumers to better understand footwear fit
NSRL findings showed that perception, product design and consistency between models often influence fit more than anatomy alone
The findings suggested that foot shape alone could not explain why athletes* experienced footwear differently
This work led to new approaches for footwear development, manufacturing and athlete* validation that continues to shape how Nike designs for athletes* today

At A Glance

Designing for More Athletes*

2 Years, 6 Studies, 1 Goal: Look Beyond Anatomy

From 2018–2020, the NSRL led 6 FW Fit Specific studies with more than 7,000 athletes and consumers, combining multiple scientific disciplines to understand the complete fit experience.

The work included:

The first hypothesis was: If athletes* in Greater China consistently reported different fit experiences, perhaps their feet were fundamentally different.

While anatomical differences in foot shape existed between China and North America, they were relatively small. The research found that anatomical differences were greater amongst people in the same country than between two populations from different countries.

Improving fit was not about creating a China-specific fit. It was about delivering a consistent fit experience across models.

What does this mean to Footwear creation?

Optimize fit for consistency, not regional averages
Avoid creating regional fit solutions based solely on average foot-shape differences
Reduce fit variability across seasons, franchises, and categories so consumers know what to expect
Treat fit as a portfolio experience
Evaluate how consistently products fit relative to one another, not just how individual models perform
Establish fit benchmarks and guardrails across key franchises
Design for variability rather than the "average" foot
Use upper materials, constructions, and volume strategies that accommodate a broader range of foot shapes
Consider width options and adjustability to enable more individualized fit
Improve fit execution and manufacturing consistency
Tighten tolerances that create unwanted fit variation
Ensure development, grading, patterning, and manufacturing decisions maintain intended fit
Minimize unintended fit variation across samples, factories, and production runs
Measure perception, not just dimensions
Gather fit perception data end-to-end, and often, during the development process
Include more female and Greater China consumers, who may be more discerning of fit differences

Redefining the Science of Fit

The NSRL research showed that great footwear fit cannot be understood through anatomy alone. Footwear fit emerges from the interaction of anatomy, biomechanics, product design, manufacturing and athlete* perception.

By combining perception science with athlete* feedback, the lab helped steer footwear development away from geo-specific foot anatomy assumptions and toward a more complete understanding of what the athlete* actually experiences based on Perception science.

Focusing on footwear fit through the lens of measuring feet more precisely is just a small piece of the puzzle. In order to serve athletes* more holistically, we need to design and engineer footwear that includes their experience and how they perceive fit and feel.

The findings suggested that foot shape alone could not explain why athletes* experienced footwear differently.

The Thermal Bra Tax

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 20:55:00 GMT

Understanding this process is a major focus of thermoregulation research at the Nike Sport Research Lab. Inside NSRL's environmental chambers, scientists can precisely control temperature, humidity, airflow, and radiant heat to recreate conditions athletes* experience around the world, from cool training environments to extreme heat stress.

Category: Performance

The Thermal Bra Tax: Sports bras can reduce sweating efficiency by trapping sweat where the body needs to cool itself most
Environmental chamber testing tracked where every drop of sweat went, revealing how apparel impacts thermoregulation
The science identified a hidden performance challenge unique to her, creating new opportunities for innovation
Findings from these studies informed the Nike FlyWeb Bra, helping reimagine support with improved airflow and reduced thermal burden

At the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL). Innovation begins with a simple question: What is standing between athletes* and their best performance? Sometimes the answer is obvious and sometimes it's hidden in plain sight.

For decades, sports bras have been essential performance equipment for women athletes*, providing support and comfort across every sport and level of competition. Yet, when Nike researchers began investigating how apparel influences thermoregulation, the body's ability to regulate temperature during exercise, they uncovered an overlooked challenge: the very garment designed to support athletes* may also create an unintended thermal burden.

The finding led to a new area of research inside NSRL, one that ultimately informed the development of Nike's Flyweb Bra and expanded our understanding of how apparel can impact athletic performance in hot conditions.

When athletes* exercise, their bodies generate heat. To prevent overheating, the body relies on its most powerful cooling mechanism: sweat evaporation.

Sweating alone does not cool the body. Sweat must evaporate from the skin to remove heat. When sweat becomes trapped in clothing, pools on the skin, or drips from the body, it contributes to fluid loss without delivering meaningful cooling benefits. This is referred to as reduced sweating efficiency.

At A Glance

The Science of Staying Cool

These chambers allow researchers to study a fundamental question: Where does every gram of sweat go during exercise?

Investigating an Overlooked Variable

Sports bras provide critical support for breast tissue during movement. However, unlike many other performance garments, they also add an additional layer of fabric over a region of the body that produces significant amounts of sweat.

This observation prompted Nike researchers to investigate whether sports bras influence sweating efficiency during exercise in heat.

To answer the question, The NSRL team designed a controlled environmental chamber study involving healthy male and female athletes* exercising under a wide range of thermal conditions ranging from -20C to 50C. Using proprietary measurement methods developed at the NSRL, researchers quantified the complete sweat response of each participant.

Athletes* completed exercise sessions while researchers measured:

Total sweat production
Evaporated sweat
Sweat retained within clothing
Sweat trapped on the skin
Sweat that dripped from the body
Core body temperature
Changes in body mass and fluid loss

This approach allowed scientists to create a complete "sweat budget," tracking the destination of every drop of sweat produced during exercise.

Mapping the Fate of Every Drop

The results revealed a clear pattern. Compared with male athletes, female athletes experienced significantly greater sweat retention within clothing and lower sweating efficiency during exercise in the heat.

The sports bra emerged as a key contributor.

Researchers found that the additional fabric layer created a barrier that increased sweat accumulation across the chest region. Rather than evaporating and cooling the athlete*, a greater proportion of sweat became trapped within the garment. The consequence was two-fold:

Less efficient cooling
Greater fluid loss without cooling benefit

In other words, female athletes* were paying what the NSRL began calling a "Thermal Bra Tax" -- an additional physiological cost associated with carrying excess moisture within a critical thermoregulatory region of the body. The findings demonstrated that the issue was not simply one of comfort. It represented a measurable interaction between apparel design and human physiology.

A New Opportunity for Innovation

This discovery represented something larger than a single research finding. It revealed a product opportunity. Nike's innovation philosophy is rooted in listening to athletes* and understanding the unique challenges different bodies face in sport. The Thermal Bra Tax highlighted a challenge that had largely gone unmeasured within sports science and apparel design. As the NSRL shared their findings with designers, engineers, and other team members, they rallied around the goal of reimagining a sports bra that provided support while reducing its thermal burden.

From Scientific Insight to Flyweb

The Flyweb Bra was born from this challenge. Rather than treating support and thermoregulation as separate design problems, Nike teams worked to address both simultaneously. Leveraging insights from environmental chamber testing, body-mapping research, computational design tools, and athlete* feedback, the team explored new ways to create support structures that reduced material usage, improved airflow, and minimized sweat retention in high-heat zones.

The result was an entirely new architecture.

By replacing traditional layers of foam, fabric, and construction components with an engineered lattice structure, Flyweb creates support through geometry rather than material bulk. The open structure allows air to move more freely across the body and reduces the amount of fabric capable of trapping moisture.

The goal was not simply to make a lighter bra. The goal was to reduce the thermal burden while maintaining the support athletes* need to perform confidently.

Putting the Athlete* First

Throughout the research process, athletes* served as both study participants and innovation partners. From Sha'Carri Richardson to everyday athletes*, their experiences helped the NSRL understand how heat, sweat accumulation, and comfort influence performance and protection during exercise.

Environmental chamber testing, athlete* trials, and prototyping enabled Nike teams to evaluate how new concepts performed under real physiological stress. As Dr. Grant Simmons and the thermoregulation team continue to study how apparel interacts with the body's natural cooling systems, each discovery creates new opportunities to improve performance through design.

The result is a powerful example of how the Nike Sport Research Lab transforms scientific discovery into athlete* innovation so that Nike can create products that better serve her unique needs.

Sport Tag: Running, Global Football, Basketball, Training

Product Tag: FlyWeb Bra