Nike just gave its brain-stimulating sliders a fresh look and they’re stranger than they appear
Nike’s Mind 001 has landed in a fresh Cucumber Calm colourway
Nike’s strange, neuroscience-inspired Mind 001 sliders have just landed in a new colourway.
The Cucumber Calm finish doesn’t introduce any hardware changes, only extends the availability of the recovery sliders.
The unique footwear features an array of 22 independently moving foam nodes underfoot to increase sensory input from the feet.
According to the brand, the system helps athletes feel calmer, more focused and more present.
The Mind platform was developed by the company’s Mind Science Department over the better part of a decade,
It combines footwear design with neuroscience research into how stimulation through the feet can influence brain activity.
It’s all in the nodes
According to Nike, each node can move independently as pressure is applied, acting like a tiny piston beneath the foot.
The system is intended to amplify sensations that conventional cushioned footwear might otherwise dampen.
Nike’s researchers mapped sensitivity across the foot using the two-point discrimination threshold, which measures the minimum distance between two points required to perceive them as separate.
That’s why the Mind’s nodes sit closer together beneath the forefoot and become more widely spaced towards the heel.
Nike also used plantar pressure sensors, lower-limb muscle measurements and EEG brain monitoring while developing the footwear.
According to its researchers, testing showed changes in sensory-motor brain activity and increases in alpha oscillations associated with what the company describes as “relaxed alertness”.
That doesn’t mean slipping into a pair will magically make you Zen before your next Parkrun.
What Nike has demonstrated is that changing the sensory stimulation beneath your feet can alter measurable brain activity.
The broader claims around improving focus and helping athletes feel calm and present are what the company hopes to achieve with that effect.
It's worth noting that the basic principle behind Mind isn’t entirely novel.
Barefoot and minimalist-shoe brands have long argued that reducing the material between your feet and the ground increases sensory feedback to the brain.
Nike’s approach is kind of the opposite, adding more tech to amplify those sensations, but its aim is the same.
The Nike Mind 001 in Cucumber Calm/Black/Barely Volt is priced at £79.99 in the UK. The Mind 001 remains available in other colours at Nike.
