The new Nike Free 5.0 Trainer

Recently, I've been thinking more and more about my fitness. While my lungs and legs can carry me for about an hour, and I can shimmy up a few walls at VauxWall, I still feel that I'm struggling.

Running can be torture on my joints, feet, and calves. Climbing on my shoulders, arms, and core.

It's not enough just to keep running and to keep climbing, I need to improve the muscle strength and flexibility required for both activities.

That's where training comes in. Something drilled in to me pretty hard at a Nike NFL fitness camp last year. It was only a couple of hours, but boy do those NFL guys work hard on every single muscle needed for the game.

With the launch of the new Nike Free 5.0 Trainers, Nike are at their best again, not just advertising the shoe, but introducing it in the context it was designed for.



This video with Rory McIlroy, for instance, is a great example of the sort of fitness work I'm looking to do more of. Focus on core strength, focus on balance, focus on posture, focus on flexibility.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Sneaker Watch | Nike Free Trainer 3.0

Some people get very excited about the technology behind trainers. The materials, techniques, and devices used in their construction.

That's cool.

Part of me wishes I could understand more about intricacies of trainer design. Who knows, perhaps I will, one day.

For now, I'll appreciate their look and take the slightly conservative approach that if a brand's product has worked for me in the past, it'll work for me in the future. A limited outlook, I know, but one that hasn't seen me too far wrong.

I'm the proud owner of two pairs of Nikes (that's right, two whole pairs!) - one, a pair of black Nike Free 5.0; the other, a pair of Nike Free Trainer 5.0 that Nike were kind enough to give me for attending an NFL training session at Wembley, for Buckets and Spades.

I'm always looking to add to that meagre collection, as Nike are a brand who get their trainers right.

A strange thing to say, but there is never a press release I receive from Nike and wince at - a lot of other brands, who do produce some great stuff, regularly produce a dud.

These Nike Free Trainer 3.0 are exactly what I mean. Click the link and admire.

Read the tech specs if you like, but I'm already wearing these (in my head) to the gym, for a run, or on the walk to the climbing wall. So good, so Nike.

Pictures: Nike.

Like Nike? Like Running? Check this piece on running shoes and this one on running in London.