I have heard that good asics shoes designs from a biomechanical standpoint can get sunk because they can't be marketed or because they don't meet aesthetic considerations I am sure this is the case with some companies, but not with ASICS.. the only reason a project gets sunk is if we can not establish beyond doubt that it works.. or, that it has the potential to injury the athlete. Let me give you a recent example. For almost 4 years, I have been working on a project aimed at individuals with late stage overpronation, that is those pronating from midstance on, which is very stressful. Let me emphasise that contact phase pronation is not in my sites and has not been for 20 years. The shoe we have been working on provides a stimulus to the plantar mechanoreceptor t send a signal to the brain that the foot is "off' the line of progression and alway it to dictate a change. After 4 years looking at the kinetics and kinematics and many prototypes, we know this works. What's more, we can demonstrate a refractory effect.. ie, once the shoe has been removed, the effect lingers. 

The marketers then had to ake a commercial decision, which is a reality of business. "I have heard that many good designers who are biomechanically oriented have left the business because they get frustrated by marketing departments. I don't know the situation at ASICS, so I can't speculate on your situation" I have been at ASICS for 30 asics kayano years this year& the head biomechnist, Nishiwaki-san.. also head of research, not me.. has been there as long as I can remember. In my time as someone very involved.. 12years.. there has not been one single loss of a key design or research staff member. Remarkable.. I am sure will now scoff that maybe this is ASiCS "problem". I know the guys at Nike and adidas pretty well. Mario LaFortune, Gordon Valient and Jeff Piscotti.. have all been at Nike longer than I asics gel kayano have been at ASICS.. all three are the key biomechnists.. can speak for design team sorry, do not know. Adi.. the same. 

 Biomechanics and science should be forefront  build the best product for the runner based on sound science as you suggest that really IS what we do.. it is the only way it can work. "I do realize that products have to sell, but sometimes maybe taking a risk on a novel product is worth it because it's the right thing to do" Pete.. a part of my job is to try to identify injury trends in the community, and then see if I can design a research project to understand why that is happening. Sometimes it results in shoe technology that helps, sometime is has nothing to do with shoes. Let me give you an example of this and the risks we take. In 2005 I identified a group of athletes who had an extraordinary divergence of injury rate and type in the asics gt 2000 sports community. in particular this group was suffering ruptures of their ACL's at a rate 8 times more often than their peer group. 

This group? Women. I wanted to try to understand why this was happening, and what we might be able to do to help, given that, at the time, all women's shoes were downsized versions of mens shoes, making zero recognition of the diffrences in anatomy, physiology biomechanics, etc. So.. we embarked on a fascinating journey. We set aside a budget of several million dollars, and went to the Univerity of Melbourne to meet with Professor Kim Bennell (a woman), the head of the Centre for Health, Exercise and Sports Medicine. There, we mapped out a research project that was to take 4 years, and headed up by the  extraordinary mind of Dr. Adam Bryant, a biomechanist at CHESM. I will not bore you with the details, but the research yielded 3 papers, all published, and if you are interested, I will send them to you. 

We did not expect a huge spike in sales!! Interestingly, we added 3mm to the heel gradient, because we were aware that the achilles tendon was susceptible! The rward we got from Chris MDougall for 4years of hard work and many many dollars wa for him to publically mock the shoe and call it thE ASICs Gel Menses. He never bothered to read the research or understand what it was about. Sometimes the crap flows the other way Pete! "it's not easy to offer alternatives, and I realize this. But, because alternatives are hard does not mean we should be  content with the status quo when studies content with the status quo do suggest that basing shoe type almost exclusively off of things like arch height and pronation does not seem to be of any benefit to the runner" As we speak I am working on exactly this. I can tell you I am personally very embarrassed that there is any mention of a wet foot print test on any ASICS website. I will have it removed or die trying. 

I hope this has answered some of your questions. I hope it has helped some of the other bloggers out there to understand that we are not the great evil, and we put a huge amount of time effort and money into trying to make running a safer sport for everyone. That is my asics tiger one and only goal. Farnkly. I really never go into any project thinking "how many pairs of shoes will this sell".. you might not believe that but it really is true.. sales just  aint my bag regards SimonWhere is your evidence that "it" isn't broken? Show me a study that show running injuries decreasing because of "20 years of progressive development." You can't. "This is how it has always been so we shouldn't change" is another way of saying your company is not interested in innovation. They used to think that blood letting helped get rid of disease.