PUMA was among the first sports brands to recognize this potential. As early as 2006, the company integrated a carbon plate into the v1.06 football boot – long before carbon was discussed as a performance engine in running. Back then it wasn’t about records. It was about weight, stability and pressure distribution. Carbon was the first material stiff enough to add support without adding mass. “Carbon offers the best ratio of weight to stiffness. You can make something extremely rigid without making it heavy,” says Hartmann. For footballers, that meant more stability without extra bulk and, crucially, a more even pressure pattern under the studs. As Hartmann sums it up: “It doesn’t feel like you’re standing on single points anymore.”

Once running began to move beyond cushioning and into the realm of manipulating running mechanics, carbon returned to center stage. The move from the pitch to the marathon course was no coincidence; it was the logical consequence of material meeting biomechanics. Carbon does not alter the foot. It alters the way the foot behaves. Every person has a natural running pattern. Carbon nudges that pattern without breaking it. “You land slightly differently, you roll differently, you push off more efficiently. That changes everything,” says Matthias Hartmann.

Carbon consists of thousands of carbon filaments, thinner than a human hair, layered into textiles and embedded into a polymer matrix before being cured. The orientation of these fibers determines how forces are absorbed and returned. “Traditional plastics become sluggish over time. They creep, they lose tension, and they don’t fully return to their original position,” he explains. Carbon does the opposite. “It stores energy and releases it again without changing.”

A material with snappiness

At PUMA, there is a word for that behavior: snappiness. “If you bend the plate and let go, it snaps right back. It feels like the shoe pushes you forward.” This instant feedback becomes a physical impulse that redirects energy. NITRO™ foams amplify that effect.

“Carbon on its own does not make a fast running shoe. But Carbon in combination with NITRO™ creates a new running experience.” Today, this development is embodied in PUMA’s current performance running shoes such as the Deviate NITRO™ Elite 3 and the Fast-R NITRO™ Elite 3.

The sensation is so distinct that language struggles to keep up. Runners describe it intuitively. Stride length changes, ground contact time drops, acceleration happens before the mind registers it. Hartmann reduces it to a single sentence: “You just feel it.”

And yet he warns against treating carbon as a universal solution. “The plate doesn’t belong in every shoe. The human foot has optimized itself over millions of years. It’s perfect if you let it do its job.” Carbon doesn’t perfect the person, it perfects a moment. “A shoe with a carbon plate is a tool for competition. If you run with it all the time, you take work away from the foot that it actually needs to do.” Training shoes build muscle. Carbon shoes release it. Confuse the two, and you’re not training the body anymore – you’re training the material.

Expanding movement itself

Parasport adds another layer to the story. Here, carbon does not only assist the body; it extends it. Carbon blades and plates store and return energy in ways biological structures cannot. For athletes like Felix Streng, carbon has changed the sensation of sprinting as much as the mechanics. The motion doesn’t end at the foot – it starts there.

For the Head of Material Engineering Innovation Footwear, the future isn’t replacement, but refinement. Carbon will not disappear; it will become more precise. Fiber layups, resins, geometries and foams will evolve. “We’re only at the beginning.” Perhaps, one day, a shoe won’t just make someone faster – it will match how they run. Perhaps carbon won’t only accelerate movement, but correct it. Who can say what will be possible tomorrow?