The 10 Performance Features Sneakers Will Have in 100 Years

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Complex Original

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Ever since there has been a “present”, people have been obsessed with predicting the future. From tarot cards to the entrails of small animals, man has tried everything in hopes of discovering the next big thing before it becomes a reality. Here at Sneaker Report, we could care less about politics, economics, natural disasters and the rest of those things normally predicted by swamis and psychics. We want to know what advancements sneakers will make that impact the way we train and the way we ball. Fear not, loyal readers and amateur Nostradomuses (Or should it be “Nostradomi”) … for we have gazed into our office crystal ball (we keep it next to the copy machine) and answered the question that has kept generations of athletes up late at night, existentially pondering. We’ve found out The 10 Performance Features Sneakers Will Have in 100 Years.

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No. 10 -  Candid Camera 

Cameras will come standard in every athletic shoe by 2112, with a few inventive runners are already making strides on making this self-affirming accessory a reality. You think Usain Bolt shows maximum swag when he looks back at the defeated mid-race? Wait until a future sprinter watches the footage of himself beating out the competition while running or LeBron James IV watches footage of himself dunking on fools while dunking on fools. We suspect that these will be outlawed when pubescent teenagers use these to look up girls' skirts, but they will revolutionize athletic victory celebrations while they last.

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No. 9 - Basketball: Clutch Kicks

The hardest part about sinking free throws or that clutch three has never been taking the actual shot. You’ve sunk it thousands of times in the gym. It’s the distractions, the crowd noise, the big man crashing down on you that keeps you throwing up bricks. In the future, shoes will send inhibitors to your eyes, blocking out everything but net. No matter where you are in the game, every shot will feel like a shoot around at the gym.

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No. 8 - Football: Chalk-Kicking Cleats

If you’ve ever been in a bar with the standard drunkards on an NFL gameday, you’ve heard them yell, “I saw chalk”, referring to the white dust that confirms that a player is out of bounds. In the future, defensive players’ shoes will project white dust to fool fans and refs alike into thinking the even the likes of Megatron have not made the catch. There will, unfortunately, be a rash of performance-enhancing shoes in the future, and this is just one type you will see … as if the replacement refs didn’t have it hard enough already.

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No. 7 - Baseball: Bullpen Boomerang

The hardest part to watch of any baseball game is when the skipper heads out to the bullpen to yank a pitcher who is going down in flames. In the future, this moment of public break-up level awkwardness will be avoided. The manager will set a number of hits allowed at the beginning of the game and the shoes will forcibly walk even the most begrudging pitcher back to the bullpen no matter how much stuff he thinks he has left.

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No. 6 - Soccer: Flop Tops

One of the most striking parts of watching a soccer game is players throwing themselves to the ground trying to draw penalties. This only gets worse in the future. As soon as you get above high school level, you will have sensors in your shoes that throw you to the ground when the remotest possibility of drawing a foul exists.

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No. 5 - Track and Field: Flag propelling cleats

Did you ever wonder how every Track and Field athlete in the Olympics is able to locate their national flag immediately after they win? We do too. Rather than having to dig into the stands or hide their flag in their gym bag, athletes of the future will have their national flag pop out the back of their shoes as soon as they cross the finish line. This way, there will be minimal time between their victory and victory lap.

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No. 4 - Football:  Fantasy-Becomes-Reality Football

We already know that sports have drastically changed as a result of fantasy. NFL stadium are now equipped with fantasy updates via jumbo-tron. In the future, fantasy owners will be able to come together and send signals so that Arian Foster's great-great grandson will be forced to stop on the one yard-line rather than grab that game-winning TD. All of this, just to ensure that overweight nacho-munchers at home can win their office fantasy pools. Defenses and kickers remain unaffected by this change.

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No. 3 - Dumb Training Prevention Sensors

We’ve all seen that guy at the gym trying to curl 120 pounds who can barely get the weights off the rack and proceeds to strain himself for fifteen minutes as he tries to squeeze out one rep. We’ve seen the girl who has the treadmill on such low speed, she is actually burning less calories than she was on the walk to the gym. In the future, you won’t have to wrestle with the questions of whether you should save these would-be athletes from themselves. The sneakers will simply refuse to work, rendering the wearer an immobile statue until they are no longer a danger to themselves or others.

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No. 2 - The Question: Is it a Sport?  Is answered once and for all … by shoes

Gymnasts, swimmers, divers, competitive cheerleaders, figure skaters and less-respected athletes from across the globe will come together to modify shoes to illustrate to the bitter high school sports wash-outs who sit around watching ESPN 2 all day complaining how events “aren’t actually sports” how wrong they are. How will they do this? These shoes will monitor physical exertion, precision, training and basically all the things that are evident to casual observers of these and other challenging sports. The data will be put into a large chart that will be emailed to every one of these self-proclaimed critics with the headline “You are a Douche”.

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No. 1 -  Motivational Kicks

We all know that the biggest challenge in terms of staying fit is motivation. How many New Years Resolutions have been broken before you even got off the couch? In the future, not only will sneakers guide you off the couch and to the gym, but your fitness instructors will tap right into them. So, when they tell you to something, you're going to do it even if it kills you. People of the future: be careful not to sign up for advanced Zumba before you are good and ready.