What does the Nike x Hyperice hyperboot do?You might have seen athletes wearing Normatec boots – the large black trousers that inflate to provide a massage for your calf and thigh muscles. For the hyperboot, Hyperice took this technology and whacked it in a shoe. “The concept behind the hyperboot was really to reimagine what footwear could be,” says Hyperice founder Anthony Katz. “We took the dynamic air compression from the Normatec and combined that with the hyperheat technology from the Venom [the brand’s heat and massage wrap for the back]. “When we combined those technologies, using the air compression to drive the heat deeper into the body, we found a force multiplier effect. We saw better mobility in the joint and a deeper penetration of heat into the tissue.”This, he says, garnered impressive feedback from elite athletes, who reported their legs feeling lighter after wearing the boot. But would the shoe have the same impact on me? My experience with the Nike x Hyperice hyperbootI exercise a lot – as a fitness journalist, that’s to be expected. With this extra exercise comes the need to look after my body and give my recovery routine a little extra attention. If a shoe can truly leave your feet and ankles feeling looser, lighter and more limber, I’m all ears. There are few field sports that don’t rely on a powerful push-off, after all. Whether you’re hitting the tennis court or donning your football boots, your feet are the foundation of a solid performance. Intrigued, I slipped into the Hyperboot and switched it on. Immediately, both shoes started emitting a low buzzing sound. Next came the inflation. Both shoes began to expand and I could feel my feet being compressed. After a few seconds, the air bladders emptied with a light hissing sound, then the sequence restarted. During this process, the heat kicked in. And it was some serious heat. I’ve never been inside an air fryer, but I believe my feet have a fairly good idea what it’s like after this experience. There are three levels of compression and three levels of heat available, controlled via a Bluetooth link to the Hyperice app or – my go-to option – the buttons on the outside of either shoe, pictured below. All three levels of compression felt comfortable. Enjoyable, even. However, I bailed and slipped out of the shoe on level three of the heat settings, such was the intensity of the temperature spike. Buttons on the side of the Nike x Hyperice hyperboot control the pressure and temperature (Harry Bullmore/The Independent)Does the Nike x Hyperice hyperboot work?Hyperice claims that weaving Normatec systems into a shoe allows athletes to ”use that technology wherever they go”. The first thing I did to test this was wear them while doing odd jobs around the house – tidying up and cooking dinner. They are a tad clunky, but I was able to function largely unencumbered while the boots subjected my feet to a schvitz. Next, I wore them to my corner shop. This is also possible, although my inhibitions got the better of me and I switched them off before entering to stop the slightly disconcerting buzzing sound. However, the Back to the Future-esque design was (perhaps predictably) still a guaranteed eyeball magnet. Even the shopkeeper had something to say about my avant-garde footwear. The verdict: you can technically wear them pretty much anywhere, but whether you should is another matter. You also shouldn’t do so without expecting to turn plenty of heads. This takes us to the major question: did I feel any better after wearing them? The boots are undeniably cumbersome, but they did leave my feet and ankles feeling lighter (Harry Bullmore/The Independent)As a fitness coach, I tend to reject expensive fitness fads in favour of tried and trusted basics such as moving more, eating a few extra vegetables and nabbing 40 winks every once in a while. So I was almost disappointed to find these shoes did leave me feeling a little lighter on my feet. For me, were these improvements worth 700 quid? No. But I did feel a bit better. Whether they delivered a genuine improvement, the placebo effect was in full force or I simply wasn’t wearing chunky boots that heated my feet to 50 degrees anymore, it was hard to tell. So I decided to do something a bit more objective. I tested my ankle mobility – or dorsiflexion, where the foot moves upward, to be specific – before and after, seeing how far I could stand from a wall while still being able to touch my knee to the wall with my foot flat on the floor. After using the boots for a few minutes, my score improved by one-and-a-half centimetres. This truly was a game of inches, if that, but I imagine top-level athletes are after any competitive advantage they can get.