Best Foot Forward: Peak Howard 1

For today's Best Foot Forward segment, I will be featuring Dwight Howard's first signature shoe with Peak. These are already available now and retails for Php 4,795. First, we go to the tech specs which I found at Peak Sports Products:

Design introduction
From very beginning of the design, the designer was positioning DH1 as a all-round basketball shoes. It is not just only to fulfill Dwight Howard's requirements for his professional competition on court with his position. It also combines the extraordinary functions of lightness, protection and stability to meet requirements of all other players which are playing other positions at the same time.

Based on the talk with Dwight Howard, the design is inspired from the concept of Phoenix. The "Wings" pattern at both side of the shoe with embossed texture which stretches from the shoes tongue until the stable TPU heel comes up as WING OF PHOENIX.

The gradient colors and radial pattern of "Spark" elements are also mixed in the design. The international edition of super DH1 applied "DH" logo, the personal identity logo of Dwight Howard on the strap at the back of shoes. And in DH1 Chinese edition, the straps in the back are with two Chinese handwriting stylish characters"涅槃" which implies the story of Phoenix.

Science and technology introduction
PEAK SURFACE TECH
One piece of upgraded "SURFACE" upper which is applied with bionic design and used specific craftwork and materials to strengthen the vamp support. It ensures the flexibility and provides great wrapping and dynamic support.

TENACITY UNIT
TENACITY UNIT is a new technology of keeping stability of foot arch which applied large scale of Carbon fiber anit-torsion unit. The high density carbon fiber anit-torsion unit on the foot arch keeps the stability of the outsole's shape to enhance the anti-torsion ability of outsole. it provides very good support to the foot during the movement and prevents the feet from sports injury by torsion.

CUSHION-3
As one of PEAK's core technologies, CUSHION-3 receives high reputation from consumers and has been used for a long time till now. The super DH1 carries with visible upgraded CUSHION -3 device on the stress area of the outsole which provides not just more stronger structure and cushioning experience to the player, and also increases the service life of the midsole.

Going back to my thoughts, let me just tell you that this is the black colorway so obviously you can't really see the whole "Phoenix" inspiration on the design but you can see it in the red/yellow pair. Sizing in this model is a bit tricky as they run small. My actual size is 8.5 but i usually wear a size 9 since I like some wiggle room in the toe area. The shoe that I bought is a 9.5 and the dead space is just sufficient to me. So my recommendation would be to try them in stores.

As I said on my previous post, this shoe looks like it could take a beating and I'm really excited to do a performance test on them. Their cushioning is made up of Peak's Cushion 3 and I have to be honest that they feel stiff on the initial try-on and break-in time is necessary, I just don't know how long. Watch out for the performance review that I will be releasing once I'm done playing in them so keep it locked here at Analykix.com.