Under Armour Flow Velociti Wind review

Made for the quantified runner, the UA Flow Velociti Wind can tell you as you’re running whether or not your cadence is in the target range for your pace — which can help prevent running injuries from over-or under-striding. 

More than that, though, the Velociti Wind is a light pair of everyday runners with an innovative design that eliminates the rubber sole completely. Remarkably, during our UA Flow Velociti Wind review, this new design held up well over dozens of miles. Read on to see what else we liked about the shoe, as well as how well it worked with the Apple Watch and Under Armour’s MapMyRun app.

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UA Flow Velociti Wind: Price and availability

The Under Armour Flow Velociti Wind costs $160, and first came out in early 2021. They’re available in both men’s and women’s sizes, and in a variety of colors. 

UA Flow Velociti Wind: Design and Fit

Not having a rubber sole means that Under Armour was able to shave a bit of weight off the Winds; at 241 grams for the men's and 227 grams for the women's, they’re considerably lighter than the Nike Pegasus 38 (275 g men's and 235 g women's).

 Upper

The Wind’s upper is very thin and breathable, yet feels very durable. It’s made from the company’s “Warp” material, which crisscrosses around the top and sides. For lack of a better comparison, it looks like the mesh fabric found on beach chairs. 

Midsole/ Outsole

The most dramatic part of the Velociti Wind is the lack of a rubber outsole; rather, the midsole extends right to the pavement, where a grid-like pattern helps ensure solid contact with the road, even in slippery conditions. It’s firm, yet forgiving. 

UA Flow Velociti Wind: Performance

 ran with the Velociti Wind for nearly 100 miles on asphalt and concrete, with most runs were around three miles in length. The treads on the bottom of the shoes are starting to show a little wear, but the rest of the shoes look nearly as good as they did out of the box. During all my runs, I never had any issues with rubbing or chafing, either. Under Armour recommends you select a shoe a size up from your normal shoe size; I typically wear between an 11.5 and 12 men’s (U.S.), and found the size 12 fit me perfectly.

UA Flow Velociti Wind: Apple Watch App

If you have an Apple Watch, you can connect it directly to the shoes, so you can still get live coaching if you want to leave your phone at home. It was easier to set up than the Nurvv Runs, which require you to start a run on your phone, and then hand things off to your watch. 

The coaching was fairly instructive, telling me to increase my cadence when I fell below a certain threshold. It also provided other tips, such as how to hold my shoulders and where to position my hips relative to my feet.

Your cadence is represented pretty clearly —  a bar runs horizontally across the screen, and its middle section is in green — your target zone. As you change your cadence, a small arrow will move along the bar, and a number will show you how many times per minute your feet are striking the pavement. It’s simple and effective. It was easier to decipher than the Nurvv Run app, which relies on you aligning two circles, one representing your cadence and the other your pace. 

From within the MapMyRun app on your Apple Watch, you can also control music stored on the watch. I liked that instead of pausing my music, the volume would lower as the voice coach spoke, and then the music would return to its normal level. It’s much less jarring than having your tunes pause completely. 

 On the Apple Watch, the MapMyRun app shows everything you could want (pace, heart rate, distance, splits, and more). However, outside of turning certain metrics on and off, you can’t customize the screens, as you can on the best running watches by Garmin and others. As a result, I had to swipe through different screens if I wanted to see my pace, my heart rate, or my cadence.

UA Flow Velociti Wind: MapMyRun App

Within the MapMyRun app on your phone, you’ll get more personalized coaching tips. After I had increased the percentage of time I was in the correct stride length, the app asked me how I felt, though It didn’t offer a way to respond.

Post-run, the MapMyRun app displays your average stride length and cadence, as well as how often you were within the target range, and where you may have dropped off. In addition, you can also see your foot strike angle, ground contact time, and elevation and heart rate (if you were using an Apple Watch). You’re getting less data than with the Nurvv — for example, it doesn’t show if you’re striking with your forefoot or your heel, or if you’re over or under pronating — but it’s useful for those who don’t need all that information.

The app also shows how many miles you logged in the shoes; a handy gauge to know if it’s time to replace them. However, an app shouldn’t be the only way to tell if you need a new pair.

The app wasn’t great at syncing with my Apple Watch post-run; I often found that it would only display the results from a run after I had completed another session, even though the MapMyRun app on the watch said that my activity had synced. Oddly, though, the workouts were up to date in the MapMyFitness app. 

UA Flow Velociti Wind: Verdict

Under Armour is the only company currently making connected running shoes, which is either an indication of general interest or a desire by Under Armour to promote its MapMyRun app. 

On their own, the UA Flow Velociti Wind are a comfortable and light pair of running shoes that should hold up well over long miles. However, at $160, they’re about $60 more expensive than the Nike Pegasus 38, our favorite running shoe overall. Whether you’re willing to pay that premium all depends on how much value you place in the Wind’s connected features.

UA’s Velociti Wind shoes will appeal most to Apple Watch owners, who can get feedback as they run. More hard-core runners who want even more data on their form would do better with the Nurvv insoles, which can be placed inside any running shoe, and provide far more information about your running. Still, the UA Flow Velociti Wind are a good, if pricey, pair of running shoes in their own right.