Power lacing will be among Nike's latest innovations, the company announced at an event in New York on Wednesday.
The company is hoping the idea, first floated as part of the Air Mag shoe that famously appeared in "Back to the Future II," is not a gimmick.
The power lacing will first appear in a shoe called the HyperAdapt 1.0, which will be available later this year.
Once an athlete gets into the shoes, they tighten around the user's foot. The wearer can then push a plus button on the shoe to tighten more or a minus button to loosen. In order to get out of the shoes, the minus button needs to be held for two seconds.
On the shoe's tongue is EARL, or Electro Adaptive Reactive Lacing. The technology combines two previous Nike innovations in materials and stitching -- FlyWeave and FlyWire.
The shoes will be available to only those who are members of the newly unveiled Nike+ app. A price has not yet been announced. The shoe will come with a charger, and will need a charge about every two weeks, according to Nike.
The company announced in October that it would sell a limited number of pairs of the Air Mags, with power lacing, at a future date. But that date was never announced. The only person who had received a pair of power lacing Air Mags was "Back to the Future" star Michael J. Fox himself.
Nike CEO Mark Parker hinted at the time that power lacing would one day have a practical and real application within Nike's shoe business, though few expected something substantive to come this soon. That was despite the fact that Nike actually was granted a patent for self-lacing in 2014.
Nike's lead designer Tinker Hatfield said the release of power lacing has been in the works for 10 years.
"We really believe that this will make athletes perform better because the shoe will adapt during a training session," Hatfield said. "This will change how shoes will be designed and built."