Sports Kit Technology has so many everyday wear applications! We explore that here…

the idea of making the perfect athlete for any sport is not a new idea. In fact as long as people have been thinking they have been innovating and adapting it seems. In today’s modern world technology is enhancing and assisting us every aspect of our life. From managing our money to communication with family technology aids us. the world of sport has been using technological advancement just as much and has been at the fore front of advancement in sports performance and commerce almost every time. The Institute of Mechanical Engineers have stated, “Technology is as much a part of an athlete’s armoury as nutrition, training and coaching.” Perhaps we can all learn something from advancement in sport?

Speed and efficiency

Acceleration as well as velocity are integral to many sports. the speed with which sports machines and people process their tasks is actually mostly at the forefront in how participants are measured relative to each other.

The situation is complex in some ways! For example, when does an advancement in technology actually give a competitor or team an unfair advantage? Good question, right! To give you an example a piece of competition kit, actually the swimsuit itself, was at the center of an Olympic drama in 2009. The swimsuit, was considered so important by so many swimmers that 95% of them wore it at the Olympics in the Beijing Olympics the year before. The suit was causing a hydraulic type pressure when worn by athlete by compressing their bodies and air stayed inside the suit that was expelled by other suits and of course air is buoyant and the trapped air caused the athlete to have a more aerodynamic shape in the water! the advantage improved swimmers times! Fina, the governing body banned the suit!

These cases are not that rare as you can imaging, and where is that fine line! In British cycling reducing drag is a constant goal. In fact the cyclists actually had their sports kit made via three dimensional scans to reduce drag!

Similarly, runners seek the “best” footwear, and this is an entire industry for companies like Nike with questions being asked about their footwear and whether it crosses into the area of unfair advantage, with calls for it to made illegal to compete in. That is the Vaporfly Elite trainers and it is now supposed to be shown that those trainers to in fact give athletes a 4% advantage partly via the soles which contain carbon-fibre plates in the soles. !

So can we learn from this for the clothes and footwear we use everyday? Take the three dimensional scanning, remember sports race in our everyday lives (certainly for most of us) but we do suffer from time poverty or at least most people are really busy! Getting scanned for clothes for example could speed up the tailoring process, for example for fitted suits.

If you get to work via walking, running or using a pedal bicycle then what if your clothes made you faster! Even the clothes you work in and your shoes, maybe they could have those carbon-fibre plating? We could all be wearing this type of product very soon!

Anti-perspiration

With all this physical activity getting to work, at work, and being made faster, whilst reducing sedentary lifestyles well, it may seem insensitive to some but what is this increases our body odour! which also does not feel great especially when perspiration cools after exercise etc. Sports clothing provides a possible solution since athletes often wear clothing that makes them physically cooler!

Soccer, rugby, all these sports are using this sweat reduction technology. The garment actually absorbs the sweat, so it takes it away from the skin and the athlete cools more efficiently as a result, this could be used for everyday clothing or workwear. Its apparently the polymers they use, which sometimes you can actually see as circular material in the garments. Liquid triggers the fibre so to speak to absorb any liquid it comes into contact with. there is another innovation that does the same job which involves actually having two layers of woven material and the material transports away from the skin touching layer to the outside layer and the same cooling effect is experienced!

It may seem incredible but their is a piece of clothing that actually elevates oxygen in an athletes body, by speeding up blood flow so more oxygen is circulating in the body and of course the oxygen improves metabolic functioning so muscle spasms are reduced, and performance is enhanced by up to 5%! Less stress = better performance!

Could this not be applied to the clothes we wear everyday whether that be at home, work or on the commute! Everyone would potentially be better of as a result!

Damage resistant

This is a complex subject. A tremendous amount of very high level work has occurred in this area! Sports kit is costly! It can get damaged beyond repair and repairing is very often just not as good as new and in the case of sports tech in the kit, will your performances suffer? This is not lucky charms you wear for psychological reasons, its performance enhancing technology in clothes, in the fibres themselves!

Durable, long lasting… can technology help with this too? the humble stitch has become a centre of attention for scientists who specialise in sports technology improvement. Its fascinating but so obvious when you first hear it but what if the clothes had no stitching and instead used glue? A company did just that, DYNE in association with Bemis Associates Inc the manufacturing firm. They made a range that did use glue instead of material stitching! What were the results? The clothing was better, it had enhanced comfort. it was also stronger and produced reduced friction and was lighter, as well as other benefits…

We have all had trainers wear out! again this is an area scientists have focused on by mixing rubber and Graphene a sole that was 50% stronger than everyday gym shoes was produced. Related benefits were increased wear resistance and increased stretch!

this type of development from the use of technology and science would have a great benefit to use in everyday life, reducing the need to replace our fashion items as quickly. Just think of that item that you really like to wear!

Measurable Data

Wearable technology does not just exist in clothing and footwear. Lots of athletes actually wear or have fitted to their clothing electronic devices capturing actionable data in real time as they train or compete. Heart rate, blood pressure, calorie consumption, velocity, duration of sleep cycle and more! The data gathered can then be used to chart progress and identify deficiencies to work on.

Could we apply this to clothing! Could clothing measure this actionable data real time?

Why not? Take sports bras, socks or training t’s for example. By adding the electronic tech into those items they would be able to track all that actionable data. Smart Clothing like this has been made. Its actually using biometric technology. The shirt was designed for gathering data on sweating and stress and was made as a Polo. there is no reason why this could not be used in the workplace… just think of the insurance savings!

So its easy to see how sport advancements can be transferred into our daily lives in a way that makes our daily lives better!