Melbourne, Australia-based 776BC makes athletic apparel, mostly for runners and rowers, but now the company has pushed into the sports technology sector with its new Motion line.
Two years in the making, 776BC’s Motion System hopes to help enhance athletic performance through the use of biomechanics. But Motion’s athletic tops and bottoms are not tech-filled or chip-based. Instead, the company utilized fundamental human body movement and motion concepts to trace key body inflection points onto easy-to-see lines and markers throughout the new compression clothing made with carbon fiber weave and liquid titanium.
Two-time Australian Olympic rower and silver medalist Cameron McKenzie-McHarg and his wife, Kate McKenzie-McHarg, founded the company with rowers in mind. 776BC is the official apparel of Rowing Australia and the Australian Rowing Team. However, Motion apparel can be used for an array of sports.
The company wants to allow athletes and coaches to focus on proper body alignment in order to help improve both technique and performance with clothing that can provide real-time visual feedback.
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776BC and a team of doctors including Dr. Harry Brennan, the Head of Sports Science and Physical Preparation at the Victorian Institute of Sports, used motion capture technology to study how the human body moves. They then focused on key segments such as joint centers, bony landmark, and pivot points.
From there, the company was able to pinpoint exact lines across the body such as the chest, back, spine, knees, legs and more to design 776BC’s heavily marked apparel in order to line up with these key areas.
776BC’s Motion line tries to draw the eye to “key joints and body segments for quick and easy analysis.” The company hopes to make it easier to focus on complex and intricate movements by brightly and boldly highlighting the points on the body that matter the most.
“Unlike every other piece of sports clothing available in the market today, every line and marker, every piece of visual design, is there for a purpose,” Cameron McKenzie-McHarg told The Australian. “Motion offers a clean, simple to understand solution to movement analysis, which can be easily understood by individuals and teams at all levels of sport.”
776BC’s new gear is based heavily on metrics and biomechanics, but the company wanted Motion to be simple. Wearers can watch themselves through a gym mirror and focus on the markers in order to make sure they are moving properly in real-time. The prominently marked lines also allow coaches to assess an athletes’ body alignment even when they are far away.
776BC’s visual-based Motion apparel also comes with a free-to-download app for Apple iOS devices. The Motion Companion app was designed to help analyze body position in a much more technical manner.
The user or coach can record video through the app. The video can then be marked up through the app in order to highlight alignment. Motion Companion allows users to look at side-by-side comparisons that can be shared via videos or PDFs. All of the videos can be played back frame-by-frame or in slow motion.
776BC’s Motion line is currently available for both men and women in an array of options. The alignment-focused gear starts at around $100.