The Oakland Raiders selected safety Obi Melifonwu in the second round of the NFL draft, and he was a prospect whose draft stock improved after an eye-popping performance at the NFL combine. After starring at UConn, Melifonwu was able to stand out after training with wearable technology from Athos.
Athos CEO Don Faul said Melifonwu was among the draft prospects who used the company’s compression gear that has sensors to measure muscle activity and heart rate in real-time during workouts at ASPITraining, a private facility where former NFL player Yo Murphy is the director of sports performance.
Melifonwu told CBSSports.com he believes he gained an advantage from the technology he used at ASPI and that he trained with Athos to measure the body’s biosignals during workouts and assess how they were affecting specific muscle groups.
“I feel like that is what gave me the most edge in training,” Melifonwu told CBS Sports.
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Faul, whose products were used by numerous NFL draft prospects, recently had Athos rebranded so the company could focus on helping elite athletes.
“You’ll use Athos to look on a daily basis to understand, ‘OK, is my training hitting the muscles that I intend to hit? Are there any issues that are presenting themselves that I need to work on?'” he said.
Melifonwu did just that, and his numbers at the combine were “off the charts,” as Faul described them. The 6-foot-4, 224-pounder ran a 4.4-second 40-yard dash. He had a 44-inch vertical jump and an 11-foot-9 broad jump — the top marks among all players at the combine in Indianapolis.