As sports training and recovery become more intense to meet the higher demands of modern competition, technology must adapt accordingly. Recently, new products have allowed athletes to obtain athletic data that provides a competitive advantage and helps them recover. One company, SenseCore, is on the cutting edge of sports garment technology. Their Product Development Manager, Robert Mills, spoke with us about this new technology.
SenseCore is emblematic of the rise of sports tech clothing. Mills described how Sensecore works, saying, “two sensors worn on the upper body deliver vital physiological parameters only previously obtained in a hospital.” Users can wear these sensors during workouts and sleep, providing them helpful information about how their training is progressing.
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One difficulty in making fitness-tracking sportswear is trying to create clothing that will be comfortable to wear. SenseCore has designed its products to be as comfortable as possible, with Mills adding, “Once athletes start wearing SenseCore garments, they don’t even notice they are wearing sensors.” Perhaps as fitness tracking becomes more and more accepted as a valuable way to prevent injury in sports, we will see this technology become standard use in training and even competition.
Currently, the use of sports garments such as SenseCore is becoming more popular in the sports industry. As Mills describes, “SenseCore is used by professional athletes from football, rugby, cycling, running, and even swimming.” For these sports, users are able to accurately measure their heart rate, skin body temperature, and respiration rate, among other advanced information previously only obtainable in a hospital. It also records medical grade ECG, which will greatly help an athlete improve his or her performance. By having this information easily accessible, athletes can save time and money that going to expensive medical centers necessitates.
SenseCore and other garments are more than just sportswear with sensors—they utilize technology to connect with apps and software. These help to display training information, and as Mills explains, “To upload or stream live data, the sensors use Bluetooth technology.” This conjunction of different mediums of technology, hardware and software, reflects the trend in the sports business. Tracking systems and sensory data have allowed athletes real-time feedback on their performance, which greatly helps them to succeed and prevent injury.
As sports garments become more accepted in the future, their use will greatly broaden. Because SenseCore is a Swiss company, most of the athletes who use it are in Europe—but the technology is quickly expanding to the US and other countries. They are working tirelessly on new additions to their product. “We know we cannot afford to stand still,” explains Mills, “we are working relentlessly on new things with continuous, weekly releases of new software-based features.” These innovations will allow athletes to more easily identify ways to help them improve.
Sports garments with sensor technology like SenseCore are changing the way that professional athletes train. Hopefully, this trend will lead to better training and injury prevention for modern athletes.