Injuries are an ever-present problem for athletes, parents, as well as coaches, leaving them clamoring for the latest technologies that can help prevent (or lessen the effects of) them. Enter Unequal Technologies in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. They’ve been making supplemental protection gear for sports and the military in the United States, and around the world since 2008. They don’t make the helmet a football player wears. They make the thin, lightweight gear that fits inside the helmet.
Rob Vito, Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and President of Unequal Technologies has a wealth of knowledge in the field of keeping people safe in potentially dangerous situations, while Erin Hanlon Ph.D., is their Director of Advanced Composites Lab.
Unequal Technologies offers a wide array of clothing (around $100) and accessories ($30-70) for the everyday and professional athlete, for youth and adult, men and women. Their offerings encompass protection for practically any contact sport you can think of, from baseball to lacrosse, and football to fútbol.
This makes them an excellent example of a global company that hasn’t lost sight of what they started out doing: helping people keep safe. Since professional athletes need to stay healthy in order to continue being pro’s, several of them (and their coaching and medical staff) are turning to Unequal Technologies to help them out. The Boston Bruins along with the Pittsburgh Steelers use their products. The Washington Football Team’s defensive back Ryan Clark and Australian Olympic snowboarder Torah Bright are also among their clients.
One truth about protective gear is that no matter how useful it is, athletes won’t use it if it impairs or impedes their ability to move, run, or play fearlessly. Even after taking a few blows to the head while snowboarding, Bright continues to take to the slopes in pursuit of her craft. With the lightweight, durable, and green Kevlar-based Unequal Technologies gear, she can. The same goes for the Bruins. Their players wore the protective gear in their boots, which take impacts from pucks, sticks, and opponents’ boots at high rates of speed and force. The product’s thinness (6 mm to 10 mm) as well as its weight at less than 128 grams (4.5 oz.) makes a great fit for athletes.
Baseball and football players take their fair share of knocks and need customized protection as well. In the 2013 season, Boston Red Sox catcher David Ross suffered a concussion. As a precaution, he was required to wear protective gear inside his helmet. He quickly realized that even though his head was being protected, he wasn’t comfortable (and he didn’t like the look of the protective helmet). Working with his needs, Unequal Technologies customized protective gear that was a better fit for him and his catcher’s helmet.
Clark, defensive end for Washington, wears their supportive gear because, like other professional athletes, he was looking for advanced protection for the impacts he takes during practice and in games. The gear he uses has three layers composed of Kevlar sandwiched between Accelleron and ImpacShield, which disperses impacts, to better protect him. Since professional athletes can be seriously injured, adding this protective gear greatly improves their longevity in their sport.
Soccer players have fewer options to choose from when it comes to ways to protect themselves from injuries. Unequal Technologies created a headband called the Halo that can be worn to absorb some of the intense blows soccer players receive to the head. According the company spokesperson, Greg Miller, shin guards are in development and should be ready for sale by the end of 2014. Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the governing body of soccer around the world, already endorses it. The goal of wearing the protective gear is to buy, as Miller tells us, “place and play.” Meaning, put the gear in place and go play.
As Miller explains, Unequal Technologies first focused on ways to keep the trunk-the-ribs and chest of the athlete protected and then expanded in the following year to keeping their head protected. While they have been working with a few players, such as Atlanta Braves’ Evan Gattis, within the MLB, they have plans to expand even more in the fall as well, working with the league to help keep their players safe.
The Unequal protective items are only for purchase through their e-commerce portal, which will start to be available in select stores by the end of 2014. This will expand their customer base, as it’s helpful to be able to feel and test equipment before purchasing. After purchase, the user can customize their gear, especially the Gyro, which fits inside helmets.
As strong as the protective gear is with impacts, it can be cut with an ordinary pair of scissors. For parents of children who play baseball, this is perfect because the gear can be customized to fit the child’s helmet. Equally important, if a child athlete plays more than one sport, the same headgear can be used in multiple helmets easily.
Unequal Technologies has created a line of products built around the needs of athletes who continually take impacts, whether from their opponents or an object, or both. The affordable price and expanding products they offer make it very feasible for the amateur to professional athlete to better protected themselves.