Understanding the distribution of internal load on female warfighters in training

Here we introduce MadApparel Inc. DBA Athos: a wearable technology company with the mission of building better athletes by specializing in reducing musculoskeletal injury (MSK) and increasing human performance.  Injuries are extremely costly to both professional and collegiate teams. Athos Wearable technology has been validated by peer-reviewed research and was specifically designed to help coaches and athletes better understand the workload that their bodies are enduring and where exactly that workload is distributed across the body.  We do this using electromyography (EMG) technology to show coaches which muscles are incurring the most load and when during their training this occurred. Simply stated, EMG is the science of detection, recording and interpretation of the electrical activity generated by the muscles during movement.  The human body consists of hundreds of individual muscles that control movement, exert force or resist external forces. Muscles have a large number of fibers and depending on the amount of force they need to produce, more of them are activated. When a muscle fiber is activated it produces an electrical signal.  The more fibers that are activated, the higher the electrical signal. Conveniently, this electrical activity can be passively collected from the surface of the skin atop the muscle of interest. Athos has adapted this technology for commercial use within sports performance and the Department of Defense. We’ve designed the Athos system to fit  seamlessly into an athlete’s routine with minimal time required for setup and operation. Athos Wearable Technology consists of compression shorts that have embedded biometric sensors that we use to capture surface electromyographic (EMG) signals. We currently serve individual consumers and professional and collegiate sports teams. We have over 30 professional and collegiate teams who are currently using Athos to monitor muscle activity, understand athletes at-risk of injury and determine what corrective measures need to be undertaken. Additionally, we currently have 3 DoD customers actively using our MSK risk reduction solution.