Technological Aids

Technological aids are performance-enhancing items such as the fabrics and materials used in sport clothing, footwear, and equipment; computers; apps; timing devices; digital video recorders; and heart rate monitors. • They are technological innovations designed to boost athletic performance.

Ergogenic Clothing Design

A subfield of physics called computational fluid dynamics, which studies the movement of air, water, or gases, is now indispensable to the design of clothing for speed-based sports such as cycling, skating, and swimming. • Even a 5 percent reduction in drag as a result of clothing design can significantly improve a cyclist’s performance. • Speedo’s Aqualab used computerized scans of hundreds of athletes to determine areas of high friction on each athlete’s body to position lowfriction fabric in the right locations to reduce drag. • Textured swimsuit fabrics inspired by toothlike projections found on sharkskin may have helped Michael Phelps and others wn gold at the 2008 Summer Olympics

Amazing New Fabrics & Materials

Two of many performance-enhancing advances in material science include the following: • An impressive new material called sugru is a thermoset silicone rubber that is ideal for forming comfortable grips on sporting goods such as archery bows, ski poles, and bicycles. • Thermal regulation fabrics can store heat from the body and release it when a golfer starts to get cold. If you squeeze the fabric on polo shirts made from this material, you can actually feel the temperature of the fabric start to change!

“Hot Pants” & “Smart Clothing”

Research into ergogenic clothing design has led to some interesting innovations: • Battery-operated heated pants can boost cyclists’ sprint power during performance events. • Microscopic sensors and wireless networks can be embedded in “smart clothing” to monitor athletes’ heart rate, body temperature, hydration, and other bodily indicators. • A huge growth industry, wearable fitness technology can provide real-time updates on body performance and tips for improvement

Racecar-Inspired Designs

Automobile engineering has gained on aerospace engineering in terms of its impact on ergogenic modifications to bobsled designs. • Instead of using the usual aerodynamic bodywork—wrapping the bobsled in a classic teardrop, airfoil shape—the U.S. design team draped the sled in a minimalist aerodynamic carbon fibre cover. • The result was the sleek, form-fitting shape of a Formula One racecar.

Impact Sensors Used in Helmets

• Impact sensors that can be installed inside or outside helmets are now commercially available. They can measure the forces involved in impacts to the heads of participants in football, hockey, snow sports, and lacrosse in real time. • These sensors may help solve the problem of chronic underreporting of sports-related concussions and other serious brain injuries. • It is critical that a player believed to have sustained a concussion be removed promptly from the game.

The GForce Tracker (GFT)

A research study at Western University in London, Ontario has rigged the helmets of the university’s Mustang football players with an electronic device that monitors blows to the head. • This football team is the first in Canada, professional or amateur, to undergo such an extensive monitoring program. • The device, called a GForce Tracker (GFT), collects data related to the force, location, and frequency of impacts to the head. • Researchers hope the data collected will help reduce the number of concussions.

Nanotechnology & Sports Equipment

Nanotechnology is engineering at the molecular level. It involves the manipulation of matter on an atomic and molecular scale by scientists and technologists, often to make products in which at least one feature is sized from 1 to 100 nanometres. (A nanometre, abbreviated nm, is one billionth of a metre.) • The goal of nanotechnology is to create new materials, computer chips, and sub-microscopic devices. • Nanotechnology plays a key role in the design of sports equipment to make it safer, stronger, lighter, and more durable.

Safer, Stronger, Lighter

• New “reactive materials” can flex and move with a body in motion but harden upon impact, thus protecting against injury. Applications of this nanotechnology include gear for downhill skiers and dirt bike racers and shoes for ballet dancers. • “Nanocomposite coatings” can make tennis balls bounce twice as long. Tennis racquets containing silicon nanoparticles vibrate less and give players better control over their swing. • Carbon nanotubes can be used to manufacture baseball bats that are more lightweight yet more powerful compared to aluminum bats. • Arrows made with a resin containing carbon nanotubes are lightweight yet strong, and the resin helps control the arrows’ vibrations.

Faster, Tougher, Water-Resistant

• Carbon nanotubes in golf clubs make the club heads stronger but also transfer energy through the shaft more efficiently, thus making the golf balls travel faster. • Carbon nanotubes used in a resin can keep bicycle handlebars and cranks rigid (a desirable characteristic) yet lightweight. • Waxes and coatings that use a nanocomposite can make skis and kayaks more resistant to abrasion as well as more water-resistant.