Full-body neoprene and polyurethane swimsuits transformed the sports and textile industries when they debuted at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Before World Aquatics outlawed the usage of these suits in 2010, swimmers like Michael Phelps, Paul Biedermann, and several others broke numerous world records while using them. However, the area of sports textiles is always expanding, and these technical developments continued until 2010. These are some of the textiles that have recently been used in the sports industry.
Head: Enhanced Defense Without Compromise in Comfort
Protecting the players’ heads is crucial when it comes to safety in any activity, whether it is shovel racing, cricket, or association football. Concussions and other acute brain traumas may have long-lasting, profound repercussions on a person’s life. Furthermore, a dangerous neurodegenerative condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), whose symptoms include violence and dementia, may be brought on over time by a series of mild head traumas. Research is focused on prevention since there is presently no treatment for CTE and symptoms might manifest eight to 10 years after the first brain damage. This is especially concerning for those who play full contact sports professionally, since all but one of the 111 National Football League (American football) players examined in a US research had CTE.
In an effort to lower the frequency and severity of head injuries in sports, sporting leagues are changing their regulations, but helmet makers are adopting a different strategy. Hard helmets are a great tool for avoiding single, severe concussions, but organizations like BrainGuard are also working to lessen the twisting force that first damages the brain and causes CTE. The helmets made by BrainGuard combine a robust outer layer with a textile core made of foam to minimize impact forces by up to 50% without adding weight. Technologies that use materials in layers, like the Rezon Halos headband, lessen the transmission of rotational forces to the brain even when they are not incorporated into full-sized helmets.
It takes time to test and approve these textile innovations. One of the most promising temporary solutions in the interim is the fusion of contemporary materials with wearable medical technologies. The textile lining of the NoMo helmet incorporates electroencephalography sensors, which enable the helmet to promptly transmit a warning in the event of any traumatic brain damage. This lowers the possibility of a false diagnosis in addition to enabling concussion sufferers to get assistance in a matter of seconds. Wearers will even be able to monitor minor injuries over time with continued usage, which will empower them to make knowledgeable judgments about CTE and other chronic brain injury types. (NoMo also has significant potential in military contexts, when triage on the battlefield requires quick decision-making.)
Sports helmets must be both safe and comfortable in addition to being well-made. No matter how much these advanced materials lower a player’s risk, it won’t matter if they are uncomfortable to wear. Fortunately, manufacturers have advanced much in this area as well. In a 2020 research, the air permeability, heat conductivity, and pressure distribution of motorcycle helmets made with warp knit spacer fabric were examined. The microclimate within helmets may be adjusted by users with the aid of these novel materials, keeping them comfortable and cool.
Shoulders and Torso: Long-lasting, Breathable Protection
Sports textiles must, above all, serve many purposes. Every sport’s participants have different needs when it comes to their gear, but most of them rank breathability, absorbency, and thermal conductivity as crucial. As a result, when it comes to designing sports uniforms, they are the first thing designers consider. The functionality of sports jerseys has been improved in recent years by materials other than Lycra, cotton, and polyester.
For example, athletes in outdoor sports have three challenges because of the sun. They must not only cope with the intense heat and brilliant light, but also be aware of the threat posed by the sun’s UV radiation. The athletes and the material that makes up their uniforms are both at risk from this radiation. For example, the perfect football uniform should be thick enough to prevent sunburn while being porous and flexible enough to allow fresh air to move toward the wearer’s skin. While they don’t breathe well, wool and polyester do provide some UV protection. Chemical textile coatings are useful in this situation. These might contain graphene, nanoparticles, and inorganic nanotubes. In a recent research, the effectiveness and sustainability of various coatings were examined. In terms of UV protection factor (UPF), carbon-based coatings showed especially great potential, opening the door for breathable, light textiles such mixes of micromodal and cotton and rayon. (As an added benefit, this helps shield the cloth from UV damage.)
Breathability of a textile is also critical to the comfort and well-being of an athlete. For this reason, when the Tangible Media Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology unveiled its bioLogic Second Skin material, athletic retailers like New Balance leaped at the chance to incorporate the idea into fabrics. This textile, which was initially shown in 2016, uses the bacteria Bacillus subtilis natto to adjust the pore size of the material automatically according to the moisture content of the user. The more perspiration a person produces, the more breathable their gear becomes. New Balance is committed to using this material into the sports industry even today.
Recent years have witnessed advancements in several aspects of sporting clothing, not only the materials. With the advent of new computer software and manufacturing techniques, body mapping technology has become an essential tool for athletes. With the use of this technology, brands like Odlo’s Kinship Collection and Asics’ ACTIBREEZE line can create personalized clothes without seams by taking exact, three-dimensional measurements of the wearer’s body. Body mapping technology has several uses in sports. By fusing cutting-edge materials with digital scanning, producers may make sports textiles that are more breathable where it’s needed and more flexible where it’s needed. Most importantly, they raise the athlete’s comfort level so that they may concentrate on their activity.
Back, Waist, and Stomach: Core Comfort Zones for the Body
Smart fabrics are among the most innovative sports textiles available today. The market for apparel that links to smartphones and smart watches has risen in the previous ten years due to the widespread usage of these gadgets. Still, these services go much beyond aiding recreational athletes.
For example, professional rugby teams have been using heart rate monitors while training with amazing results. Teams like the Saracens make use of technology like the Firstbeat sensor, which is incorporated into a belt made of cloth that is worn across the chests of the players. Once installed, the sensor feeds a central database with real-time information on each athlete. After that, the team physicians and coaches keep an eye on this data, use it to tailor training and make sure every player is achieving their best. The teams who employ these monitors have found them beneficial, despite World Rugby’s ban on wearing them during games.
An electronic yarn that can accurately track the wearer’s movements was introduced earlier this year by the polytechnic institution ETH Zurich. This yarn creates a stretchy fabric, unlike many smart textiles, and it can be sowed directly onto numerous fabrics without compromising flexibility. This yarn may communicate a range of data to a smartphone or central hub when it is connected to a loop antenna or another transmitting device. There are a plethora of applications where the notion is showing potential. They may assist athletes evaluate their form, avoid injury, and avoid wearer fatigue by measuring their movements.
One of the top producers of outdoor gear and sportswear is the German company Schoffel. It just unveiled a range of ski coats that can heat themselves. These INTELLITEX jackets use a number of sensors to track the wearer’s body temperature and transmit it to an app on their smartphone. When the temperature drops below the user’s comfortable threshold, the embedded heater activates on its own. Meanwhile, functional fabrics have shown considerable potential in cooling down for sports, especially marathon runners in warmer areas. Both the Coollife fabric and the i-Cool textile, created in the 2020s, use nanotechnology in various ways to keep wearers cool. For athletes, heat stroke is a serious summertime worry. Using these materials to make wristbands or headbands may significantly improve safety.
Knees and Legs: Stabilizing a Common Point of Failure
Though an athlete’s legs may not get as much attention as their head or torso, textile advancements have not overlooked their lower body. The majority of the recent advancements in fabrics that are covered in this article also apply to leggings, trousers, and shorts. For example, the ETH Zurich researchers wore a pair of leggings with the antenna running down one leg to show the idea of their electronic yarn. That being said, sports textiles have not entirely abandoned leg-specific advances!
For an athlete to perform well on the field, rink, or pitch, their knees are essential. They are also a key potential source of failure for the body. Since knee surgery may force an athlete to miss months of competition or perhaps ruin their career, technological advancements are always being made to lessen the impact of these injuries or even avoid them altogether.
Wearing soft knee braces is one of the best ways sportsmen may avoid knee injury. These knee braces often include adjustable straps since they allow for a personalized fit. But for sports or those who move around a lot, these straps may cause major issues since they can slide or cause pressure spots around the knee, which can result in bruising and other abrasion injuries. Recently, the American work gear maker Ergodyne solved this problem by introducing cushioned knee sleeves that are lightweight and strapless. These sleeves (from the ProFlex Series) have a lot of potential for usage by athletes, even though their primary purpose is as personal protection equipment on construction sites. For example, goalies in ice hockey are always searching for more cozy methods to grip their pads.
Textiles may assist athletes in getting back on their feet even after suffering a knee injury, and they don’t have to take the shape of an external brace. In 2022, American researchers at Duke University discovered a lab-made cartilage gel that has shown remarkable potential in terms of reducing knee injury pain. This hydrogel substance fastens to bone 68% more securely and is 26% stronger than native cartilage thanks to the combination of polyvinyl alcohol and thin sheets of cellulose fibers. In addition, the gel could be frozen and thawed to anneal, which made it more appropriate for cartilage replacement than the majority of other hydrogels. Clinical studies on people for this invention, which is also at the forefront of medical textiles, started this spring. Although it is intended for those with osteoarthritis, athletes who have persistent knee discomfort may find considerable benefit from it as well.
A flexible knee wrap created by SingHealth Polytechnics and the Singapore University of Technology and Design is an even more recent advancement in sports textiles. The prototype, which was made available in May 2023, measures the wearer’s motions without the need of large external sensors or conductive fabric. Rather, it incorporates a sensor circuit into a sleeve that covers the wearer’s knee using a knitted single-fabric circuit. This opens up the option of long-term monitoring, which might let physical therapists and sports trainers monitor their patients’ development with significantly more comfort and precision than they had before.
There are more methods of relieving an athlete’s discomfort using clothing and fabrics. Recently, companies such as Venom Sports and Nufabrx have entered the market, producing braces and compression sleeves with integrated patches that allow pain relief medicine to be applied directly to an injured or painful location. Additionally, the firms are creating compression clothing to help patients heal after surgery.
Foot: Keeping the body’s base safe
Player Kevin Bieksa of the National Hockey League (NHL) tore his Achilles tendon in 2013 during a game. The opponent’s skate blade came into close contact with this injury. Bieksa’s injury was not the first of its kind, nor would it be the last to befall an ice hockey player. The NHL had to contend with six skate cuts in a span of fourteen weeks during the 2019–2020 season alone. Since well over a decade ago, cut-resistant hockey socks have been produced by all of the NHL’s major suppliers. The league hasn’t yet made them mandatory, however, citing concerns about their elasticity, breathability, and comfort. As a result, producers of textiles are creating materials that are more cozy while maintaining their ability to safeguard the user. For example, Aycane, a maker of athletic clothing, has created the world’s lightest cut-resistant thread and incorporated it into their Blade Pro Skate Socks. Claudio Cadonau, a defenseman for the Swiss National League, was about to have his career terminated by a cut to his leg, but these socks rescued him.
High-quality socks must reduce friction and wick away sweat for use in track & field and other running-intensive sports. Even while a blister can seem little, if it is not addressed, it can soon cause an athlete to miss the rest of a competition or match. Since 2018, Slovenian startup Go4Goal, led by Tadej Glavač, has been creating socks to combat this. Not only are the socks made specifically for each individual’s left and right foot, but they also have specialized grip technology that stabilizes the parts of the foot that blister the most and increases traction in shoes. The tightly woven material further aids in preventing the wearer’s ankles from twisting.
Compression socks are another textile breakthrough with applications in medicine and athletics. Since the 1980s, athletes have been using compression socks to maximize blood flow and hasten their recuperation. Lately, producers have started incorporating infrared technology into both these and conventional non-compression socks. With the use of an incredibly thin nano-ceramic powder, these materials reflect the wearer’s own body heat, improving thermoregulation and hastening the recuperation process after exercise. This technology may help not just athletes but also those with impairments like Raynaud syndrome and diabetes. Employees in retail and regular travelers may also.
In the meanwhile, MIT created a brand-new method for fabricating textiles in 2022. To make “smart” shoes, socks, and mats, a plastic yarn that has been slightly melted is used in EDKnITS, a smart textile. Thermoforming may now be used to create form-fitting products that are specifically tailored to the demands of each person thanks to digital knitting. The cloth enables machine learning algorithms to anticipate the wearer’s actions, from jogging and walking to challenging yoga positions, when combined with pressure sensors in the mats. Next, an athlete may get feedback on their form from the machine learning model, which may also serve as an early warning system for repetitive stress injuries. Because this cloth gives the user an accurate map of pressure spots, the MIT Media Lab is particularly excited to utilize it to line prosthetic limbs.
The impact of athletic fabrics on athletes is only one aspect of their innovative design. In March 2023, the Italian-based sustainable clothing producer Trere Innovation introduced its Unleash Your Nature (UYN) collection of socks and shoes. This fabric’s Biotech foundation layers are composed only of sustainable resources such as maize, eucalyptus, castor oil, and beech. In addition to launching with international ski teams, UYN will establish its first shop in Boston, Massachusetts, in the fall of 2023.
An inventive modification to the TS-1800 machine was shown by Twine Solutions at the Texprocess Frankfurt trade show last year. Even though the machine is already in operation all over the globe, this upgrade allows for quicker task changeover and fabric color adjustment. Additionally, the dyeing process needs no water, much like all of Twine’s innovations. Santoni’s X MACHINE, which Twine teamed up with, can create a seamless sock in five to seven minutes. Numerous color and pattern combinations are possible with three-dimensional intarsia technology, and the SbyS (Stitch-by-Stitch) gadget even has the ability to mechanically shut the toe of the sock. It is also possible to modify this technique to make shoe uppers without seams.
Artificial Surfaces and Carpets
Sports textiles cover the playing surfaces in addition to the athletes. Even though genuine grass or earth is used in many outdoor activities, artificial turf is still widely used in sports. The days of slick synthetic grass are long gone for sports teams, and some of the most exciting developments in sports textiles are just around the corner.
Prior to the 2022–2023 campaign, the Liverpool Reds F.C. in England outfitted its arena with a hybrid carpet. This substrate offers players a safe and pleasant playing surface by combining actual ryegrass with sand infill and polyethylene fibers. More significantly, this hybrid strategy cuts the reconstruction window for the pitch in half, allowing Anfield Stadium to stage more concerts and provide club supporters with more opportunity to play on the field.
The first business to produce playing fields made of textile, AstroTurf, has unveiled enhancements to its TRIONIC PLUS fiber. In addition to using a thermal barrier to enhance the playing surface for athletes, this polyethylene and nylon grass incorporates StatBlock, a carbon-based substance, within its fibers. With this invention, static electricity accumulation may be lowered up to 17 times. On the other hand, antimicrobial silver improves cleanliness by eliminating germs before they have a chance to proliferate.
These developments in fiber also make it possible to deploy artificial grass for a greater range of sporting activities and in more places. More flexibility and operational possibilities are offered by these new use cases, making the fibers available to those outside of the professional sports world.
Sports that have been practiced for millennia are being revitalized by these textile developments, which reach from an athlete’s head to their toes and even down to the playing field. They are assisting athletes in recovering from severe injuries and setting new world records. Sports textiles have a very promising future.
