Ionically charged sports clothing boosts athletes' power output and recovery

New Zealand’s famous All Blacks rugby team are about to miss out on a significant Kiwi advance in sports clothing technology that their Australian, South African, Irish and Scottish teams will bring to the World Cup. The All Blacks’ Adidas sponsorship will prevent them from using the revolutionary new IonX sportswear from Canterbury - a smart fabric that uses ionic energy to maximize blood flow, cool and calm the wearer, and deliver measurable performance gains in power output and recovery times.

The notion of using electromagnetic fields saturated with negative ions to boost alertness and provide an overall sense of well-being has long been used by the military, space programs and top level athletes. Extending this principle, Canterbury’s CCC BaseLayer IonX clothing uses a negatively charged electromagnetic field to improve the delivery of oxygen to the muscles through the bloodsteam. The anaerobic circulation system is also able to carry waste materials like lactic acid away more efficiently as well. The net effect is a 2.7% improvement in output power and accelerated recovery, according to independent testing at Loughborough University in the UK.

According to the Director of the Sports Technology Institute, Dr. Mike Caine, the Loughborough study “showed a significant increase in repetitive, short duration, high intensity exercise performance (power output) in both competitive and recreational athletes when wearing IonX versus non-ionised control garments.” He added: “This improvement is likely to be functionally relevant to all team sport players or indeed anybody undertaking repetitive bouts of high intensity exercise during training or performance."

The product has been under development for the past three years and clothing has undergone testing to ensure that the garments and are free from chlorophenols, formaldehyde, heavy metals, azo dyestuffs and any other substance that might harm athletes… and they are also legal to use.