At KYMIRA we endeavour to help improve your physical performance. As a company we never stop working towards refining our products, our content output and our research.
Last month we introduced the KYMIRA Sport KYnergy Eco System , which is a comprehensive guide to improving physical and sporting performance. A lot of people assume that performance is something that happens on the day of competition, whereas we believe there's significantly more to it than that.
To perform at your best you need to refine the before, during and after competition elements.
In the KYMIRA Sport KYnergy Eco System, we identified four areas of physical output that need to be optimised in order to reach your physical potential. In a series of blog posts over the coming months we're going to explain each one in more detail, providing insight as to how KYMIRA products help you to become the best athlete you can be.
This article is on the topic ‘Prepare', explain exactly how KYMIRA products can help you prepare as an athlete, improving your performances and results in competition.
Time to read: 7 minutes
Level: Intermediate
Key Points:
- Prepare
- How KYMIRA Technology Enhances Preparation
- Injury Prevention
- Travel Management
- Muscle Priming
- Stretching, Flexibility and Mobility
- Prepare - Concluding Thoughts
In the KYMIRA Sport KYnergy Eco System, we identified areas that need to be optimised in order to reach your physical potential. This article is on the topic ‘Prepare', explaining how KYMIRA technology helps with athletic preparation.
Prepare
Past a certain point, talent alone isn't enough to achieve sporting success. In lower levels of competition, you may have the talent to beat your competition easily, but when you reach a standard where you have to work in order to excel, the importance of preparation becomes exponential.
Preparation goes beyond the obvious facets of training hard and warming up well.
As an athlete your preparation includes specific work in training, not just training for the sake of activity. There's injury prevention work that includes stretching, flexibility and mobility. This is the bulk of, but not the entirety of your preparation.
Depending on your level of competition there's a logistical element to preparation.
If you're travelling a long distance to perform and compete, are you managing your travel so you give yourself the best possible chance of your best performance on the day? Are you travelling comfortably, are you arriving in time, are you able to sleep, rest and prepare beforehand?
To truly optimise your preparation, these are the things that need to be considered.
How KYMIRA Technology Enhances Preparation
In the KYMIRA Sport KYnergy Eco System, the elements of preparation that KYMIRA technology can enhance are as follows…
- Injury Prevention
- Travel Management
- Muscle Priming
- Stretching
- Flexibility
- Mobility
We'll explain each one in more detail, stating the evidence-based case as to why KYMIRA enhances each one.
Injury Prevention
The infrared technology present in KYMIRA garments enhances circulation and blood flow to tissues. [1] This improves the flexibility, mobility and elasticity of the musculoskeletal system which has been shown to reduce the injury risk of competitive athletes. The mechanisms by which injuries are reduced have additional spill-over benefits to other aspects of preparation.
Travel Management
Team GB Fencer, Ben Peggs uses his KYMIRA leggings for travel to and from events, especially on long-haul flights. He claims they help prevent ‘leg-lag', where his legs feel tired from extended periods of travel. There's evidence [2] to support the recovery and muscle-priming effects of infrared technology in the scientific literature. By wearing KYMIRA clothing during travel time, athletes are actually using apparently ‘dead' time far more effectively, enhancing their recovery.
Muscle Priming
The purpose of the warm-up is the prime the body for the activity it is about to undergo. By this point we don't need to explain the evidence in favour of warm-ups in injury prevention [3], but what KYMIRA technology does is enhances the blood flow to the tissues, which improves the efficacy of the warm-up. The blood flow improvement isn't limited to the soft tissues either – connective tissue elasticity and flexibility is increased by the improved blood flow.
Stretching, Flexibility and Mobility
It should be abundantly clear now how important enhanced blood flow is in respect to human movement. Fluid movement is vital to excellent sporting performance, so all athletes should be following a mobility protocol as part of their preparation. The stretching protocol with performance-enhancing evidence is PNF stretching [4], which has been shown to enhance range of movement and mobility without reducing the muscular force generation capabilities. Performing PNF whilst wearing KYMIRA offers enhanced flexibility and range of movement at a given joint.
Prepare - Concluding Thoughts
We opened this article by saying preparation was more than just training well and warming up. Hopefully we've opened your eyes to other elements of excellent sporting preparation and have shown you how KYMIRA technology can enhance these further.
KYMIRA technology has reached Rugby World Cup Finals, has helped to win Olympic and World Championship Gold medals in numerous sports and helped thousands of casual exercisers reach levels of performance they'd previously thought impossible.
How can we help you too?
References
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4935255/
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4993144/
[3] https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/49/14/935