Modern sports cannot operate in the environment that progress does not include new technologies to improve athletes’ physical and sports skills. One cannot help but get fascinated with smart clothing as it is revolutionising not only the way athletes train, compete, as well as rehabilitate. This state-of-art wearable technology has the capability of tracking and analyzing physical parameters, performance and injuries thus being a revolution in today’s sports. It is now time to dig up deeper into how smart clothing is for instance affecting the sports sector.

What is Smart Clothing in Sports ?

Smart clothing or e-textiles is clothing featuring technology which is incorporated in its structure and can comprise of sensors, micro chains, or even conductive fabrics. These components capture information about the wearer’s motion and physiological characteristics including heart rate, body temperature, muscle activation and even respiratory rate. This information is sent to linked devices such as a smartphone or a fitness tracker for athletes and or coaches to check on their performance and the athletes’ health. Smart clothing can be vastly different from the conventional athlete wear and gear in the sense that it is not only functional clothing but functional clothing with features that prove useful when it comes to monitoring the health and fitness of the athlete in order to make informed decisions when it comes to training, resting, as well as improving performance.

How Does Smart Clothing Work ?

Smart textile is an extension of wearable sensors that uses wireless systems in the actual garment fabric. These sensors may record a number of physiological parameters and this information may be transmitted to an application or device for processing. For instance, smart shirts can have sensors that analyse heart rate and a person’s respiratory system while smart leggings can examine muscle activation or movement. The material that is used in smart clothing is generally light, that allows free movement, the fabric must be scientifically tested to be capable of absorbing or releasing sweat, to prevent the athletes from feeling uncomfortable in them. Materials gathered from the respondents are kept on cloud or otherwise, deciphered by the help of an application and the knowledge and feedback about the results acquired in real time can be gathered by the athletes and trainers.

Benefits of Smart Clothing in Sports

1. Performance Monitoring : Smart clothing also has the feature that would allow the monitoring of an athlete during training or actual games. Such data as heart rate, oxygen levels, muscle activity, movement can be interpreted in real-time to allow the athletes to know their strengths and weaknesses. For example, a person wearing a smart shirt while running may be able to get information on the running style, HR zones, and posture. It can be utilised to calibrate methods by increasing their effectiveness and decreasing the likelihood of the occurrence of accidents. 

2. Injury Prevention and Recovery : Injury prevention is another essential benefit that smart clothing can bring into the lives of the society. Thus, through movements the technology identifies muscle strain or even fatigue even when it is not obvious. The level of training load can be modified by the athletes, hence avoiding the occasion of injuries. Smart clothing can work in recovery to observe the process of tissue healing offering details on muscles, flexibility, and range of motion. Products such as smart compression garments with sensors, assist in recovery through a mechanism that involves a compression process that favours blood circulation and a reduction in the level of swelling, in addition to monitoring v recovery parameters.

4. Health Monitoring : Of all the functions of smart clothing, health monitoring is more important given the state of the current world where people are contracting different deadly diseases. Endurance athletes such as cyclists, runners or triathletes can monitor certain parameters in their bodies like raw heart variability, degree of dehydration and respiratory rates. These metrics can be used to maintain vector precautions that will prevent the athletes from overworking their bodies. In conditions such as heat or altitude, smart clothing can help in giving warning to the athletes that their body heat or oxygen level is going too high to cause heat stroke or altitude sickness respectively.

Types of Smart Clothing in Sports

There are various types of smart clothing available for different sports. Here are some popular examples:

1. Smart Shirts : Smart shirts are learnt to be self contained sensors that monitor instances like heart rate, breathing and muscular activity. Smart clothing for athletes from Hexoskin and Athos is smart shirts that give useful information about performance and bodily state.

2. Smart Leggings and Pants : For athletes in various forms of exercise such as running or yoga or weight lifting smart leggings or pants can monitor muscle activation, movement patterns, and posture. Because such workouts involve accurate body positions, leggings by firms such as Nadi X educates users on their alignment in real-time.

3. Smart Socks : Smart socks should be used to monitor foot movements, step pattern and pressure exerted by the feet. They are especially so to runners and assist them in keeping track of their foot posture resulting in conditions such as over pronation or excessive supination. Among the market leaders in this segment, it is possible to name Sensoria.

4. Smart Shoes : Smart shoes are usually equipped with sensors in the sole that are able to monitor steps, cadence and even balance. They are perfect for athletes since they can assist them in enhancing their gait, increasing speed and minimising chances of getting injured. Nike launched a line of smart shoes with sensors within the framework of sports and Under Armour also released smart shoes with integrated sensors.

The Future of Smart Clothing in Sports 

In the upcoming years, smart clothings in the sporting apparel industry seems to be extremely bright. But as the new material science, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence are improving rapidly, it believes that smart clothing will be more precise and develop quickly. Perhaps such smart fabrics will be able to regenerate themselves after an athlete’s working out or have some kind of an ability to change their compression and temperature depending on the athlete’s needs. Moreover, the information gathered about smart clothing could be incorporated with virtual training and encouragement systems/programs so that athletes might get the real-time training based on their performance analysis. This has created a prospect for smart clothing to be incorporated in mainstream professional contacts of the sports. From the information collected by smart clothing, teams and organisations could gauge players’ health, fitness and preparedness thus improving the general performance and minimising injuries.

CONCLUSION 

Smart clothing is set in transforming the sports industry as it is able to offer multiple insights on health, performance, and well-being. Therefore, the technology’s role in the process of training as well as in preventing the injuries among the athletes will remain significant in the future as the technology advances. Still, there are some challenges to face, and although there are problems that need to be solved, it is evident that smart clothing in the sphere of sports is the thing of the future that will continue to be an essential factor in the further development of athletics. Being a movement that converts raw data sets into something as clear as a map, smart clothing is not only a fashion statement, it is a performance enhancing device that is aiding athletes in attaining better results.