Already in use in adidas exercise apparel, a composite thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) called Rheon has now gone into the brand’s clothing for runners, providing, in an unusual way, dynamic support to key muscle groups.

Sports brand adidas has begun using material from Rheon Labs in shorts and tops in its Adizero Control apparel collection for runners. This is a follow-up to its use of the material, Rheon, in exercise leggings, tights and tops earlier this year. London-based Rheon Labs has patented Rheon, which it describes as “a reactive superpolymer” that can help athletes improve their performance by reducing energy-waste.

It works by helping muscles stay in “the most efficient position so that more energy is directed into performance”, according to the companys commercial director, Simon Huntsman. Material made from Rheon is breathable and soft, but becomes tougher in periods of high-intensity movement; pieces of it, placed in the right position on a garment, can provide extra support and reduce energy-waste to boost athletes’ performance.

Glue-free

The Rheon polymer is a composite thermo- plastic elastomer (TPE) that undergoes change when strain-rates increase.

Designs for garments such as the products that adidas has made so far can incorporate the right amount of Rheon from the outset, placing it in exactly the right place on the surface of the textile that the rest of the garment is made from. The London-based start-up can then produce the composite TPE in the form of film and cut out the shapes required using laser-cutting technology. Brands and their partners can then use heat to apply the pieces of Rheon to the garment, with the application of heat causing a permanent bond to form between the film and the fabric; no glue is required.

A new era of performance

The company has used computer modelling to identify exactly where on garments Rheon should be placed. Other options for providing special support to the most important muscle groups already exist in apparel, but in-house testing suggests it has the potential to control four times more energy than conventional elastane-based textiles. Mr Huntsman explains: “Our technology has combined years of biomechanical research with complex chemistry in a way that will unlock a new world of athlete potential and shape a new era of performance.”

All of this has taken time, naturally. Rheon Labs was founded by Dr Dan Plant in 2017 as a spin-off company from Imperial College, London, where he did his PhD. During that time, he also worked on a research project at NASA. His work on what he has called “polymers that are sensitive to strain-rates” led to Rheon.

The company’s vision for what this can mean for brands and athletes is clear. On the wall of its offices in London, in large letters, a mantra appears: ‘Rethink Possible’. This works at two levels, making it clear to potential customers that it is perfectly permissible for them to rethink what they do and what they make. It also means that things brands may have believed were beyond them can, after a rethink, suddenly seem achievable. Simon Huntsman has spent decades in the performance apparel business, working for many years at cycling apparel brand Rapha. On coming into contact with Rheon Labs, he loved the idea of garments that can react to wearers’ movement and enhance their performance.

“When I began to talk to the company, I realised right away that this was genuine innovation,” he explains. “How much genuine innovation have we seen in recent years? Not much; my view is that covid-19 really stifled innovation because it made everyone go back into their own shell. Well, it’s a post-covid world now and we are creating a whole new era of dynamic support.”

Compression versus comfort

Sports bras were an early area application for the company. It worked on a new bra concept in-house to successfully demonstrate the concept of ‘dynamic support’ in soft body tissue. Sports bras are an important growth area, Mr Huntsman says. “With these products, there has always been a relationship between support and compression, but high compression doesn’t always mean comfort. Our technology enables a higher level of support with lower compression. We are convinced that this is important because it will help more women participate in the sports they love.”

It is when a garment comes under strain at a fast speed, which it frequently will during exercise, that the material reacts and becomes stiff enough to offer targeted support in just the right places on the body. This is possible thanks to the complex chemistry referred to above.

“In chemical terms, this is about taking ingredients and combining them in a colloidal suspension,” Mr Huntsman explains. “When they combine in the right proportions, they develop new properties. It’s a change at molecular level, taking place in milliseconds, through the breaking and reforming of hydrogen bonds.” An analogy the company is fond of using invites people to think about the point on a beach where the sand and the sea combine in the right proportion, the right colloidal suspension, to make it easy and pleasant to walk or run on. If you go a little bit further inland, the sand is too dry and your feet sink in too deeply. If you go further away from the beach, you quickly encounter too much resistance from the water to move effectively.

Wobble woes

Because most of the members of the leadership team at the company have an engineering background, numbers matter to them. They have been convinced from the outset that their technology can improve athletes’ performance by reducing what they refer to as the “muscle wobble” that causes energy loss. “The body can be very inefficient,” Mr Huntsman says. “An athlete can lose a huge amount of energy because of unwanted and unnecessary lateral or circumferential movement of important muscle groups. We want to reduce that wasted movement and have more muscle movement take place in ways that will help improve performance.”

Some initial internal studies led the team to draw a hypothesis that their super-polymer could achieve this movement control, but they have insisted on gathering more data; they want to make the impact of their technology measurable and improvable. They decided, therefore, to commission more in-depth research at the University of Wisconsin’s neuromuscular biomechanics laboratory under the guidance of the laboratory’s co-director, Dr Bryan Heiderscheit.

The main focus of this research was to use sensors, accelerometers and other data-capture technology to measure the extent to which a garment can stabilise muscle wobble, especially in important muscle groups such as the quadriceps, the hamstrings and the calf muscles. The Wisconsin tests supported their conviction that the technology works. “You can cancel unwanted movement,” Mr Huntsman explains, “just as you can cancel out noise. Supporting the muscles in a way that makes their contribution more effective is a way of doing this and a way of letting the body design its own solutions.”

Athletes’ feedback

As all ingredient brands seek to do, the company will broaden its customer base in the near future and supply its super-polymer for other companies to use in their products as well, but it regards adidas as “a fantastic launch partner”, praising the Germany-based group for planning patiently and working respectfully with the technology provider, always giving credit where credit was due. It took four years of work for the first products to be ready.

Feedback that the sports group has shared with Rheon Labs so far indicates that the technology has gone down well with users of the exercise apparel it released earlier this year. The construction is black-on-black (other colours are possible and are coming soon, Mr Huntsman promises), but the shiny black of the Rheon on the matt black of the garments has produced an aesthetic effect that many passionate gym-users have embraced enthusiastically.

Early comments from adidas-sponsored athletes about the more recent project for Adizero Control running apparel pay testament to the technology’s performance qualities. One competitor said it made him feel like a super-hero, while another said it made him feel race-ready. These remarks were music to the ears of the team at Rheon Labs. Athletes will wear clothing endowed with Rheon at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, with distance-running events the most likely to yield medals, Simon Huntsman thinks.

He explains that even a 1% gain can easily be the difference between standing on the podium and being nowhere. In a marathon, for example, a 1% gain makes a difference of more than a minute. “We are in the world of small gains,” he concludes. “The desire among the world’s top athletes to win is extraordinary; their whole mindset is about winning and the comments we have received suggest clothing with Rheon makes them feel like they can win. We are a performance solutions business and what we are doing in performance apparel is super-charging materials through design.”

Following its use of Rheon in exercise clothing earlier this year, adidas has now used   the polymer in its latest Adizero Control apparel collection for runners. 
All Credits: Rheon Labs/adidas

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