Sports imPULSE

The Count: $2.6M

That is the amount of prize money awarded to men's and women's singles players at this year's French Open who never won a match.

Source:  International Tennis Federation

Improve Your Rowing Posture With Rowergo BRace

How can back pain be prevented AND performance improved for rowing machine users?  Meet the Rowergo BRace 9pronounced 'Bee Race').  The BRace is an accessory for an indoor rowing machine.  It is attached to the main bar of an indoor rowing machine under where your knees would be.  By replicating the kind of set up that an on-water rowing boat has, it keeps your legs from fully extending, thus helping maintain good posture which significantly reduces the risk of back injury, as well as setting up a more powerful body position, which can translate to an improvement in performance.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
The Rowergo BRace attached to the monorail of all Concept 2 rowing machines.  If is fully adjustable and is positioned under the rower's calf muscle to maintain a slight knee bend.  It is this need knee bend that allows the rower to physically maintain the correct posture for most efficient rowing.

21 Stages, 140 Characters

Twitter, the micro-blog that is a rapidly growing sensation.  As we've mentioned before, the athlete ecosystem is now beginning to leverage the power of this media channel.  We've all heard about Shaq and Dwight Howard commenting during basketball games, but what about cycling?  How cool would it be received regular updates from Lance Armstrong and crew regarding their daily races?

As of this post, Armstrong has almost 920,000 followers.  Just by way of comparison, the NY Times’ daily print circulation is 1,039,031. That’s pretty significant, even considering that the Times’ web site gets about 20 million unique users per month. Armstrong started Twittering earlier this year, which means in just five or so months he’s built a media platform that’s already one twentieth the size of one of the largest and most respected newspapers in the world.

His followers can sign up to get his tweets forwarded to their e-mail or phones; they can send him comments, which he can see and respond to. He can post pictures or links to interesting stories or, the budget videos he is now increasingly doing.

Twitter is becoming a game changer and Armstrong knows this - he knows that Twitter allows him an opportunity that did not exist when he raced the last time around. He can talk directly to his fans, without any media interference or filter, and reach - seemingly - as many people as he could by granting that five-minute interview with a journalist.

We have now arrived at a point where athletes, coaches, scouts, create their own media channel  that is limited in size only insofar as his hosting servers can handle the demands. To tweak the old Warhol quote, in the future, fame will be infinitely scaleable.

RealRyder - Now This Is The Way to Spin!

The 1980's introduced us to the stationary bike - big, one dimensional and boring.  Next came the indoor cycling bike.  Designed to mimic a real outdoor bike, it was certainly an improvement with seat, pedals and adjustable cockpit, all designed to replicate a real road bike.  But it was still a stationary road bike.  After 20 years, the primary improvements have been with adjustability and durability.

It looks like bike technology is taking a giant step forward with RealRyder.  The RealRyder AFB8 has a unique, articulating frame that allows it to steer, lean, and feel like an actual road bike.  It's not just the pedaling, but the steering, leaning, balancing, and the mental involvement.

The result is a workout for the whole body - not simply legs and cardio, but also upper body, core muscle groups and balance.

 

120

Noise level, in decibels, recorded at Edmonton's Rexall Place stadium during Game 3 of the Stanley Cup final between the Oilers and Carolina Hurricanes in 2006; the noise was roughly the equivalent of a jet at takeoff.

Indy 500 - Did You Know?

5,000 - that is the amount of downforce, in pounds, an Indy race car generates at 220 mph, enough to allow the car to run upside down.

Source:  Indy Racing League

Under Armour Body Suit Helps With Aches

"No Pain, No Gain".  We've all lived by those words while in training or during a game.  Now Under Armour has come up with a way to have the Gain, but make the Pain go away a little faster.

With a new two piece body suit, Under Armour is creating a whole new category in high performance wear, Recovery Wear.  The company says the new product will help athletes and exercise enthusiasts recover more quickly from the aches and pains caused by tiny tears in the muscles that follow a strenuous workout.

The fitted, long-sleeved suit, which covers the body from chest to foot, is to be worn for 24 hours after a workout and pushes excess water from the muscles and into the bloodstream to reduce swelling and help the micro tears heal more quickly. It comes in gray with black patches along key areas of the body, including the calves and shoulders, and has Under Armour's heat gear technology, so it will keep you cool even if you wear it under clothes.

Under Armour used research by the University of Connecticut along with its own research to develop the suit, which goes on sale in July. The top will cost $89.99 and the bottom $99.99 The suit works by using compression to target certain muscles to reduce swelling and decrease soreness time. Much like a cast holds together a broken arm; it also aligns and stabilizes muscles for faster repair.

Kudos to Under Armour for continuing to push the envelope with new products benefiting athletes at all levels.

From Plastics To Soccer?

"One word, plastics" - from the movie "The Graduate" 

Interesting concept, Acerbis, a world leader in plastics manufacturing, is venturing into sports, in particular soccer. Their website is still in its infancy but we will be keeping track of their progress.  Their tagline is: 

"Since 35 years, Acerbis is developing, testing, producing plastics and technical gear for the motorcycle world. With the same passion, Acerbis enter now into the Football world. With many experience, Acerbis wants to develop new and high technical products, to fill in the dreams and enquiries from great champions".

GET THE ATHLETE LOOK......

Wimbledon's Centre Court Roof

The Wimbledon Tennis Championship will have a very different look this year.  The Centre Court, where all the finals are played, now has a retractable roof, which was tested for the first time this past weekend at an exhibition event.  Here are a few interesting factoids:

• The roof is made of a lightweight, flexible fabric called Tenara that can fold up on huge trusses.
• It takes 10 minutes for the roof to close.
• The roof is 16 meters above the court surface, so only the highest lobs are in danger of hitting it.
• The air management system removes condensation from within the bowl and stops the grass sweating. Play can resume 30 minutes after the roof is closed.
• The fabric is 40 percent translucent but the roof will feature 120 lights so that play can continue after dark.
• The new-look Center Court has 15,000 seats, an increase of 1,200, all wider than the previous ones, and padded.
• Matches interrupted by bad light late in the day will be able to finish once the roof is closed and the lights switched on, meaning night tennis at Wimbledon is likely this year.

Faster Racing Suits May Soon Be Banned From Competition

Swimming has traditionally been a sport where equipment has been secondary to individual talent and determination.  With the swimsuits introduced last year, the equipment became primary, enabling athletes of lesser ability to compete on equal terms with the best-conditioned, hardest-working athletes in the sport.

In response, officials from FINA, the sport’s international governing body, convened yesterday in Lausanne, Switzerland, to decide which suits will be legal for the rest of the year, a period that includes, most notably, the world championships in July in Rome. But to protect itself from legal action by swimsuit manufacturers, FINA will almost certainly not ban any suits currently on the market before Jan. 1, 2010.

In February, FINA hired an independent team, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and its Laboratory of Polymer and Composite Technology in Lausanne, to test more than 1,000 models of swimsuits for thickness and buoyancy, the first step toward establishing standards that were lacking in those areas.

Standards are essential because the newest high-tech suits are affecting more than the record books. The tighter, more buoyant models make a muscled and stocky body as streamlined as a long and lean one. With the body riding high on the water like a racing hull, it changes a swimmer’s relationship with the water, influencing everything from how vigorously the swimmer has to kick to the rhythm of the stroke.

FINA has considerable support to turn back the clock, to the pre-LZR Racer era, when suits were made of materials that were more permeable.  It probably would not be good for more records to fall in Rome in suits soon to be illegal. And it does put FINA in a bit of a fix. Not unlike, the swimmers in the high-tech suits, it too, is struggling to wriggle out of a tight bind.