LOS ANGELES, March 6, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- In February the National Basketball Association (NBA) approved the AlignMed® Posture Shirt® as a medical device allowing the Los Angeles Laker's Center, Dwight Howard to play in the Posture Shirt® during his recovery period. The device has played a part in Howard healing from a torn labrum in his shoulder and back surgery 10 months ago.

The AlignMed® Posture Shirt® is doing "a pretty good job of keeping everything straight as far as my back and my shoulder – making sure everything is aligned," Howard said at the Laker's practice facility after a morning shootaround. "A lot of people think that it's just a regular polo tee, but it's not," says Howard. "It's a shirt that was made strictly for posture to make sure the scapula and everything stays like that."

Laker's trainer, Gary Vitti, in his 29th season has seen a multitude of sports injuries. Vitti monitors the health of each team member throughout the season using state-of-the-art methods in conditioning, dieting, stretching and testing. Early in the season Vitti placed the AlignMed Posture Shirt® on team members.

Two recent studies conducted on the Posture Shirt® provide clinical evidence of its effectiveness.  Mr. Vitti placed the AlignMed Posture Shirt on team members as it is the state-of-the-art in alignment, balance, and stamina. The two recent studies provide clinical evidence of the effectiveness of the products. But it did not take Mr. Vitti more than to try it on to realize how and why the Posture Shirt works.

AlignMed's Posture Shirt® which is worn by professional and amateur athletes in every major sport corrects posture, increase electromyographic (EMG) activity of trapezius muscles and, according to researchers at Duke University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC) in combination with two other universities, should be recommended for over-head athletes and for pre-rehabilitation and rehabilitation exercises in athletes with poor posture.

The Posture Shirt®, manufactured in the United States by AlignMed Inc. of Santa Ana Calif., and sold only online atwww.alignmed.com, is the result of 8 years of design work, as well as lab and field testing. Worn on the skin underneath the uniform, the Posture Shirt's patented, complex interlacing of high-technology fibers, called Neuro-Bands™, work seamlessly with the athlete's body to optimize posture and movement in any position for comfortable posture enhancement. The shirt also augments the body's natural neurological feedback system, accelerating the time span between thought and physical movement and thereby maximizing both response time and hand-eye coordination.

The study, published in the Journal of Athletic Training, was prompted because shoulder injuries are a common and disabling condition among athletes, particularly overhead athletes (basketball, baseball, softball, swimming, volleyball, track and field throwing events, and tennis). Recent National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) injury surveillance system research has shown that shoulder injuries account for 39.4% of all injuries in baseball, 15.8% of injuries in softball, and 21.7% of injuries in volleyball. Most of these injuries are classified as overuse injuries of muscles, tendons, and other tissues within the joint.

The study has global implications for injury prevention and reduction of medical costs as its simple understandable use – simply to put it on – immediately corrects posture. Over 65 percent of upper body injuries, athletic and lifestyle related, come from repetitive overuse and poor posture. Musculoskeletal disorders account for nearly 70 million physician office visits in the United States annually and an estimated 130 million total health care encounters including outpatient, hospital, and emergency room visits and are the leading cause of disability in the United States and account for more than one-half of all chronic conditions in people over 50 years of age in developed countries.

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