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Wonder why Dwight Howard is wearing that skin-tight black shirt under his jersey for Lakers games?
It’s no ordinary shirt.
It’s a new technologically advanced posture improvement device called the “Posture Shirt.” Created by a company called AlignMed, the Posture Shirt molds itself to an athlete’s torso and hips to construct neuromuscular stimulation which will ultimately create muscle memory. With the combination of compression, specific angles, and torque, the Posture Shirt trains muscles to remain in the proper position over time.
The Executive Vice President of AlignMed, James Daily, explains exactly how the Posture Shirt works:
“The Posture Shirt is a posture improvement device that is specifically adapted to provide neuromuscular stimulation using a combination of pressure, torque and angle, simultaneously applied to the user in order to train body muscles for proper posture through muscle memory.” Through eight years of research, the company calls this combination of pressure, torque and neuromuscular stimulation, “Touch Tension Technology.”
The device is a garment designed to be worn by a user, which is adapted to envelop at least a portion of the wearer’s torso, crest of the hips, and at a portion of their upper arms. Posture Shirt is meant to fit and feel like a short-sleeved undershirt or T-shirt. The ‘Touch’ provides a neurological biofeedback mechanism using anatomically placed elastomeric fabric panels mounted within each garment.
These patented modular panels are adjustable and trademarked by AlignMed as NeuroBands. Biofeedback is created by the varying tensions of the panel used to produce conscious and unconscious stimulation to support desired physiologic muscle and joint changes over time.
The ‘Tension’ refers to the specificity of the elastic properties of NeuroBands, and directional pull placed upon them. The tension of the neurobands applies a consistent, tactile touch to skin, and its effect on the underlying fascia, muscle tissue and sensory pathways mirrors that of muscle contractions and the unconscious reflex action. Neuro-Band elasticity provides actionable support to bolster the neuromechanics of movement.
AlignMed is not a compression garment that simply squeezes anatomy–the anatomic placement of NeuroBands within Posture Shirt recognizes and adapts to the constant physical changes that occur within external and internal environments.”
The Posture Shirt was recently approved by the NBA as a medical device. This allowed Los Angeles Lakers’ Center, Dwight Howard to wear the posture-improving garment during games. Howard wears the Posture Shirt because last off-season he had back surgery to repair a herniated disk and during this season he tore the labrum in his right shoulder.
“It’s doing a pretty good job of keeping everything straight as far as my back and my shoulder – making sure everything is aligned,” Howard told reporters at a recent Lakers’ practice in El Segundo, California.
According to Howard, “A lot of people think that it’s just a regular polo tee, but it’s not. It’s a shirt that was made strictly for posture to make sure the scapula and everything stays like that.”
It is important to note that Howard wears the Posture Shirt because he feels it works and adds stability while he plays. As James Daily points out, “we have not paid Dwight Howard or any of the number of other professional sports athletes including the pitchers of the SF Giants, Royals, Astros to wear our product. Rather, athletic trainers demand the product for the athletes that they try to keep healthy, owners demand the product to protect their investment in their players and players demand the product to keep them healthy and in the game another season.”
The Posture Shirt has to be exciting for athletes like Howard, who are coming off a major surgery, to give them a better chance to stay healthy and keep their body in proper alignment. With Howard set to test the free agent market this off-season, it is safe to assume he wouldn’t be using a product that he didn’t feel was maximizing his ability to stay healthy and potentially help to make him some big bucks in the offseason.
Now all Dwight needs is some sort of miracle shirt that will teach him the proper muscle memory in order to increase his free-throw percentage higher than that of a coin flip.
