Many of you probably know the feeling you get when you only have 30 minutes to squeeze in a run between work and a dinner meeting, but you’ve drank enough coffee to keep going for miles. RXACTIVE has a solution.
The company launched an Indiegogo campaign yesterday for its activewear with built-in resistance, and far surpassed its funding goal of $30,000 within the first day.
Founders Frank Yao, an NYU med student, and Keeth Smart, a former Olympic fencer, initially designed RXACTIVE as a tool to help patients with unhealthy living habits reach a minimum baseline of fitness so that they could start exercising regularly.
They soon realized that a massive group of fitness freaks in the U.S. would be a far better target market. The two have since been working with a team of doctors at NYU, as well as former NBA Commissioner David Stern (one of their advisers), to turn the technology they developed into a product that athletes want to wear.
“Our clothing is specially designed with elastic panels that are placed to counteract target muscle groups,” says Yao. “We’ve positioned elastic panels opposite those muscles, so that more effort has to be generated to make the same movements.”
Essentially, it’s like having built-in resistance bands in your leggings. Like a high-tech take on ankle weights.
We’ve seen this before with Sketchers Shape-Ups and Reebok EasyTone shoes, which became somewhat of a fad back in 2010 before they tanked, resulting in lawsuits and mass refunds.
“Not only did these products not work, but research came out showing that they were harmful,” says Yao. “They messed with tendons and joints at the foot, and as a result people stopped using them.”
To avoid this, RXACTIVE has tested their clothing extensively to make sure it won’t cause injury. When running with REACTIVE products, athletes demonstrated a 23 percent increase, on average, in hamstring and quadriceps activation. They also increased their heart rate by 8 percent on average, and burned 14 percent more calories.
“We use resistance bands in the rehabilitation hospital constantly, we tie them to different things, they’re all over the floor so much that it almost becomes a tripping hazard,” says Dr. JR Rizzo, an instructor at the NYU School of Medicine and adviser to RXACTIVE. “Being able to integrate them into a wearable form factor is fantastic, and will really revolutionize high performance training.”
RXACTIVE says the first products will ship to Indiegogo backers before Thanksgiving, and they plan to sell their compression shorts and leggings starting around $120 per pair after the campaign finishes.