We told you about the imminent arrival of
Accapi's
Nexus Energy Source fabric a few weeks ago and
yesterday, we popped up to the Lakes for a press launch of the
baselayer fabric that's claimed to actively improve athletic
performance, recovery and hydration.
The Nexus fabric incorporates platinum, aluminium and titanium and is
claimed to generate infra red radiation at a wavelength of between 4
and 14 microns. The result of this, says Accapi UK, is an extended
list of hard to believe metabolic effects on your body based on the
assertion that it improves blood flow by affecting water at a molecular
level.
Claims
The list of alleged benefits is extensive and somewhat hard to believe.
By simply wearing clothing made from Nexus, Accapi says recovery time
from exercise is approximately halved, that using braces made
from the material dramatically speeds up soft tissue injury repair,
that it even increases muscular power and core stability.
Any colour as long as
it's black or white - clothing comes in Pro versions
for active use and looser recovery stuff. Pjamas coming soon...
Using a water bottle cover made from the material - a 'Photonizer' - is
claimed to change the structure of the water inside and accelerate its
absorption by the body.
Evidence?
Most of the evidence produced by Accapi is anecdotal. In
particular, top Italian mountaineer Simone Moro slept under a
Nexus sheet for a month and claims that it reduces his night time
resting heart rate by five beats per minute. He also says it halves his
recovery time and improves his performance at high altitude
significantly.
Tennis player Rafa Nadal also, apparently, uses it to improve his
recovery as does F1 driver, Fernando Alonso.
Interestingly, three-time British Bouldering Champion, Andy Earl from
Climb Newcastle was at the launch and made some quite dramatic claims
after using Accapi clothing for a week. Generally he said, it reduced
specific injury pain and boosted his recovery. He also says that one of
his Climb Newcastle partners found he could execute and one-armed
pull-up wearing a Nexus top, but not without it.
What there doesn't seem to be is much sports-specific objective testing
bar a study of just six cyclist which suggests a power increase at VO2
Max levels.
Wine Into Water
As a means of demonstrating that the fabric does actually
do something, Accapi poured us two identical glasses of red wine from
the same bottle then covered one of them with a Photonizer bottle
cover. Some ten minutes later we were invited to compare the taste and
smell of the two.
Covered version - left - lost its
aroma after 15 minutes.
The one which had been covered had pretty much lost all its aroma and
smelled like water, there was also a slight change to the after taste
of the wine compared to the untouched version.
That's kind of odd. And quite dramatic because on the face of it, that
seems quite unlikely and does make us wonder if the fabric does
genuinely affect liquids.
What Next?
We really want to see some more objective research backing
up Accapi's claims - apparently British Cycling is looking at the
fabric, which should be interesting as they're known for a rigorous
approach to performance improvement.
On top of that, Accapi is sending us some of their - very expensive -
clothing for review and one of their Bodyguard elbow braces to fit
troublesome OM editorial elbows that have been trashed dragging a
mountain bike bag through Toulouse - our plan is to use the Bodyguard
on one side and not the other and see if we can detect any difference
in recovery.
Psychologically it's interesting stuff. Journalists are natural
skeptics, but athletes and sports people will jump at anything that
promises improved performance or, in this case, improved healing. At
least one crocked climbing writer was clamouring to get a brace on his
knee as soon as possible and, we have to admit, that we're fascinated
simp[y because it all seems so unlikely. It's human nature to like
miracles...
That said, a lot of injury rehab treatments are basically about
improving circulation of blood to a damaged area, so if Nexus really
can achieve that, then it may well have real benefits.
We'll go into details then, but you can now see the entire Accapi range
at
www.accapi.co.uk.
ALoveSupreme
