Will the Bionic Band help break records in Berlin?
The Bionic Band is set to be all the rage at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. spikesmag.com discovers what makes these tiny black bands so special…
Look closely at athletes’ wrists and ankles inside
Berlin’s Olympic Stadium over the next few weeks and the eagle-eyed among you may notice a black band, or two.
It’s no simple fashion fad. It's the latest innovation from a leading kit company. Athletes believe these bands give them the edge on their opposition. How? By enhancing their balance, apparently.
So what exactly causes this alleged improvement in balance?
Believe it or not, it's all down to the hard work of a 25mm surgical steel strip that rubs against athletes’ skin.
Cynics may scoff but the likes of world No.1 long jumper Dwight Phillips, world 400m hurdles champion Kerron Clement and 200m sprinter Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie are all converts and dozens more are jumping on board, too.
The
Bionic Band is made with the help of ‘Proton Alignment Resonance Technology’ in which a piece of surgical steel is put through a machine that aligns protons to spin in the same direction. This is significant because every day the body is bombarded with thousands of frequencies from mobile phones, lap-tops and TV stations. These frequencies cause protons in the body to vibrate, becoming weaker and unbalanced.
This is where the Bionic Band comes into play – when rubbed against the skin it acts as a single frequency that overrides other frequencies and allows the protons to work in unison and help athletes hold their balance.
One of the most respected men in the world of track and field -- leading physiotherapist Andy Miller -- is the man chiefly linked with introducing the bands into the athletics community. He admits he was a skeptic (when he first discovered the bands at the Phoenix Home and Garden Show in May) but he quickly became a believer.
“When I first saw it I thought it was a piece of crap, so I decided I was going to mess with the demonstrators and prove them wrong,” explains Miller mischievously.
However, product demonstrators carried out a very simple balance test and revealed that when people didn’t wear the band their balance was weak and unstable. With the band on, however, it was a completely different story.
“My wife is 135lbs and it took a lot of effort for me to knock her over when she had the band on,” says Miller.
“My first thought was hurdlers and how they have problems with balance as they go over the hurdles,” says Miller. “Then I thought about throwers and jumpers and how they could benefit, too.
“Sprinters often lose their balance, aswell. Some run from side to side in the lane. Rae Edwards (US World Championships 100m sprinter) is notorious for running from the left side of the lane to the right, meaning he actually runs 102m instead of 100m.”
Miller says his first tangible evidence of the band’s track and field benefits came when Edwards used it for the first time at the Prefontaine Classic in June. “He ran straight down the middle of the track."
There are other pluses, too. Those who wear the Bionic Band feel more energetic, alert and lively as the protons are holding more energy because they are not fighting each other. Athletes also enjoy better quality sleep – a claim supported by Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie, the former world 200m champion, who is enjoying her best season in years.
“All I can say is that before I started wearing the band I was not sleeping so well and now I’ve been sleeping so much better,” says the 33-year-old Bahamian.
She also insists that the
Bionic Band does wonders for her starts.
“My blocks starts are getting better,” she says. “I haven’t ran this well in a long time. I’m sure it’s down to my coach (Lance Brauman) but I'm also sure the band is responsible for this, too.”
So who knows -- if these legal performance enhancers are as good as athletes say they are -- perhaps we’ll see a world record or two broken over the next couple of weeks in Berlin? We hope so.
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Backstage in Berlin part one: the media manager, Stefan Thies
Backstage in Berlin part two: the CEO, Heinrich Clausen
Backstage in Berlin part three: the security manager, Gerfried Lindner