Recovery Cuffs Fit for Olympians

In July 2021 we proudly supplied UK Athletics with a rush order of our Recovery Cuffs.

We were asked to express-deliver enough so that every member of the Team GB track athletics team had access to a pair. Our instructions were to send them to the GB Athletics Performance Centre at Loughborough so that they could be packed for their flight to Tokyo.

You can imagine how excited, and proud, we felt. It had only been 6 months since our website was launched and our Calf Cuffs would be worn by some of the very best athletes in the world at the Olympic Games. Unbelievable!

This blog shares how it happened. How an innovative product from an unknown company won the trust of the Team GB athletes, coaches, physios, and performance professionals and how we came to be track-side at the greatest show on earth.

From a Charity Run to an Altitude Training Camp

Our route to Tokyo can be plotted from a charity run on Merseyside. But this was no ordinary charity run…

In November 2020 we supported ultra-runner, Gareth Kilshaw, as he ran 127 miles in a single effort to raise money for the RNLI. We met Gareth when he was a race director with GB Ultras. He was one of 200 athletes, from across endurances sports, who generously gave feedback as we iterated from a sketch to an award-winning product.

From the very start, Gareth was a gem. His feedback was always comprehensive and thoughtful. He’d looked at every aspect and he loved talking about all things running.  

Gareth introduced us to a physio who looked after a lot of endurance athletes. Colin marvelled at the simple, yet innovative, details within our product and in turn introduced us to Andy Thomas from Physiquipe.

Both Andy and Physiquipe, the company he has built, are innovative and forward looking. They are connected to some of the best medical facilities in the world and Andy brings this expertise to many the leading sports organisations across the UK. You would struggle to meet many people as passionate about what they do.

Andy knew immediately who he wanted to introduce the Recovery Cuffs to. Forty-eight hours later we were on a Zoom call to Flagstaff, in Arizona, where the Team GB middle and long distance athletes were gathered at an altitude training camp.

We were talking to another Andy, Andy Walling, the lead endurance physio with GB Athletics. He was there working with the coaches and athletes as they prepared for the Tokyo games. We found Andy to be deeply knowledgeable, passionate about the athletes in his care, and determined to aid their performance. He was open, innovative, and completely tuned into the demands and the environment of a major track championship – what would and wouldn’t work.

When Andy returned to the UK two pairs of Cuffs (and an Ice Ball) were waiting for him. He was impressed – we later discovered that a key focus of the Team GB performance staff had been the recovery between rounds at major championships, where the schedule of racing demands a lot of the athletes.

Effective and efficient recovery practices would be important in Tokyo. The heat and humidity were going to make athlete care crucial and the COVID restrictions would likely place restrictions on the availability and practices of the physio teams.

The cuffs went into the GB Athletics HQ. They were assessed by the Lead Physiologist, inspected by the Head of Innovation, and scrutinised by the rest of the physios. The feedback was encouraging; they were well designed, robust, compact, they could be deployed trackside, they could be self-administered. On balance, they could be colder for a little longer, but the icing was intense, the gel shaped nicely to the calf muscle and the compression felt good and tight.

Athlete Testing

A very talented 800m & 1500m athlete gave them a go after every tough session for a week. He liked them too. “The recovery sleeves were great. The icing was intense but not uncomfortable and my legs felt fresh. They felt good, I definitely had less soreness afterwards.”

Another test came when the recovery cuffs were flown to the south of France for the leading GB multi-event athlete to try out.  She is one of the very best in the world and was coming back from a well-publicised injury and major surgery. She would use the cuffs warm and cold. Warm to help prepare the muscles ahead of training and cold for recovery. She loved them too: “It is the first time I’ve jumped just thinking about my technique rather than my injury”. She also shared, “My legs feel great and recovered even after a tough session”.

With each piece of positive feedback, we pinched ourselves. It looked promising. Could our cuffs go to the Olympics? We kept our emotions under wraps. We imagined that this is how an Olympic hopeful would feel – will all the effort, improvements, attention to every detail, the hours and hours of emotional and physical investment be rewarded with a seat on the plane?

The Long Wait

Then came silence. For weeks, which felt like months, we heard nothing further. We were encouraged athletes using the cuffs were messaging us on Instagram. They seemed to be accruing benefits during training and some made the Olympic squad at national trials in Manchester. But nothing came from the top.

We had made our peace with the fact that this wouldn’t be our Olympics. Paris was always the more realistic goal. Tokyo had come too soon. After all, it has been less than 9 months since we launched the calf cuffs.

Then the call came… Our Recovery Cuffs had made the Olympic Standard. We could not have been prouder.

It was now time to sit back and enjoy the athlete performances…

And then to focus on helping these athletes go-again in Paris 2024.

#DontEverStop