It is no secret that we live in technological times. Perhaps nowhere is technology being more openly embraced than the sports industry. New technologies that athletes wear to help them prepare, perform and recover have become ubiquitous in the athletic realm. This trend can be specifically classified as “active wearable technology.”
Teague Egan, Co-Founder & CEO of 1st Round Athletics, has been working with a talented team over the past three years to develop a new kind of wearable technology called EnergyDNA™, what he describes as “the gold standard of where wearable technology can go.” In the past, companies such as Nike, Under Armour and others have developed wearable technology that allows users to track different vital signs while they are moving around and playing sports, but that’s as far as the technology has gone. The user can view the pertinent information afterwards, analyzing it in order to try and improve his or her next athletic endeavor.
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1st Round Athletics, however, has a different mission in mind. Much like the AlignMed posture shirt, EnergyDNA™ works with the user’s body to improve its performance while he or she is actively playing or working out. “There are three things that affect your body: what you put in it, such as vitamins or nutrients, how you move it with exercise, and what you put on it, clothes. Our technology encompasses what you put on your body to give you a physiological boost. The clothes you wear should have an effect on your body,” Egan said. “The trend is already headed this way with compression garments, moisture wicking products and clothes that claim to increase circulation.”
These other fabric technologies are what caught the eye of Egan two years ago when he started to develop his own technology along with Chief Science Officer Trenton Horinek. EnergyDNA™ will be the first-ever graphene bi-component fiber.
“Graphene changes the entire game of fibers and fabrics in the best possible way,” Horinek said. “I’ve been working in this space for over six years, and I’ve never seen something as powerful, with as much potential, as this graphene bi-component fiber. To say I was excited when Teague approached me with the idea would be an understatement.” 
In the graphic, please see nano renderings of graphene bi-compoent fibers.
Egan actually stumbled upon the use of graphene when he was working for a former company that was using silver in their wearable technology. Silver is an important element of wearable tech that Lululemon uses because it literally eliminates bacteria and prevents odors that are produced while sweating. Egan was reading about the use of graphene on a much larger scale, such as powering airplanes with batteries that would severely decrease the weight of the plane or phones that one could physically bend without fear of breaking. He realized the impracticality of this, but also saw a direction that intrigued him enough to take his own path with the element.
EnergyDNA’s™ properties of increased endurance, limited fatigue and reduced recovery time are possible because graphene is the most thermally-conductive material in the world. Discovered in 2004, graphene is also the first-ever two-dimensional material. Thermal Conductivity is calculated by W·m−1·K−1 (Watts, times meters to the negative first degree, times Kelvin to the negative first degree).
According to Wikipedia’s list of thermally conductive materials, graphene is as much as (5300 ± 480 W·m−1·K−1 ) compared to copper at (360 ± 10 W·m−1·K−1 ). That means graphene is approximately thirteen times (13x) more thermally-conductive than copper, which is known as a staple in our society for transferring energy and electrical current. Graphene’s high thermal conductivity threshold has allowed 1st Round Athletics to think ahead, beyond just textiles.
In the Exhibit, please see Graphene’s thermal conductivity vs. Coppers thermal conductivity, per Wikipedia.
If an athlete can increase circulation in his or her body, allowing their body to move oxygen with greater efficiency, getting tired is almost a thing of the past. Oxygen also acts as a blood cleaner, which means more oxygenated blood will help to move lactic acid out of the blood and muscles at a much quicker rate. “This discovery is enough of an improvement to truly disrupt our entire industry. Graphene fibers could change the way we think of clothes all together,” Egan said.
In addition to being the most thermally conductive material in the world, graphene is also the thinnest, lightest and strongest material ever obtained because of its two-dimensional form. According to CNN, it’s up to 200 times stronger than steel, and harder than diamond. It’s so light that if you had a sheet of graphene the size of a football field, you could hold it in between your thumb and finger without bending or breaking it. The weight-to-strength ratio allows for a segment of clothing that feels as light as a feather yet is more durable than Kevlar.
Egan also identified these properties of graphene as one of the biggest hurdles in using the element. Graphene is only about one atom thick, and because it only comes in a thin sheet of material, it is very hard to extract, mix properly and then pull out of the mixture to put into the technology without losing some of its efficiency.
The EnergyDNA™ fiber, a patent of Egan’s, is the catalyst for a chemical reaction that increases circulation in your capillaries and eventually increases the flow of oxygen to your muscle tissue because of graphene’s thermal conductivity and the way that interaction plays out on a physiological level.
“We knew we were on to something big when we did the research and realized this had never been done before,” Egan said. “We immediately filed for our provisional patents, which were approved last year. Now outside companies are already showing interest in our technology.“
For Egan and Horinek, they think this clothing of the future could bring numerous positive effects to an athlete’s body including increased performance and improved blood flow, the holy grail of improved sports performance. “The sports world is going to change. It’s going to be bigger and better, with more participants, and a healthier overall lifestyle, just because of the power of graphene,” Horinek states.
EnergyDNA™ is the premier technology that Egan and 1st Round Athletics are working on now. The company previously manufactured apparel for men and women including a SmartShield Compression line for men, as well as a Lifted Seamless line for both genders. However, Egan and his team had some difficulties early on when pushing the company in this direction.
“The idea was to become the next Nike and be the next big apparel producer, and the way that we were going to distinguish ourselves was through this innovative technology. However, that proved to be a lot more costly than I thought,” Egan said. “All of the costs associated with having inventory, overhead, and marketing, along with our current position in trying to get the technology to actually work just made us decide this wasn’t the right path for us to go down with EnergyDNA™.”
Recently, the company decided to change its direction to just focus on the underlying technology of EnergyDNA™. The new position Egan put his company in is essentially a win-win for both 1st Round Athletics and other athletic apparel companies. Egan doesn’t have to fully develop his own company to compete with these other national brands, but instead can work with them through licensing arrangements, or sell EnergyDNA™. In the end, both companies will benefit more from the collaboration than the potential competition.
Beyond EnergyDNA™, 1st Round Athletics has been developing several shoe technologies, mainly ones called Ellipse™ and Pillar™. Ellipse™ technology is the first-ever full suspension shoe that Egan hopes will assist in breaking the barrier of the two-hour marathon. Currently, the world record is two hours, two minutes, and 57 seconds.
The shoe consists of two graphene, carbon fiber, ellipse-shaped cylinders, one in the forefoot, and one in the heel. When the runner is in full stride, the heel-to-toe strike returns a significant amount of oxygen to the user through this technology, allowing them to use less oxygen when running the same distance. This replenishing phenomenon gives the runner the ability to run longer because he or she won’t be losing as much oxygen since it is being brought back into the body.
“Here we are using graphene in a totally different manner. With its superior lightweight, and immense strength, the suspension element of this shoe allows a runner to complete the same amount of work by using less oxygen and energy,” Egan said. “A hinge in the forefoot where the front ellipse meets the foam midsole allows the foot to flex naturally during strides. This sensation makes it feel like you are always running downhill.”
Pillar™ technology is more of an addition to a shoe, versus Ellipse™, which is a whole new type of shoe. The technology is designed to be the best stabilizer and impact protection that any runner or cross trainer could have.
“There are small pillars on the side of the shoe in the back, similar to where the original air bubble went. Pillar™ is not as effective as Ellipse™, simply because Ellipse™ is a revolutionary technology that is meant to disrupt the industry,” Egan said. “Pillar™ is still effective, but is more of just another new piece of technology. It’s visually stimulating and different, but it’s more of a design innovation. It does have functionality aspects, but they are not as game changing as Ellipse is.”
Egan’s goal for 1st Round Athletics is to see millions of people around the world improve their lives by wearing EnergyDNA™. In the early stages, he already has a few major sporting brands very interested in acquiring his company’s products.
If 1st Round Athletics can bring either of these technologies to fruition, its market share looks to skyrocket, and set up nicely for acquisition. Major brands these days are developing on a more traditional scale, but are always looking to innovate by striking deals in licensing or even acquiring technology from smaller companies like 1st Round Athletics. “This can be the next big thing to grow a brand. With EnergyDNA™, any brand who uses our technology will gain a superior edge over its competitors,” Egan said.