The O+A Neuromuscular Performance System is exactly that: a system.  Rather than a series of individual features working separately in an attempt to benefit human movement, each aspect of our technology works together.  Every element is enhanced and optimised by the others.  Ultimately combining to serve as a support system for conscious athletic performance.

Only by diving into some of the science behind human movement can we fully conceptualise and understand the full system, and the benefits it could provide for you.

UNDERSTANDING HOW HUMANS CONTROL MOVEMENT

Human movement is initiated from the motor cortex of the brain, which generates movement-specific signals, and transmits them through the spinal cord and motor neurons to the muscles.  These muscles then contract, and the body moves.  Every movement the body makes requires communication between the brain and the muscles.  This is generally initiated by visual input and internal action representations, or models of how a particular movement should happen.  In motor control, this is known as feedforward control.

But feedforward control isn’t the only mechanism in play.  The body also relies heavily on feedback control, allowing the motor system to react to sensory input and effectively adapt movement according to changes in the environment or deviations from the planned motion.  

During movement, receptors located in the muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints, and skin send signals back to the nervous system, providing real time information about the body’s position, movement, and forces being applied.  This sixth sense through which we perceive our body’s position and movement in space is known as proprioception, and efficient proprioceptive feedback is critical to generating precise and powerful movement.

When we exercise, particularly in high-impact activities involving repeated contact with the ground, our muscles experience vibration or oscillation.  The more impactful the exercise, the greater the vibration. Repeated or long-term exposure to these vibrations can have detrimental effects [1] including muscle damage, pain, loss of function, and impaired motor unit recruitment. 

In order to minimise these detrimental effects, muscles exhibit a level of tuning in response to impact forces.  Essentially the activation in that muscle increases [2] to dampen soft tissue vibration, thus increasing the energy cost of movement and decreasing movement economy.

By combining performance grade muscle-mapped compression with anatomically positioned skeleton sections, Reflex garments work to attenuate soft tissue movement and decrease muscle vibration during dynamic activity.  Through this simple mechanism, Reflex garments minimise the detrimental effects of vibration on muscle fatigue and damage and work to properly align the muscle for linear action.  Also decreasing the reliance on muscle tuning, supporting enhanced muscle function and improved movement economy.  Ultimately meaning you can train more efficiently, smashing each session while experiencing less fatigue and soreness.

[1] Bongiovanni, L, Hagbarth, K, & Stjernberg, L. (1990). Prolonged muscle vibration reducing motor output in maximal voluntary contractions in man. The Journal of Physiology, 423(1), 15–26.

[2] Wakeling, J, Nigg, B, & Rozitis, A. (2002). Muscle activity damps the soft tissue resonance that occurs in response to pulsed and continuous vibrations. Journal of Applied Physiology, 93(3), 1093–1103.