A big congratulation goes out to our partner, Serena Williams, for making Time’s 100 Most Influential People list! What made this recognition a little extra special for all of us here is that fellow Mission partner, Dwyane Wade was given the opportunity to share with Time’s readers his friendship with Serena, and his admiration of her work ethic and determination.
Pretty amazing to see our two partners together in print, and especially with Dwyane’s gracious words.
Training, running, competing in hot environments can be grueling. Your body temperature runs higher, you sweat more, you work harder to perform.
The skin is the body’s natural radiator. Sweating and vascular dilation - having your blood vessels carry blood closer to the skin - helps your body maintain the proper temperature. On average, your body stays within a range of 96.4 and 99.1 degrees, but exercise makes this more difficult, with variations up to 103 degrees for especially hard workouts. And as temperatures continue to rise, the demands on the body challenge the efficiency of your natural radiator; leading to decreased performance.
Emerging science shows that cooling key areas of the skin (namely the neck, wrists, elbows and temples, also known as “pulse points”) can help stimulate thermoregulation signals to the brain, delaying fatigue, and making you feel less discomfort from those grueling hot temperatures. Now, who wouldn’t want to feel less discomfort from the heat, especially if it helps you feel like you could go harder, and longer in your workout?
Here are some helpful insights into how pulse point cooling works, and some gear recommends that can help you harness pulse point cooling to maximize your training.
How Pulse Point Cooling Works:
Ever wonder what is exactly happening when you get that "flushed" look as you overheat? Well, here is how it breaks down. As your temperature rises, the body opens up the capillaries near the skin. Your natural cooling system circulates blood to move heat from inside of your body to the surface of your skin. Your sweat then helps cool you, by releasing some of that heat as sweat evaporates. The blood near the surface of the skin then recirculates through the body and absorbs more heat to be released. The process continues...
So, how can cooling pulse points help? Simply, it helps your body continue that natural process more efficiently. Cooling your pulse points (those points where you blood travels closest to the surface of the skin) with water, cool fabric or towels provides a greater heat differential to allow for a greater amount of heat to be lost through evaporation of sweat.
In other words, if the goal is to help your body be a more efficient radiator, concentrate this effect on the parts of the body where the most good can be done... the neck, the temples, your wrists... where the most blood travels closest to the surface.
In one study by the National Athletic Trainers' Association, using pulse point cooling on the neck during exercise helped athletes to lower heat strain, exercise five minutes longer, tolerate higher temperatures internally and increase performance by six percent. In a separate study from Stanford University, athletes who practiced the same pulse point cooling technique were able to delay fatigue, train harder, gain muscle more rapidly and most importantly, train longer than competitors.
It is evident that overheating is not something to be taken lightly. And there is no replacement for hydration and prevention (see TIPS TO PREVENT OVERHEATING in our previous post) But as athletes continue to look for the extra edge, understanding the science behind pulse point cooling can inform training regimens and gear considerations.
Enduracool Instant Cooling Gear:
Building on the science of pulse point cooling, MISSION has launched a new collection of Instant Cooling Gear to target pulse points and help you feel cooler.
MISSION’s new EnduraCool™ Instant Cooling Gear is powered by patented Coolcore™ technology, and offers innovative, intelligent and sustainable cooling solutions to athletes across all sports – from individuals to teams, casual competitors to professionals. The new EnduraCool™ Instant Cooling Gear lineup includes: Instant Cooling Hoodies, Instant Cooling Sleeves, Instant Cooling Skull Caps, Instant Cooling Helmet Liners and Instant Cooling Headwear. The line builds upon the research and thermoregulation technology that originally produced the Mission EnduraCool™ Instant Cooling Towel, and offers instant cooling benefits in lightweight and breathable textiles that also include UPF 45+ sun protection.
A simple process activates the cooling technology in all EnduraCool products. Athletes simply wet it, wring it out, and allow air to circulate into the fabric. The fabric cools to approximately 30 degrees below the average body temperature in under a minute, and the cooling effects – easily reactivated by re-wetting the fabric (with water or sweat) and re-introducing air flow – last for hours.
Feel Cool and Go Harder.
In sports, a millisecond or millimeter can be the difference between a win or a loss…
Looking to make a difference in your game this basketball season? Check this out…
Today, we released findings from an independent three month study that showed a 24% average improvement on basketball player’s lateral quickness and improved balance and stability when using Court Grip™!
The company who did the study was OptoSource™, a recognized leader in sports performance tracking, utilizing state-of-the-art LED sensors to track and measure athlete’s speed, agility and quickness to determine their efficiency of motion.
Once they reviewed their preliminary findings, OptoSource™ traveled to Wisconsin to test with Milwaukee Bucks star point guard Brandon Jennings, and to analyze the difference in his signature step back jump shot with and without Court Grip™.
From Brandon himself: “I used Court Grip all of last year, and I could feel the difference in my game, but actually seeing the data from the study, the visible improvements that Court Grip made to my form, stability and performance was really amazing.”
Check out the video that breaks down the findings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGNbKWRcAVw
Co-developed and co-created with 2-Time NBA Champion and Miami Heat All-Star Dwyane Wade, we launched Court Grip™ last season, with support from company partners Steve Nash, Dwight Howard and Brandon Jennings as well as the NBA and the NBA Trainers Association. Due to record-breaking adoption of the product, all major sports retailers are featuring Court Grip ™ this basketball season.
Use promo code FREECGSHIP to get free shipping here on all orders.
With over 30 million basketball players in the United States, it’s only right that Mission Basketball’s latest launch was bi-coastal. On October 13th in the Big Apple, New York's hometown hero and league All-Star Carmelo Anthony released our newest product, POWER GRIP™. Across the country the day before, Brandon Jennings, California native and Milwaukee's young PG, officially joined Mission and the COURT GRIP™ team during a launch in the City of Angels. Just two short weeks removed from Dwyane Wade’s official unveiling of COURT GRIP™, our team is looking pretty good.
Since Wade's release, it has been exciting to watch how quickly COURT GRIP™ has caught on throughout the basketball community. From Jim Boeheim's legendary program at Syracuse (Melo's alma mater) to courts around the country, basketball players have been gripping and gaming. You can hear for yourself as Coach Boeheim attests that COURT GRIP™ is his go-to as a top-tier college program.
Other members of the COURT GRIP™ team have been spreading the word, too. During Brandon Jennings’ chat on Sports Nation, he wrote that he was using COURT GRIP™ during his time playing at the Pan Am Games. Dwyane Wade was photographed gripping at the FIU charity game hosted by Isiah Thomas. With basketball season on the horizon, players across the country are racing to Foot Locker stores and eastbay.com to grab some GRIP.
The inaugural COURT GRIP season starts soon; stay with us on Facebook and Twitter. There will undoubtedly be more news to come.
This past February, Dwyane Wade signed on as a partner. It doesn’t seem like too long ago, but since then a lot has happened at Mission. Of note, last week’s hugely successful launch of Wade and Mission Basketball’s newest product, COURT GRIP™. The day started early at Fox and Friends and ended late at Jimmy Fallon, complete with stops for the New York Times and ESPN (among others) in between. After all of that, basketball may never be the same. We have everyone at COURT GRIP™ - from D-Wade to the engineers who literally created the winning formula - to thank.
As you know if you’ve followed the trajectory of Mission Athletecare™, we have a unique business model. We believe that in order to improve sports, you’ve got to start small and dream big. We also believe that in order to meet the expectations we set, it is imperative to involve people who are most familiar with the sport at hand - players. Take our newest endeavor: Mission Basketball. The problem of court traction has been around since Springfield. As halftime shows and multi-purpose arenas have grown more and more popular, court conditions have taken a backseat - something that basketball players the world over have noticed. After committing to solve this problem, we went straight to the courts and and were thrilled when the dynamic Dwyane Wade signed on as a company partner.
We know that game changers are rare, but believe COURT GRIP™ can change the game of basketball from the ground up. So does D-Wade, so does legendary coach Jim Boeheim, and so do the AAU players who helped in product testing. Everyday we’re hearing back from some of the 30 million basketball players in the United States who are trying COURT GRIP™ on their home courts, and we hope to hear from you too. We mean that. Much of Mission’s success can be attributed to the collaborative process behind the development of our products. Join the grip revolution at the Mission Basketball Facebook page or follow @CourtGrip to stay with us. There’s a lot more to come.
COURT GRIP™ is available now from Eastbay.com and Foot Locker!
