New Technology Helps College Athletes Optimize Performance, Limit Injuries

On a sweltering hot August day, North Carolina A & T State University football player Kareem McKelvey swallows a small pill two hours before practice. As he progresses through drills and mini-scrimmages, the team’s assistant trainer watches practice from the sideline, holding a small palm pilot-like device. This device, directly linked to the capsule McKelvey had ingested, gives the trainer an accurate reading of his, and up to 98 others’, body temperatures.
Prevention
One recent advancement in training is the development of The CorTemp Temperature Pill® by HQ, which significantly helps prevent heat exhaustion and heat stroke. After at-risk athletes swallow this FDA-approved pill, a trainer can monitor that player’s body temperature for up to 36 hours, as long as they are within a two-foot radius (upto 300 feet with accessories) of the player.

The CorTemp Temperature Pill is a wireless transmitter that monitors an athlete's body temperature. Courtesy of hginc.net.
The introduction of this pill both eliminates the interruption of practice and the danger of experiencing heat illness. McKelvey agrees, stating “Our practices are long and hot, and we sweat a lot out there. Something like this [pill] gives me the ability to work harder, and know I’m ok in doing so." One downfall: at $30 a pill, these aren’t available to every program, and only those athletes identified “at-risk" receive it.
As far as preventing injury, Motion DNA, a fairly new corporation, has developed several systems which analyze the movements of athletes through the use of technology. Their most popular product, Bio Trainer, uses a technology called wireless motion analysis.

Four wireless electromagnetic sensors, which monitor the angles, velocities and rotations of movements, are attached to the athlete’s body during the activity in which they participating, whether it be running on a treadmill or swinging a golf club. The BioTrainer system then analyzes the movement and produces a customized report for the athlete. This system specifies the athlete’s physical limitations through the identification of restricted movements and ranges of motion, which could potentially result in injury. The trainer is then able to identify exactly where the problem could be, and train the athlete accordingly.