Female sporting goods such as football boots and mountain bikes are often just 'rescaled' versions of men’s products, says Dr Thomas Allen from the IMechE biomedical division. This can contribute to injuries and other issues. UK sports engineering firms are tackling the problems with specialised products, he says, but they are held back by a lack of support.
The issue is just one point raised by Sustainable, Inclusive, Innovative: The Role of Engineering in Sport, which was launched at the IMechE headquarters in Westminster on Wednesday (25 October). The report, also authored by IMechE head of policy Matt Rooney and engineering policy advisor Carly Nettleford, calls for increased investment in specialist facilities, to enable tests and trials of sporting technologies in environments that closely match real-life conditions.
Sports – including viewing and participating – is one of the UK’s largest industries, contributing £39bn to the economy each year. In 2022, the sector employed almost 200,000 people.
The report is a call for the government to back industry with more funding, says Dr Allen. “There are, obviously, research councils where you can apply for money, but I think if we're talking about established national centre-type facilities, then that's probably more like government,” says the specialist in sports engineering and reader in mechanical engineering at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The UK is a leader in sports engineering, the report says. Part of this is institutional, according to Dr Allen – the International Sports Engineering Association was founded in Sheffield, UK Sport provides subsidies, universities including Sheffield Hallam and Loughborough have strong research and facilities, and successful sporting organisations such as British Cycling are well-known for the technology they use.
There are also success stories at the engineering and technology level, he says. This week, for example, a partnership between Loughborough and Adidas won a Royal Academy of Engineering award for developing performance-boosting sports equipment, such as World Cup footballs and cricket helmets that prevent facial injuries.
There is also prominent research into better materials for equipment, such as metamaterials. “There's lots of research around auxetic materials, how they're applied in sports equipment,” says Dr Allen. “I did some work where we applied auxetic materials to tennis rackets with Head.”
Race for the prize
The size of the industry means some significant challenges need solving, not least improving diversity and inclusion. Different genders, abilities, cultural backgrounds and more need sports gear that works for them, to enable safe and successful participation.
“Sporting goods brands tend to generalise their products to their main customer base to reduce costs and make it easier to manage their stock” however, the report says.
Women footballers having to use rescaled men’s boots could be one of the reasons for the prominence of knee injuries amongst professional players in 2022, for example, according to papers referenced in the IMechE report.
Ida Sports, which exhibited at the report launch this week, showed another way. Its boots are specifically designed for women, with features – including stud configuration, a wider toe ‘box’, a narrower heel cup and more arch support – designed to better support their bodies.
“That's their thing. They identified well before any of the big brands that this was an area that needed to be tackled, and they released them,” says Dr Allen.
He continues: “If we have these facilities, then we can do the research into that to really tackle it properly… if the large corporations aren't going to do it, it's quite difficult for small enterprises to then do it without help.”
Sustainability could also benefit from a collaborative approach and new research and development facilities, he says, “because it is quite a deep, deep problem.”
Concussion research could also benefit from technological interventions or detection systems.
Helping start-ups grow
One of the major benefits that large corporations have is their own testing facilities, says Dr Allen, while start-ups with a “really good ethos” might not have that advantage. “If there's some kind of centre they can go to and get support and help to do that, that can be really beneficial,” he says.
“Equally if there's a company that says, ‘I'm going to come up with some super sustainable products, I've got the idea, I know how to do it, I know where to source the materials, but I also need to go and test it and make sure that it actually works’ – to do all of that as a start-up is very, very difficult, so it would help these start-ups to grow.”
The report calls for at least two ‘hubs’ dedicated to developing sports technologies – one focused on mechanical testing and one on tests in environments that replicate “real-world sporting conditions”.
An instrumented football pitch with a large motion capture system could both boost research and be a major draw for organisations such as FIFA, Dr Allen suggests, while a national centre for bike testing could ease logistical problems for forward-thinking British brands hoping to trial new products.
‘Smart factories’ could also counter the wastefulness of big companies, which often have long supply chains and high carbon emissions from products being thrown away.
The commercial opportunity is “huge”, Dr Allen says. “If you can imagine winning a contract from FIFA for their latest officiating technology, like goal line technology or something like that, that could be massive. Or if you develop some form of wearable sensor for training, it gets picked up by all the main teams in the Premier League.”
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