ABSOLUTE360® Partners with Aprire Women’s Cycling
At the end of 2015, we were contacted by Simon Howes from the Aprire Women’s Cycling Racing Team.
Simon was looking for ways to give his riders that extra 1% — and recovery was an area where he believed there was an opportunity to make a difference.
His interest in ABSOLUTE360® came from our infrared-responsive clothing and the possibility of incorporating it into the riders’ recovery routines.
That initial conversation led to ABSOLUTE360® becoming the official recovery partner to the Aprire Women’s Cycling Racing Team for 2016.
After spending much of this year talking about the importance of recovery, it seems a fitting partnership with which to bring 2016 to a close.
The Aprire Women’s Cycling Racing Team, 2016. From left: Louise Laker, Mel Brand, Emily McLoughlin, Lucy Chittenden, Agata Woznicka, Lucy Harper, Harriet Mellor, Sophie Lankford, Alexandra Jenkins and Gemma Lianne Sargent.
Finding That Extra 1%
At a competitive level, cycling is often about small margins.
Training, nutrition, equipment, preparation and recovery all contribute to performance. There is rarely one single thing that makes the difference, but a series of small improvements can add up.
That was the thinking behind Simon’s approach.
Rather than viewing recovery simply as downtime between training sessions and races, the aim was to see whether the riders could make better use of that time.
ABSOLUTE360® infrared-responsive clothing offered a particularly practical way of doing that because the technology is incorporated into garments that can simply be worn as part of everyday life.
There is no additional recovery session to schedule and no equipment to set up.
You simply put the clothing on.
Recovery Almost 24/7
For the 2016 season, we supplied the Aprire riders with a selection of ABSOLUTE360® products chosen to give them different options throughout training, racing and recovery:
The nature of these garments meant the riders could incorporate infrared-responsive clothing into much more than a short period immediately after training.
The leggings could be worn during periods of rest and recovery. The calf sleeves provided a targeted option for the lower legs, while the knee-high 24/7 socks could continue to be worn throughout the day.
Even the [AR] Neck Tube crossed the boundary between recovery and performance, with the riders also using it while racing.
Taken together, the range gave the team the opportunity to wear ABSOLUTE360® infrared-responsive garments for recovery for almost 24 hours a day.
Rather than asking an athlete to add another activity to an already busy training programme, infrared-responsive clothing could become part of what they were already doing — and wearing.
From Recovery Partner to Race Jersey
The partnership also became visible on race day.
The ABSOLUTE360® logo was incorporated into the Aprire team’s 2016 race kit, alongside the other team partners.
But that wasn’t where the relationship had started.
Aprire hadn’t approached us simply to put another sponsor’s logo on a jersey. Simon had contacted ABSOLUTE360® because he saw a potential role for infrared-responsive clothing within the team’s recovery strategy.
The presence of our logo on the race jersey therefore came to represent something happening away from the race as well: helping the riders make better use of the hours between training and competition.
The ABSOLUTE360® logo formed part of the Aprire Women’s Cycling Racing Team kit for the 2016 season.
How Our Infrared-Responsive Clothing Works
The garments supplied to the team use the same infrared-responsive technology found throughout the ABSOLUTE360® range.
Bioactive minerals embedded in the yarn interact with naturally emitted body heat, absorbing and re-emitting energy in the infrared spectrum. Because the technology is incorporated into the yarn rather than applied as a surface treatment, it remains part of the fabric.
For the Aprire riders, one of the important advantages was its practicality. Recovery continues between training sessions, during periods of rest and throughout everyday life — and clothing is something the riders are going to wear anyway.
Our role as recovery partner was therefore about making infrared-responsive clothing another element within a wider recovery routine, alongside the fundamentals of appropriate rest, nutrition, hydration and sleep.
Why Recovery Matters in Cycling
Cycling places considerable demands on recovery.
Hours can be spent training in the saddle, often followed by another session the next day. Racing adds another level of intensity, and riders need to balance the desire to train and compete with the need to recover adequately between efforts.
It is something we have explored throughout our Recovery Series this year.
We began with the idea that training creates the stimulus, but recovery creates the adaptation.
From there, we have looked at rest, nutrition, hydration, stretching, foam rolling, muscle soreness, overtraining and the different tools athletes can use as part of their recovery routines.
One message has remained consistent throughout:
There is no single recovery solution.
Good recovery comes from combining sensible training with good habits away from it.
Our partnership with Aprire allowed our infrared-responsive clothing to become one part of that bigger picture.
Recovery Beyond the Finish Line
Race day is the visible part of competitive cycling.
What happens around it is less visible: the training, preparation, nutrition, hydration, rest and recovery that allow a rider to come back and perform again.
Our role represented only one part of that process, and that is exactly how we believe recovery should be approached.
Infrared-responsive clothing does not replace the fundamentals. Instead, it can be incorporated alongside them as part of a wider recovery routine.
That made the Aprire partnership particularly relevant to everything we have been discussing throughout 2016.
At the beginning of the year, we set out to explore recovery in much greater detail. The Aprire partnership brought that conversation into competitive sport.
These were riders training and racing throughout a season, looking for ways to prepare well, perform at their best and be ready to go again.
And for ABSOLUTE360®, there was something particularly significant about how the relationship had begun.
We hadn't gone looking for a cycling team to sponsor.
Simon had approached us because he was interested in what infrared-responsive clothing might contribute to the team's recovery strategy.
It brought us back to the reason for that first conversation at the end of 2015:
The search for that extra 1%.
Final Thoughts
2016 has been a year in which recovery has become an important part of the conversation at ABSOLUTE360®.
Our Recovery Series has allowed us to look beyond training itself and explore what athletes can do between sessions to support their next performance.
Becoming the official recovery partner to the Aprire Women’s Cycling Racing Team gave us the opportunity to put some of that thinking into practice.
From [AR] Signature Leggings and IR Calf Sleeves to IR Knee High 24/7 Socks and the [AR] Neck Tube, the riders had infrared-responsive garments they could incorporate into their routine throughout the day — and, in the case of the neck tube, while racing too.
It started with a conversation at the end of 2015 about finding an extra 1%.
A year later, it feels like a very appropriate way to close 2016.
We look forward to seeing where the next 1% takes us.
