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Nov 10, 2023

How the BetterGuard smart ankle brace works

Now accepting nominations for SBJ's Best Places to Work in Sports. BetterGuards partook in the inaugural NBA Launchpad program to develop their adaptive, tech-enabled ankle brace. Moe and Franz

Now accepting nominations for SBJ's Best Places to Work in Sports.

BetterGuards partook in the inaugural NBA Launchpad program to develop their adaptive, tech-enabled ankle brace.

Moe and Franz Wagner, the basketball playing brothers for the Orlando Magic, are both acutely aware of the perils of ankle injuries in their chosen profession. Franz Wagner used to try high-top shoes, athletic tape and traditional braces. Moe Wagner usually opted for tape but discovered it stretched out quickly and by halftime had loosened so much to render it ineffective.

The Wagners hail from Berlin, however, which happens to be home to BetterGuards Technology, whose innovative ankle braces borrows its principle design mechanic from automotive seatbelts in threading the needle between protection and performance.

“After struggling with tape and other ankle braces for years, I wanted to find the lightest-weight brace that would still give me the support I need and let me still move like I want to,” Franz Wagner wrote in an email. “I’m embracing the minimalist approach of the BetterGuard because it’s actually much better for us to have freedom of movement in an ankle brace vs. wearing the enormous ankle braces people used to play in before.”

Tony Verutti, who started as BetterGuards’ CEO earlier this year, described classic ankle braces as a “soft corset” and noted that his company’s product is designed by and for athletes, adding that “it’s really just trying to solve a problem that we've been trying to solve since the 1800s.”

“If you wear a rigid brace, you’re sacrificing performance,” Verutti said. “If you wear a soft brace, you’re sacrificing protection. So you, as an athlete, or as a trainer are constantly having to choose.”

BetterGuards partook in the inaugural NBA Launchpad program, with the league’s head of technology, VP Tom Ryan, describing the product as “a really novel thought and idea in a category that’s pretty ancient.”

The ankle brace became available to US consumers for the first time earlier this summer, following release in Europe late last year. Verutti estimated more than 2,000 athletes in 14 countries use BetterGuards.

Here’s why the brace could meet an acute need: By some estimates, ankles are the most often injured joint among basketball players, accounting for 15% of all injuries in the sport, yet leading to more than 50% of all time lost.

Verutti noted that the adaptive BetterGuards brace has been investigated in a pair of peer-reviewed publications. One paper published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine (and financially supported by BetterGuards) concluded its brace “offers similar protective effects” to a rigid brace while having “very little” impact on an athlete’s performance.

The brace’s mechanism of function is derived from the patented BG Power, the name given to the micro-hydraulic fluid system contained in a mini-piston situated on the outside of the ankle. In high velocity situations when the ankle would roll, it gets stiff, immobilizing the ankle.

“That's where this little mini-piston comes in,” Verutti said. “When you pull it slow, you have this full mobility and fluidity. When you pull it fast, it really catches like a seatbelt in a car.”

Following its inclusion in the NBA Launchpad program, BetterGuards has been adopted by several NBA players and teams.

“The first time I tried it on I knew it was different than any of the braces I tried before. Similar to tape, it’s super lightweight and fits easily inside my shoes, but the BetterGuard is way more convenient,” Moe Wagner wrote. “During games, if your ankle starts to twist then you can feel The BetterGuard adapter tighten so it stops your ankle from turning. Then it goes back to normal so fast it’s like you don’t have to worry about it slowing you down at all.”

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