Examiner: ALINE Foot Services gets X-Games athletes a step ahead
Elite athletes do much more than win medals. By continuously pushing the limits of the human body, they serve as test subjects for new innovations that can help all Americans achieve their health and fitness goals. This weekend’s X-Games provide an excellent example. For the past six years, ALINE Foot Services has been testing and refining its dynamic insole products with many high performance athletes at the X-Games. The athletes benefit from improved stability and mobility during competitions, as well as some financial support from ALINE.
“Shoes come in pairs, but feet do not come in pairs,” explains Gordon Hay, co-founder of ALINE Foot Services. There are over 100 moving components in each foot and every athletic motion affects them somewhat differently. Athletes in extreme sports are particularly vulnerable to repetitive motion injuries or sports injuries. ESPN has arranged for ALINE to work directly with the X-Games athletes in the athlete lounges at the X-Games and provide custom fitting services. The expertise that ALINE has developed in working with extreme sports stars like Travis Pastrana at the X-Games has helped the company to expand its market to recreational sports like mountaineering, sailing and golf. Performance in all these sports benefits from the improved rotation power transfer made possible by dynamic insoles, according to research by the ALINE engineering team.
A key factor in the success of the ALINE Foot Services program for elite athletes has been integrating regular use of the dynamic insole with a total foot care regimen. “Flat footwear can cause sports injuries,” says Gordon Hay. Today Hay demonstrated to X-Games athletes how ALINE dynamic insoles athletes’ arches to reshape and align their feet for better overall performance. In addition to product demonstrations, ALINE provides sports performance consulting to help athletes make the best choices for their daily use footwear and fashion shoes for public appearances. ALINE also provides lower body analysis to all participating athletes. This total care approach has helped ALINE develop a strategic relationship with the PGA (Professional Golf Association) and expand its athlete references to top PGA golfers like Kevin Nah.
ALINE also works together with “Medicine in Motion” a high performance mobile injury prevention and treatment enterprise. Extreme sports events like the X-Games have special needs for immediate medical care and physical rehabilitation support. The successful alliance with “Medicine in Motion” may also give ALINE more choices to follow the X-Games organization to Europe and Latin America as the popular ESPN series expands there.
ALINE Foot Services has strengthened its business relations with the PGA, X-Games and other select sports events by offering an effective athlete sponsorship program with incentive bonuses for customer referrals. Unlike some other athlete sponsorship programs based on the “winner-take-all” model, this provides a modest opportunity for all successful athletes to earn as much as they might for a personal appearance and autograph session. Sponsored athletes receive ALINE Foot Services’ dynamic insole products and custom fittings free of cost. In addition, ALINE is evaluating an affiliate program that pays referral fees when fans and followers on the athletes’ social networks also make purchases. Many customers can get just the footwear solution they need for under $100.
Hay points out that the average American takes 2 million steps a year, so that better fitting footwear can make an important difference for better health and fitness for everyone, not just elite athletes. See for yourself at X-Games this weekend, at LA Live! and Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.