High active sports wear

HIGH ACTIVE SPORTS WEAR
-A CRITICAL REVIEW
A.MURALIKRISHNAN
LECTURER – TEXTILES
P.A.C.RAMASAMYRAJA POLYTECHNIC COLLGE,
RAJAPALAYAM, TAMILNADU, INDIA
Email: muralikct@rediffmail.com

Introduction
• As per the market demand, sportswear can be classified into 4
groups.
– Basic sports wear
– Sports leisurewear
– Performance sports wear
– Sports – Fashion clothing.
• Basic sports wear : Cheaper and more stylish.
• Sports leisure wear : Worn at home and is sold in higher volume at
much smaller price.
• The performance sports wear is highly technical-oriented clothing
which enhances the performance with special functionality.
• The functional requirement of performance wear depends on the
nature of sport, climatic condition and amount of physical activity. It
is produced in low volume with highest price.
Compiled by A.Muralikrishnan, Lecturer, PACR Polytechnic college, Rajapalayam, Tamilnadu

What are High active sports ?
– Defined as one which is being played for short duration of
time with maximum physical activity like tennis, soccer,
running, jumping, foot ball, hockey etc.
– Wear comfort of high active sports wear may affect the
performance of player and hence it becomes one of the most
important quality crieterion.
– The fabric used for active sports wear are specially
constructed to achieve the necessary dissipation of heat and
mositure.

What happened when playing high active sports?
• During active sports, 80% of energy is converted into heat.
• Heat stress is of great concern due to high level of metabolic heat
generation which is in the range of 800 – 1300 W.
• This heat can increase the body core temperature by 1.5 to 2 dec C.
• In addition to this, convection adds further heat to body in warmer
areas where environment temperature is higher than body
temperature
• To control the core temperature of body, heat of vaporization of
water is used to give cooling effect.
• Sweat generation can go as high as 2.5 L/h
• It has been reported that back area sweat is higher than the chest
area of players.

Mode of heat to body

Functional requirement for high active
sports wear
• Should have High sweat absorption property
• Should be able to quick drying and cooling
• Should have high amount of stretch
• Should have sufficient fit and freedom of movement
• Should have soft feel, smoothness, UV resistance,
light weight and easy care

What clothing has to do?
• Clothing provides a microclimate between the body and
external environment and acts as a barrier for heat and vapor
transfer between skin and environment.
• Clothing thermal insulation decreases by 2 – 8% during
perspiration, which cause “after chilling effect” to wearer
after heavy exercise
• Mode of Moisture vapor transmission:
– Diffusion of moisture due to moisture vapor gradient
– Sorption – desorption by hydrophilic sites
– Forced convection by moving air close to the skin
• Mode of Liquid moisture transmission:
– Wetting followed by wicking

Moisture transmission through textiles

Fibre requirements
• Synthetic fibres shows better performance with significant
improvement in the mean skin temperature and comfort
sensation rating during exercise.
• Fibre cross sectional shape plays an important role in liquid
moisture transmission properties of fabric.
• The most commonly used synthetic fibre is polyester.
• Liquid moisture transmission of polyester is reported to be
higher in commercial sports wear knitted with profiled
polyester.

Tetrachannel & Hexachannel cross section:
Offers more surface area for liquid to transport and gives
better wicking ability and faster drying.
Polyester with trilobal and triangular C/S:
Reported as improved Liquid moisture transmission as
compared to normal polyester with circular C/S.

Five leaf shape:
• Filaments with higher shape factor have better wicking
rate due to their higher specific surface area.
• Five leaf shape offers higher wicking due to higher
capillary forces
Microfibre Polyester: Excellent moisture related comfort like
absorption, wicking and rate of drying.
• Small size of capillary in micro denier yarn increases the
capillary pressure which drives the water transfer in to
capillaries and results in higher wicking.

Micro fibres
• Offers more
specific surface
area
• Holds high
moisture

Fibre modification
• Quick absorption and fast releasing of moisture can be made by
addition of small amount of hydrophilic fibres with polyester.
• It gives surprising level of wearer comfort and wearer
performance.
• It is reported that 10 % and 15% cotton blends (P/C) are more
comfortable than 5% and 20%.
• Combinations of PET with thermo-regulating viscose outlast fibre
gives better wicking ability but poor drying capability.
• Soyabean cotton blended T-shirt had superior wicking than
cotton T-Shirt.
• When body began to sweat, the sweat on skin surface wetted the
fabric and then evaporated soon to the outer environment thus
helping the players to feel much thermal comfort.

Elastane fibre
• Elastane is widely used for its superior stretch and recovery
properties.
• Dynamic elastic recovery (DER) can assess the instantaneous
garment response due to body movement, the elastane bare
plaited fabric is found to have higher DER than fabric knitted
from spandex core-spun yarn.
• In core-spun yarn, wicking and moisture management
increases as elastane content decreases

Yarn parameters
• Yarn twist and yarn linear density are influencing factors in
moisture transmission.
• Moisture management properties tested on MMT, like
absorption rate, spreading speed and maximum wet circle
radius are main parameters to evaluate the moisture
transmission behavior of yarn and fabric.

Yarns with various twists

Effect of twist on moisture absorption
• Low twisted yarn have lower wicking ability due to more free
space
• Highly twisted yarn also have lower wicking ability due to no
more free space
• Hence optimum twist is needed for better wicking .
• Microdenier polyester yarn is reported to have better
moisture vapour transmission as compared to spun polyester,
PC and 100% cotton.

Fabric requirements
• Single jersey fabric reported to have better wick ability and
higher absorption as compared to pique and honeycomb.
• SJ structure consists of knit loops only, so loop leg orientation
is only towards wale direction, which helps for better wicking
compared to others.
• Cover factor is key structural attribute influencing mositure
transmission. Higher cover factor takes more time to wet and
liquid spreads in the smaller radius and resulting in lower
overall moisture management capability

Fabric properties
• Water evaporation rate is found to be higher
for thin fabric.
• A thin and porous knit structure is reported to
have optimum moisture vapour dissipation
properties.

Two layer knitted fabric
• 2 layer fabric is most popular in sportswear.
• Inner and outer layer of fabrics are completely separate and
unique with distinct functionality.
• Liquid water transfer from inner to outer layer depends on
hydrophillicity of both layers.
• More water can be transferred from inner to outer if inner
shows poor water absorption while outer shows higher water
absorption.
• The inner layer made of hydrophobic filament and outer layer
made of hydrophilic fibres.

Two layer fabric properties
• Fabric knitted with PP filament on inner side (skin facing) is
reported to have better wicking, water holding capacity and
moisture vapour transmission when combined with Cotton/ Viscose
on outer layer.
• PP inner and cotton outer is reported to have good overall moisture
management capacity due to quick transfer of liquid from inner to
outer.
• 30% TENCEL/ 70% Polyester in outer layer gives better moisture
transmission, drying rate, wet cling behaviour, thermal comfort
than 100% polyester outer.
• In winter sports, fabric with wool in inner and polyester in outer is
recommended.
• Plain plated fabric with cotton/bamboo in outer and cool max in
inner showed better water absorption .
• In winter sports wear, wool in inner layer and polyester in outer
layer was found to be better.

Biomimetic structure
• Biomimetics refers to replicating or mimicking the mechanism
found in nature.

Biomimetic of plant structure
• Biomimetics of plant structure in knitted fabrics can improve
the water absorption and one way transport property of
fabric.
• In this structure, larger loops are formed at the back side and
smaller loops are formed at the face side, so that the loop
density at the back is lower which results in higher inter yarn
space at the back and smaller inter yarn space at face,
mimicking the taper of water conduits in trees.

Swim suit fabric: Fast as a shark
• Skin is an amazing material: it's waterproof, it's breathable, it
helps to regulate our body temperature, and it can repair
itself automatically.
• One thing it was never designed for was swimming.
• If you have a particularly hairy body, every single one of your
hairs will drag and slow you down even more.
• Now you might think super-smooth suits would work better
than rough ones as you swim through the pool.

Shark skin effect
• “Shark skin consists of tiny, tooth-like scales that prevent
small eddys and vortexes from forming (which slow them
down).
• Speedo has replicated this effect with its Fastskin body suits,
which allow competitive swimmers to shave crucial seconds
off their race times. Others have used this technology to
create fast-traveling ship hulls that naturally deter the
attachment of underwater organisms.”

• FASTSKIN®, the tight-fitting suit is covered with tiny v-shaped
channels, just like the ridges (technically known as placoid
scales or dermal denticles) on a shark's body.
• The idea is that water whizzes along these channels, reducing
the frictional drag (essentially, turbulence) between the water
and your skin, so you can swim faster.
Shark skin effect

Example 2:
Why should clothes work like pine cones?
• Get a pine cone and watch whether the spines open and
close.
• If it's going to rain, the spines close up to protect the seeds
inside; if it's going to stay dry, the spines open up to improve
the chances of the seeds escaping.
• This fabric has many tiny spikes on the outer layer which
would open to cool down the body during hot climate.
• Then again flatted down to trap air and provide insulation in
cold climate.

• The fabric could be made with an outer layer of tiny spikes,
only 1/200th of a millimeter wide.
• When it's hot, the spikes would open up to let out the heat,
cooling you down.
• When it's cold, the spikes would flatten back down to trap air
and provide more effective insulation
Pine cone effect

Finishing requirements
• Hydrophobic inner and hydrophilic outer was created by
polymerization of acrylic acid on polyester fibre. High
performance of moisture and odor control is reported.
• Polyester fabric with incorporated activated carbon: More
comfortable in mild sports
• MMF resil HJHP: Increases the absorbency in polyester when
used along and gives better wicking when used with other
finishes like Resil nanocelle G6.
• Nano dry finish for Nanotex LLC: for maximum absorption of
sweat
• Fragnance finishes: Microencapsulated peppermint is claimed
to have muscle easing properties and

Performance enhancement by sports wear
• It was reported that clothing with higher moisture absorption
enhances the performance and pitching speed of baseball
players. Good correlation reported between moisture
management and physiological response of athlete.
• A fabric with better moisture management increases athlete’s
cardio-respiratory fitness and performance.
• Colour of sports wear can also influence the performance of
player.
– Red colour enhances the performance by stimuli of
testosterone dependent signal.

Compression athletic wear (CAW)
• It improves the performance in number of active sports like
jumping, power lifting and running.
• An athlete showed faster running speed over 10 km with
lower heart rates and reduced post exercise muscle soreness
when wearing CAW.
• Compression shorts resist fatigue due to reduced muscle
oscillation during landing in sports like sprints or jump events.
• Biomematic swim wear is reported to increase the swimmer’s
speed with reduced net active drag force as compared to
normal swim suit.

Compression athletic wear

Innovative sportswear products
• Various sports wears are developed by using
following high performance fibres.
– Coolmax
– Thermolite
– Thermocool
– Sports wool
– Toray Moisture management fabrics.

Coolmax from dupont
• Coolmax active fibre is engineered with 4 channel and 6
channel polyester fibres which forms a transport system with
increased surface area.
• This will help to pull moisture away from the skin to the outer
layer of fabric and keeps the wearer cool and dry

Mechanism of coolmax fibre

Thermolite fibre
• For active sports in cold climate, thermolite is very popular
• Hollow core fibres traps in air for great insulation and provide
warmth and comfort without adding weight.
• The large surface area allows the fast evaporation of
perspiration and wear stays dry 50% faster than cotton

Thermolite -
working
mechanism

• Sportwool is a unique fabric developed by CSIRO, Australia.
• Basically two layer moisture manangement fabric with wool
on inner side and synthetic fibre on outer layer.
Sportwool fibre

• Stunner QD is nylon woven fabric which Quickly absorbs,
disperses and evaporates perspiration for quick drying.
• Nylon and cotton also mixed for getting combined properties
of High strength of nylon with cotton-like soft touch.
Moisture management fabrics

• Field sensor TM has brushed inner side which provides
insulation and moisture management, thus suitable for winter
active sports wear.
• Quickly absorbs perspiration and carries perspiration rapidly
to the fabric's outer surface
• Disperses perspiration throughout the outer surface for rapid
evaporation

• Smooth texture and a sense of quality in software
• Natural and soft stretch
• Water absorption, ultra-fast drying of the skin surface due to
back special tucking structure
• Lightness and high anti-scale performance

Micro encapsulation with outlast PCM
• Fabric coating with micro encapsulated PCM buffer changes in
humidity and temperature in microclimate and environment.
• It absorbs excess body heat when temperature starts rising
and releasing it when temperature falls during cooling

Conclusion
• High active sports wear is very vast and challenging
field in which required functionality can be designed
by suitable choice of raw materials and structure.
• Number of MMF developed to maximise the comfort
of athlete
• A fresh approach is required which should aim to
develop performance enhancing innovative products
with maximum wear comfort.

References
• M Mashahia and A Das, “High active sports wear – A
critical review”, Indian Journal of Fibre & Textile
Research, Vol.39, 2014, pp. 441-449
• www.coolmaxfabric.com
• www.invista.com
• www.csiro.au
• www.torayentrant.com
• www.outlast.com

THANK YOU

High active sports wear

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