To serve and protect: cutting-edge sports medicine products for your players.

The power of television has been a boon to sports apparel and equipment manufacturers for years, as young, aspiring athletes have been inspired to wear the football jersey, lace up the basketball shoe, or use the same baseball glove as their favorite player.

Sports medicine companies are enjoying a similar response on the scholastic level. Players are bracing themselves, literally and figuratively, against injuries.

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"I think high school and youth players today are much more attentive to what they are seeing on the college and professional level," says Ed Christman, VP / marketing for Cramer Sports Medicine. "When you see more innovation and more things being worn on TV, there is much more recognition to improvements in protective equipment and sports medicine equipment."

Says Brian Moore, national sales manager for team sports at dj Orthopedics, LLC: "Television has had a huge impact on the parents. It would be like their kids not wearing helmets and watching everyone else play with helmets. They'd be saying, 'Why aren't we wearing helmets?' The parents are intuitive enough to know that, 'Hey, these kids are wearing knee braces on TV. Why aren't my kids?' The parents have really helped open up a new avenue for us from a business standpoint."

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Whereas knee braces used to be worn by players who were protecting a previous injury (envision Joe Namath and his gimpy, surgically repaired knees hobbling in archaic, bulky braces), today's athletes are wearing modern, streamlined-versions as a preventative measure.

It makes sense. Helmets and shoulder pads are designed to protect the head and shoulders. Why not wear something to protect the knees? Or ankles?

Cramer's Christman offers that the market direction, both team and retail, is leaning towards good, solid, well-made ankle braces (including the company's Active Ankle support brace) because they are very easy to wear and provide good support.

Moore echoes those sentiments: "Ankle and knee braces are the big areas where we feel we can prevent a lot of injuries. Those are the two biggest injuries in any sport--your knee and your ankle."

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Through research and development, companies such as Cramer, dj Orthopedics, Mueller Sports Medicine, Cho-Pat, Cropper Medical/Bio Skin, BD Consumer Health Products, and Brace International are providing cutting-edge solutions and state-of-the-art products for the prevention and treatment of sports-related injuries and ailments.

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That direction has led to protective equipment that is lightweight and comfortable. Or as Cramer's Christman says, "Products that will literally support certain parts of the body and enhance the player's performance."

Mueller's Pro-Style Triaxial Hinge Knee Brace and ATF Ankle Brace fit the bill. The high-strength, patented triaxial hinges on the knee brace allow unrestricted, natural knee movement while the adjustable straps provide controlled compression for a custom fit, according to the company. A removable patella buttress stabilizes and protects the kneecap and can be cut to any desired shape, Mueller says.

The ankle brace has a patented self-adjusting ATF strap that covers a larger area of the anterior talofibular ligament for increased lateral support, according to Mueller. Comfort Windows, single layers of fabric over the ankle bones, provide additional comfort and reinforced flexible steel springs help protect both sides of the ankle, the company says.

Brian Moore of dj Orthopedics, manufacturers of the Defiance knee brace and RocketSoc low-profile ankle brace, states his company uses carbon fiber technology to make its knee braces as light as possible yet very strong.

"These braces are 17, 18 ounces yet can take 300-400 pounds of pressure," Moore says. "We spend a lot of time making sure the braces fit properly. Just like every other piece of equipment on a player's body, the brace has to be streamlined and not prohibit them from running fast and allow them to do everything they did before donning the brace."

Mueller, for one, is focusing on the total wellness of the athletes, tying together prevention, treatment, and fitness/maintenance by providing a complete line of state-of-the-art products, including athletic tape and wraps, sport pharmaceuticals, analgesics, cold/hot therapy, and the finest, most innovative knee and ankle braces and supports for active people at every level.

"The last decade has been greatly influenced by technological advances that help provide beneficial features to many sports medicine products (patented hinges, research, design and functional evaluations for products, etc.)," says Rick Olson, national sporting goods sales manager for Mueller Sports Medicine. "The retail market has also changed significantly by offering an affordable, targeted selection of products intended for everyday needs and active people across all demographics."

Cho-Pat, manufacturer of preventive and pain reducing sports medical devices, including the Dual Action Knee Strap, prefers to think of itself as being more specific than many of the other manufacturers because its products come in sizes rather than a one-size-fits-all concept.

"When you buy something that is one-size-fits-all and a player or an athlete is 5-foot-10 and 150 pounds, why should he wear the same device as somebody who is 6-3 and 230," says Dave Dailey, Cho-Pat president.

"We tend to think that specificity tends to make us more unique."

Cho-Pat's knee products use compression to place pressure on particular tendons or particular parts of the knee. Dailey explains that it's all done to lessen or divert the pain in a certain area of the body.

For instance, the company's ITB Strap uses compression to help prevent the snapping or friction of the iliotibial band over the bony prominence just above and outside of the knee joint or further up the leg at the hip joint allowing the healing process to begin.

"People who wear our knee strap have instability in their kneecap," Dailey says. "The knee strap, for example, will put pressure on the patella tendon to add stability to the knee. And by doing so, you are reducing some of the inflammation, pain, and discomfort from an ailment such as tendonitis."

What are the most important things a coach or player should know when choosing the right sports medicine product? Ideally, they must know what specific product is needed to prevent or treat an injury. Nothing should be done without an educated and informed decision.

Educating the athletes and coaches is a vital part of a sports medicine company's business. To that end manufacturers rely on their on-field liaison--the athletic trainer.

"We spend most of our time educating the athletic trainer, the doctor," says Brian Moore of dj Orthopedics, which through its DonJoy program (www.donjoy.com/club), provides an opportunity for high school teams to preventatively brace their athletes using the same caliber equipment available to the professional and collegiate ranks. "We've also begun to educate the coaches and athletic directors at the high school level. We've had a lot of success in the preventative field with college and professional levels mainly because they have more of budget. Now we want to repeat that success with the high school coaches, AD's, the booster clubs, and the parents. There is an opportunity to preventatively take care of these kids so they don't get hurt."

Olson confirms that the coaches, athletic trainers, and players are shown the features and benefits on Mueller braces and/or supports to assure them that the product they choose will protect them as stated on the packaging. "We also show them documented studies, especially for our ankle and knee braces, that explain the amount of testing and validation that's been done on these braces," he says.

Adds Christman, whose company produces a newsletter called the First-Aider, which is published six times a year on its Web site (www.cramersportsmed.com): "What has happened is, as high school's have recognized the importance of the athletic trainer's job to prevent and treat injuries, and to help with managing the risks of running an athletic program, it allows the player to play more safely, which is the most critical thing, it also allows the school district or team to provide better benefits to the athlete."