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“I’ve always hated ankle braces, because a lot of the braces I’d tried before were really stiff and heavy,” Bouzelis says. “BetterGuards are completely different. They really feel like a sock when you put them on … I can cut, jump, move along and do whatever I need to do out there without feeling restricted.”
Bouzelis said he wore braces to every practice and game since before entering the NBA. He recommended them to several teammates, including Bulls point guard Josh Gidde, who also became a user. The list of notable NBA players using them also includes Franz and Mo Wagner, Austin Reeves, Aaron Nesmith, Jalen Johnson and TJ McConnell.
Players recovering from ankle injuries often wear the brace. Again, this replaces the rigidity of previous braces, which Verruti says hurts the recovery process.
“It actually weakens the ankle,” he says, noting that more than half of people with ankle injuries have residual problems within 18 months. “What you need is movement. That’s strengthening all your accessory ligaments and tendons.”
Recent research Verrutti’s claims appear to be supported, showing a faster return-to-play timeline for athletes using BetterGuards compared to a control group. In a league like the NBA, results like these have a real financial value.
“Ankle sprains are the number one time-loss injury in the NBA every year,” said Eric Waters, director of player health and performance for the Chicago Bulls. Waters said several Bulls players, including Buzelis, are big fans of BetterGuard. “You’re saving us, millions of dollars in games lost to injury.”
Frank and Waters are among several team trainers whose players regularly use the product. Through the incubator program, they entered a kind of feedback loop with the company, offering rapid prototyping from a new manufacturing facility in Croatia. When a player requests a change, they can test a revised product within a week or two. Players and coaches get all the benefits of this new method of ankle protection; BetterGuards gets a population of elite athletes to offer feedback about its products.
