As the global leader in Active Recovery Footwear, OOFOS partners with market leaders in the human performance industry. That’s why we joined forces with Exos.
EXOS Vice President of Performance, Brent Callaway teaches "Hard work + Rest = Success." He and Exos, renowned experts in the performance space, understand the significance of maintaining balance in an athlete's life. They emphasize the importance of Active Recovery as an essential ingredient in the training process and its ability to optimize overall performance. It’s why OOFOS, pioneers in Active Recovery, and Exos can help enhance the potential of athletes at every level– from professional athletes (including more than 200 Olympians) to active office-workers.
As partners, we seek to revolutionize the way athletes approach their training and their recovery. No athlete can reach their full potential if they solely focus on one side of the equation. Achieving greatness requires a holistic approach that encompasses both hard work and proper recovery.
Exos Ethos ‘You Can Only Train
As Hard As You Can Actively Recover’
Exos is an elite coaching facility with 4,000 global team members spread across 13 countries. Brent, an expert in the performance space, joined Exos in 2008. He’s involved with a number of disciplines, including human performance, strength and conditioning, speed, on-field movement, and the training of athletes for the NFL Scouting Combine.
“One of the things that's very important on our end is that our athletes can move as much as possible,” Brent says. “To be able to use a tool like OOfoam™ technology and OOFOS shoes in order to help gain range of motion, dorsiflexion, and plantar flexion at the ankle, that's something that is an additional benefit to our athletes that we don't actually have to spend time coaching or implementing in the training process. They're getting it naturally through walking around.”
How expert Brent Callaway defines Active Recovery
“Training is about inducing stress in the body,” Brent coaches. “We tell our athletes all the time: You can only train as hard as you can actively recover.”
Active Recovery “is the moment where the body gets to unload itself.”
“We spend so much time inducing stress on the body — both mechanical and mental,” Brent says. “We have to take time to heal up. We don't always want processes to be passive — where we're laying down and recovering or sleeping or taking time off and time away. Sometimes we want to still be engaged in the processes that we're going through from a training standpoint but provide either a different stimulus or the removal of several stimuli.”
Expertise on Why Active Recovery is
Important in the Performance Space
Improvement requires hard work and proper recovery. The OOFOS x Exos partnership epitomizes the philosophy and empowers athletes to unlock their ultimate performance. According to Brent, “having a product like OOFOS to reduce some of the stress on an area of the body that we do tend to load up frequently is massively important.”
This brings us back to that equation: Hard work + Rest = Success. Exos understands that the way to peak performance is to find the balance between work (load and stress) and recovery (both physically and mentally).
“Frequently, we use alternative training means,” Brent shares of his program, “so it's not more of the same. We don't want them running on recovery days. We don't want them lifting the same old way. We want to do some things differently.”
The OOfoam™ Technology Difference
Athletic performance requires balance between power, movement, and recovery. Performance footwear designed for exercise gives you energy return and bounce, propelling your movement. Recovery footwear absorbs impact and redirects it away from the body. In fact, OOFOS’ proprietary OOfoam™ technology has been proven to absorb 37% more impact than traditional performance footwear foams. Post-exercise, OOFOS relieve pressure on ankles and knees by helping to reduce impact as you finish your day.
“One of the things that we measure on a regular basis on the evals with our athletes and through the training process,” Brent shared, “are asymmetries: imbalances right to left that are discrepancies with the body — either when they're producing force or reducing force, decelerating. OOFOS is scientifically designed, and there's research to prove that it helps eliminate asymmetries when worn. And we want to make sure that we're always providing every advantage for athletes to return back to sport as much as we can.”
That difference stems from OOfoam™ technology and the patented footbed design — each of which is fundamental to all our Active Recovery products. Beloved by athletes, our footwear is proven to reduce instability, eliminate imbalances, reduce load, and ease forces on joints and tissue more effectively than traditional performance shoes.
Bottom line: The shoe and not your body absorbs the impact. That means unloading and destressing joints.
The design of the OOFOS footbed is intentionally unique.
Brent Callaway continued, “It actually allows the foot to spread out. Many times, our athletes are in footwear that actually binds their toes down, doesn't allow the foot to move like it should. This footbed is designed to function like your foot does when it's barefoot and on the earth. It feels almost like you're walking in sand where your arch is supported and the weight is distributed in a very nice way.”
Athletic Improvement Awaits
Exos believes, and Brent coaches everyday: no matter the athlete, no matter the skill level, there’s always room for improvement. OOFOS and Exos will work together to help athletes discover the sweet spot of activity and Active Recovery.
“Every athlete that we have comes to us to find all of the small ways that they can improve,” Brent promises. “We will always provide OOFOS and OOfoam™ technology to our athletes so that they can get better even when they're not thinking about it.
It's just another secret weapon for us and for our athletes to be able to capitalize on all the small, small moments in their day.”
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