The transfer window isn’t closed. Professional French Ligue 1 football team OGC Nice has signed a contract with sports technology firm, Myocene to provide the club with its muscle fatigue technology.
The company develops wearable devices to measure muscle fatigue and performance using patented algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) to track patient data and can calculate an athlete’s muscle fatigue index in two minutes through muscle electrostimulation and force sensors.
Muscle fatigue can be treated with multiple medical devices, but it can also be a symptom of an underlying medical conditions like such as Long Covid, fibromyalgia and neurological disorders like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and multiple sclerosis (MS). The Myocene device can be used in the in this area to treat some of these muscle disorders.
The Interuniversity Laboratory of Motor Biology (LiBM), Saint-Etienne, France published an article scientifically validating the use of the Myocene device in April 2023. The study on nearly 1000 athletes was validated by Guillaume Millet, a sports physiologist at the Jean Monnet University in Saint-Etienne in France and concluded it was safe for use monitoring fatigue in athletes.
Co-author of the paper Millet said: “Our future work will focus on demonstrating how, with this innovative tool, it is possible to measure fatigue regularly and objectively in athletes who train frequently. Monitoring fatigue is essential to adapt the training loads of athletes.”
The Ligue 1 club will use Myocene’s technology in training sessions and on the pitch during game days. Data will be collected each week to manage player recovery levels while giving management a better understanding when an individual needs to miss training or an upcoming game.
Laurent Bessiere, performance director at OGC Nice said: “We chose Myocene’s device as a tool that allows us to reliably assess the players' 'freshness' and recovery levels.”
This latest signing follows a string of contracts with professional sports clubs like French handball clubs Saint-Raphaël Var Handball (SRVHB) and US Ivry, and the French and Portuguese football clubs RC Strasbourg and Sporting Clube de Braga.
In May 2023, Myocene raised €2 million ($2.2M) in its third seed funding round, bringing their total funding to €3.3 million ($3.6M).
