Lets Talk Ektio Ankle Support

[trethousandgt]

So there was a thread posted up a few years ago (here is the post http://niketalk.com/t/327754/has-anybody-worn-these-ektio-ankle-turn-proof-shoes-they-cost-199) about a fairly new company named Ektio and it seemed as though some people were skeptics about the promiseto protect basketball players from Ankle sprains like no other shoe on the market. I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr Barry Katz recently and addressed some of the questions and comments posted about the brand in that thread, YouTube and some other forums. Here is the link to the full interview and I've posted some of the interview below. Seems like the majority of people that have actually owned the shoe love them. The company said they will send me out a pair to try out so hopefully I'll be able to give you a video review on them in the near future. BTW feel free to post up if you've actually owned them.

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http://www.defynewyork.com/2014/05/...new-york-interviews-ektio-creator-barry-katz/

Companies have been making claims about performance and protection from their athletic shoes for decades. Few however, have been as straight forward as Ektio. Founded by Dr. Barry Katz and promoted by former NBA stars Rick Barry and hometown favorite John Starks, Ektio aims to make ankle sprains in basketball a thing of the past with patented ankle support technology that promises to protect basketball players from ankle sprains. Reviews have been positive for the small brand and offerings are expanding. We recently caught up with Barry to talk about all things Ektio and ankle sprains.

DeFY: Hi Barry, thanks for sitting down with DeFY. I understand you’re in the medical field, what’s your background?

Barry: Yes, I’ve been a physician radiologist for a long time. I received my medical degree in 1982. I also played a lot of sports while I was growing up so I’ve been involved in sports as well so I have a dual background in sports and medicine.

DeFY: Do you or did you ever collect sneakers?

Barry: No, I never collected sneakers.

DeFY: What made you want to dive into the footwear industry?

Barry: I wanted to help prevent ankle injuries.

DeFY: I think it’s a great product if it does what it claims (which according to reviews, seems it does). A friend and contributor to the site needed 3 pins in his ankle after breaking it. Would this product help someone like him that has suffered a serious ankle injury?

Barry: Not only would they be good for an individual like that but also for people that have sprained their ankle either recently or in the past or people that have never sprained their ankle who want to stay healthy. It’s the number one injury in basketball so it’s really a simple equation as far as we’re concerned. If you care about ankle safety and support; wear Ektio. If ankle support is not a concern to you, you should wear another shoe. There’s nothing on the market that gives you any significant ankle support.

We calculated and figured out how many shoes we’ve sold and figure the average player plays 6 hours a week, roughly 3 two hour sessions a week (and we know some players play a lot more than that and some less) so we took 6 as an average.
We also know from published studies that there are 5.5 ankle sprains per 1000 hours of play.
So if you calculate the expected number of ankle sprains in our shoe over the past 3 ½ years by taking the number of ankle sprains that actually happened divided by the expected number of sprains, it shows that we’ve reduced ankle sprains among our users by 99.9%. This is better than even we expected to do. We have a bunch of doctors that invented the shoe, who figured it out, and understand how ankle sprains happen and how to prevent it. A lot of really smart minds went into the development of this technology.

DeFY: Ok, the positives have been discussed both in this interview as well as others. I figured we should tackle some of the questions/comments made online by the skeptics and nay-sayers. One individual is concerned that if their ankle is restricted then their knee might be injured, what do you say to that?