Back pain at any level is almost universally attributed to our posture. How are you moving? Even with the knowledge of great posture, it is difficult to maintain it while focusing on a task and after our back has fatigued. The Dorsum™ Exospine effortlessly supports your back, follows your movement, and reminds you to maintain great posture.
The quick pace of life is rapidly increasing the risk of back pain and injury. Having the right support that enables solid movement mechanics can reduce the risk of back pain. Modern life is creating jobs that force us to move faster and work longer. All of these demands put extra stress on our shoulders, lower back muscles, and spine. 80% of adults experience back pain at some point in their lives. Here’s where the Dorsum™ Exospine comes in, supporting your lower back without restricting movement.
The most common injuries happen from overuse of our bodies, which are the leading cause of repetitive motion strains. Repetitive motion puts enormous strain on your lower back, which can, in turn, lead to permanent injuries.
Many back alignment products in the market serve different purposes and do not have a significant impact reducing back injuries. The Dorsum™ Exospine exists in a new space we call Flexible Support, focused on prevention rather than rehabilitation.
The Dorsum™ Exospine is focused on postural support and muscular activation. It is not trying to limit the body’s movement; rather, the Exospine encourages it to move properly throughout repetitive movements.
In the market, there are few functional back supports designed for movement. There are posture reminders that are recommended for a short amount of use and back braces that are uncomfortable and restrict movement. The Dorsum™ Exospine is used for better posture while doing sustained repetitive movement.
The Dorsum™ Exospine is for those doing work that requires “hinge” movements. “Hinge” movement jobs are jobs/activities that require bending over and lifting movements that can cause an individual’s back to severely fatigued. The Dorsum Exospine is there to promote muscular activation so that posture can be maintained and overuse injuries limited.
Use it at work, at home, and while doing recreational activities that require repetitive bending of the lower back and shoulders.
The Dorsum™ Exospine is for:
Start by turning the thumb screw and pulling the top portion upward to your size of Small, Medium, or Large. Then turn the screw back to a tight position.
From the back, open the tab in the bottom of the pocket to insert the spine component all the way inside the sleeve, and close the tab to secure it in place. The exospine is designed to fit different size torsos of Small, Medium, and Large.
As you move, the Dorsum™ Exospine reminds you to correct your posture without much effort.
It’s comfortable and can be worn over and under clothing.
We used a thermoplastic polymer, a very light and flexible material so it bends and moves with you to support your everyday movements.
The arc curvature in the front of the exospine is designed to support the lumbar region of your lower back, most fragile area of your spine.
Using a 3D air mesh around the sides with a power mesh in the center, all specific fabrics that maximize airflow to keep you comfortable.
The support has a positive feedback loop and 3 points of contact on the spine: the upper, middle, and lower regions of the back.
The positive feedback loop that our brains create relies on multiple factors. If something feels good and you are rewarded for it, your brain will encourage you to seek out that feeling.
The same can be said of the body.
When it feels supported it will seek out the feeling to protect itself. When wearing the Dorsum™ Exospine your body is constantly reminded of proper movement and postural function. So when you take the product off, your body will “remember” to some extent those postural cues and be able to move and stabilize more properly without the product on, teaching you what better posture feels like.
From everything the Dorsum™ Exospine can do, it does the best job at reminding you to have proper posture and movement throughout an activity. It does this on what is called a positive feedback loop. It reminds you to stay within the correct posture to activate your proper muscles when lifting/moving, and maintain proper postural/ergonomic techniques so injury is less likely to occur. When you feel something encouraging you to move properly, you’ll be more likely to do it and are much more likely to avoid injury.
We are a passionate team with a mission to create better products that improve people’s health. It all started years ago when I (Leo) excitedly began work as a wildland firefighter. It was my career path and I went into training for fire suppression. The long days were hard, but on the rides back to camp we were greeted by the locals and thanked for coming in to save their towns from the burning fires. Even in such a fulfilling environment, the repetitive work of lifting equipment and carrying heavy packs took a toll on my back, to the point where resting against the sharp edges of a rock felt better than the pain. Though I found satisfaction in my work, the worry and fear of a potential back injury made me rethink firefighting as a career. I couldn’t risk a back injury.
I went to design school and took with me my experience as inspiration and started interviews with other first responders like myself. In conducting the interviews, I could feel the passion of heroic men and women for saving lives, and when I got to the hard questions, I could hear in their voices how a simple back injury crushed their dreams by preventing them from serving others. The more interviews I did, the more I saw the global problem caused by back pain. The courage of first responders to dive into danger to save a life inspired me to dive into creating my company to solve a problem for them, and that marked the beginning of prototyping a vertical flexible back support that years later would become the Dorsum™ Exospine.
After designing outdoor products and health care devices, and receiving design awards from the earlier concepts, I also kept receiving emails from first responders from all over the world telling me they wanted to go back to work and my prototype could help them.
I built a team passionate for helping others and shaped Dorsum into the company it is today, making products that will limit career-ending injuries.
We started 3D printing and looked at more ways to reduce material and size but still maintaining the right amount of support.
We made it even more flexible, stronger, and easier to use.
We conducted several rounds of fit tests to select the best design that would add the most comfort & support.
We put it to the test under intensive training exercises doing repetitive motion activities requiring fast bending, twisting, and turning of the torso and spine. Several rounds of sweat tests helped us discover the areas that needed more ventilation.
Our vision for the Dorsum™ Exospine is to bring it to market and listen to your feedback. Together we can start building a customized platform for personalized back health. By supporting us, you will help us enter manufacturing where we can work toward providing parts with different flexibility to give you options to control the comfort and support that fits your preference.
Back pain can end careers and dramatically change lives for the worse, and we want to help fix that.
We created the Dorsum™ Exospine as an answer to the many stories of career-ending back injuries we have heard and as a way of honoring and showing gratitude to the courageous first responders who participated in our tests. The Dorsum™ Exospine will have a major impact on improving people’s lives and we hope you will join us in our effort to make a difference in back health.
We have many people to thank, many people who have shared their stories of back pain, given feedback, and participated in our product testing. But most importantly, the heroic men and women first responders who risk their health for the safety of others. Your ability to respond to emergencies has truly been an inspiration in our work. And for that, we thank you.
Delivering on Time: Meeting our minimum quantity order (MOQ) in a short amount of time with the factories of both the spine and the support might be a challenge. Depending on how many units are sold in the next few months will determine how big of an order we can place with our factories. The delivery date might be pushed out if we need more time to reach the MOQs. Manufacturing at an affordable price: Depending on units sold, an alternative option is to select a factory with a less MOQ. Often times this results in a higher price per unit made and that can impact the overall price of each product.