This $1,200 exosuit can take 50 pounds off your back

**The HeroWear Apex: A Game-Changer for Workers with Back Pain**

If you're over 20 years old, chances are you've experienced a sore back at least once or twice in your life. For millions of Americans, however, back pain isn't just an occasional discomfort—it's a daily reality that can make it hard to put food on the table. Inside this box is a solution designed specifically for them: the HeroWear Apex, a textile-based, non-powered exosuit.

### The Inspiration Behind the HeroWear Apex

The idea for the Apex came about when its inventor, Carl Zelick, started experiencing his own back pain. He wondered if it was possible to develop a device that could assist with the same level of support as rigid exoskeletons but in a more practical, clothing-like manner. After spending five years perfecting the design at Vanderbilt University, where he is an assistant professor of engineering, Carl and his team created a suit that doesn't require bulky, heavy machinery or thousands of dollars in investment.

### How the Apex Works

The Apex is designed to take strain off your back during repetitive motions, such as lifting boxes in a warehouse or crouching for hours in agricultural work. Unlike other exosuits that are powered and designed to make you stronger, the Apex focuses solely on reducing back strain and preventing injuries. It consists of three main components: a backpack-like harness, sleeves that fit around your thighs, and elastic bands that connect everything together.

The suit's most notable feature is its ability to turn resistance on and off at will. When engaged, it provides support during bending or lifting, but when disengaged, it feels like an empty backpack and harness—allowing for complete freedom of movement.

### Customization and Comfort

One of the standout features of the Apex is its modularity. The fit kit includes bands and sleeves in various sizes and lengths, making it easy to customize the suit for different body types. This means businesses don't need to buy a separate suit for every employee; just a few sets of bands and sleeves are enough to accommodate everyone. Additionally, the suit is designed to be gender-neutral, further enhancing its versatility.

### Real-World Impact

To see the full benefit of the Apex, you'd need to wear it for hours on end during physically demanding tasks. Workers at Living Waters Brewing in Nashville, Tennessee, have experienced firsthand how the suit can reduce fatigue and prevent muscle strain. The brewery's owners, Thomas Becker and Ryan McKay, shared their experience: "We noticed immediately that by the end of the day, we weren't as achy as usual. It's definitely very helpful during processes like mash-in and mash-out."

### Conclusion

The HeroWear Apex is more than just a piece of clothing—it's an innovative solution to a common problem faced by millions of workers worldwide. Its combination of practical design, affordability, and customization makes it a valuable tool for industries ranging from manufacturing to agriculture. If you're interested in learning more or have thoughts on how this exosuit could impact other industries, feel free to share your comments below.

Thank you for watching, and we'll see you next time!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enif you're over 20 years old chances are you've had a sore back at least once or twice in your life well there are millions of americans that literally rely on the health of their backs to put food on the table every day well inside this box is an exo suit built just for them remember that scene from iron man 2 when the suitcase turns into tony stark's latest suit of iron man armor watch this uh yeah andy doesn't sorry it doesn't actually work that way this is the hero wear apex it's a textile-based non-powered exo suit designed to take strain off your back during repetitive motions so think activities like warehouse work where you're constantly moving boxes around or even agricultural work where you might spend most of the day in a crouched position now you've probably noticed this suit does not look quite as flashy as some of the other exosuits that we've seen those suits are built to actually help you lift heavy things they're full of electronics and motors mostly designed to more or less make you stronger not surprisingly they can cost thousands of dollars the purpose of the apex which starts at twelve hundred dollars is not to make you stronger it's specifically built to reduce strain on your back to prevent injuries here aware co-founder and inventor carl zelick says he came up with the idea for the apex when he started having his own back pain i started thinking about hey is it possible to develop a device that assists like these rigid exoskeletons but can be much more practical that can be more clothing-like carl started the project at vanderbilt university five years ago where he's an assistant professor of engineering he and his group started by talking to workers who had tried those high-end exoskeletons what we kept hearing is yes they appreciated the assistance but the devices were slowing them down they were getting in the way they were too bulky too heavy we went to our physics we started drawing models and figuring out the dynamics and we said you know mathematically you don't need a rigid structure you should be able to offload the back using these these soft elements using these elastic elements carl and his students developed a few early prototypes before reaching the design that would ultimately become the heroware apex i tried on this device and i bent forward and i could feel that there was tension in the elastic bands along my back and i told one of my students i said okay now go back in and detach them take them away and while i was still bending they removed the assistance and i immediately felt my my back muscles seize up and just that visceral uh sound of not having the assistance and it was really that moment that i said okay this this works so let's take a closer look at the apex and how it works you've got three main components the first one the main one fits like a backpack you've got this clutch on the back and the switch on the front which allows you to turn resistance on and off we're going to talk a little bit more about that later these sleeves fit around your thighs then you've got these elastic bands these connect to the clutch the sleeves and these are really what allow you to take all that pressure off your back now what they've sent me here is called a fit kit it includes bands and sleeves in different sizes and lengths and while i found my exact fit i would really only ever need one set of sleeves one set of bands a business may order something like this if they expect a lot of different people to be sharing suits the idea is to make the suit as customizable and comfortable as possible let's suit up now this is really a key feature that hear aware is really proud of the ability to turn the suit on and off at will so easily makes it so important for workers it really gives the workers the ability to keep the suit out of their way when they're not lifting and crouching okay so now we're suited up the suit is not engaged right now so i've got a lot of freedom of movement i can bend down i basically just feel like i'm wearing an empty backpack and a harness i'm going to go ahead and pick up this is uh probably about 40 or 50 pounds and i can really feel all that pressure in my back when i lift this so now i'm going to engage the suit i'm going to press this down now those bands are engaged i don't feel anything right away but as soon as i bend down i can really feel that assist in my back so i'm going to pick this up again and while it doesn't make me stronger i could really feel that pressure off my back as i lifted this now obviously this isn't a real world demonstration of the apex and what it can do to really see the full benefit you'd need to put in a four six eight hour work day of continuous movement and labor to really get that benefit that's why we talked to a couple of guys who have been using the apex for a few months now thomas becker and ryan mckay own living waters brewing in nashville tennessee when they're not serving up craft brews and coffees to thirsty customers they're doing the dirty work behind the scenes we have a lot of hoses that are heavy that have to be connected we have to bend down a lot to connect those there are kegs that have to be moved there's 55 pound grain bags that are moved around whenever we're loading grain into our hopper to actually be milled so we can start brewing you know we're shoveling basically a thousand pounds of grain in so we're having to do that whole lifting and then f as we mash out or whenever we take all the grain out we're having to basically take snow shovels and fill up trash cans and lift those trash cans to take that same thousand pounds which is now even heavier because it's soaked in water would you say that uh like by the end of the day by the end of a full work day your your body's pretty taxed oh yeah yeah yeah for sure it's uh it's pretty labor-intensive so definitely uh need some epsom salts bath or something like that after moving its office in next door to living waters last year heroware offered ryan and thomas a couple of apex suits as a test case i think we both noticed the first time we wore them uh that at the end of the day it wasn't as bad it was like oh i'm not i'm not as achy as i usually am definitely very helpful whenever i need to get down and like do some fittings or pick up something or especially during the mash-in and the mash out all those processes it's very very good yeah if you get good at remembering to engage and disengage at certain points so it's like oh yeah when you need it it's right there but if you disengage it then you can do anything pretty normally and ryan and thomas told me they do plan on eventually getting everyone in their operation fitted for the apex suit they say one of the things that's so attractive is that the suit is so modular they don't have to buy a 1200 suit for every employee they just need a few different sizes of bands and sleeves to fit everybody it's also worth noting they don't have to buy different suits for men and for women the apex is designed to fit both if you want to see a powered exosuit check out lexi's beta test but i want to know what you think about the apex what industry do you think this exosuit can have a big impact on let us know in the comments as always thank you so much for watching i'll see you next timeif you're over 20 years old chances are you've had a sore back at least once or twice in your life well there are millions of americans that literally rely on the health of their backs to put food on the table every day well inside this box is an exo suit built just for them remember that scene from iron man 2 when the suitcase turns into tony stark's latest suit of iron man armor watch this uh yeah andy doesn't sorry it doesn't actually work that way this is the hero wear apex it's a textile-based non-powered exo suit designed to take strain off your back during repetitive motions so think activities like warehouse work where you're constantly moving boxes around or even agricultural work where you might spend most of the day in a crouched position now you've probably noticed this suit does not look quite as flashy as some of the other exosuits that we've seen those suits are built to actually help you lift heavy things they're full of electronics and motors mostly designed to more or less make you stronger not surprisingly they can cost thousands of dollars the purpose of the apex which starts at twelve hundred dollars is not to make you stronger it's specifically built to reduce strain on your back to prevent injuries here aware co-founder and inventor carl zelick says he came up with the idea for the apex when he started having his own back pain i started thinking about hey is it possible to develop a device that assists like these rigid exoskeletons but can be much more practical that can be more clothing-like carl started the project at vanderbilt university five years ago where he's an assistant professor of engineering he and his group started by talking to workers who had tried those high-end exoskeletons what we kept hearing is yes they appreciated the assistance but the devices were slowing them down they were getting in the way they were too bulky too heavy we went to our physics we started drawing models and figuring out the dynamics and we said you know mathematically you don't need a rigid structure you should be able to offload the back using these these soft elements using these elastic elements carl and his students developed a few early prototypes before reaching the design that would ultimately become the heroware apex i tried on this device and i bent forward and i could feel that there was tension in the elastic bands along my back and i told one of my students i said okay now go back in and detach them take them away and while i was still bending they removed the assistance and i immediately felt my my back muscles seize up and just that visceral uh sound of not having the assistance and it was really that moment that i said okay this this works so let's take a closer look at the apex and how it works you've got three main components the first one the main one fits like a backpack you've got this clutch on the back and the switch on the front which allows you to turn resistance on and off we're going to talk a little bit more about that later these sleeves fit around your thighs then you've got these elastic bands these connect to the clutch the sleeves and these are really what allow you to take all that pressure off your back now what they've sent me here is called a fit kit it includes bands and sleeves in different sizes and lengths and while i found my exact fit i would really only ever need one set of sleeves one set of bands a business may order something like this if they expect a lot of different people to be sharing suits the idea is to make the suit as customizable and comfortable as possible let's suit up now this is really a key feature that hear aware is really proud of the ability to turn the suit on and off at will so easily makes it so important for workers it really gives the workers the ability to keep the suit out of their way when they're not lifting and crouching okay so now we're suited up the suit is not engaged right now so i've got a lot of freedom of movement i can bend down i basically just feel like i'm wearing an empty backpack and a harness i'm going to go ahead and pick up this is uh probably about 40 or 50 pounds and i can really feel all that pressure in my back when i lift this so now i'm going to engage the suit i'm going to press this down now those bands are engaged i don't feel anything right away but as soon as i bend down i can really feel that assist in my back so i'm going to pick this up again and while it doesn't make me stronger i could really feel that pressure off my back as i lifted this now obviously this isn't a real world demonstration of the apex and what it can do to really see the full benefit you'd need to put in a four six eight hour work day of continuous movement and labor to really get that benefit that's why we talked to a couple of guys who have been using the apex for a few months now thomas becker and ryan mckay own living waters brewing in nashville tennessee when they're not serving up craft brews and coffees to thirsty customers they're doing the dirty work behind the scenes we have a lot of hoses that are heavy that have to be connected we have to bend down a lot to connect those there are kegs that have to be moved there's 55 pound grain bags that are moved around whenever we're loading grain into our hopper to actually be milled so we can start brewing you know we're shoveling basically a thousand pounds of grain in so we're having to do that whole lifting and then f as we mash out or whenever we take all the grain out we're having to basically take snow shovels and fill up trash cans and lift those trash cans to take that same thousand pounds which is now even heavier because it's soaked in water would you say that uh like by the end of the day by the end of a full work day your your body's pretty taxed oh yeah yeah yeah for sure it's uh it's pretty labor-intensive so definitely uh need some epsom salts bath or something like that after moving its office in next door to living waters last year heroware offered ryan and thomas a couple of apex suits as a test case i think we both noticed the first time we wore them uh that at the end of the day it wasn't as bad it was like oh i'm not i'm not as achy as i usually am definitely very helpful whenever i need to get down and like do some fittings or pick up something or especially during the mash-in and the mash out all those processes it's very very good yeah if you get good at remembering to engage and disengage at certain points so it's like oh yeah when you need it it's right there but if you disengage it then you can do anything pretty normally and ryan and thomas told me they do plan on eventually getting everyone in their operation fitted for the apex suit they say one of the things that's so attractive is that the suit is so modular they don't have to buy a 1200 suit for every employee they just need a few different sizes of bands and sleeves to fit everybody it's also worth noting they don't have to buy different suits for men and for women the apex is designed to fit both if you want to see a powered exosuit check out lexi's beta test but i want to know what you think about the apex what industry do you think this exosuit can have a big impact on let us know in the comments as always thank you so much for watching i'll see you next time\n"