Built by Clinicians.
Validated by Science.
Worn by Real People.
The Orthopaedic Sleeve Society was founded with a straightforward premise: if a brace is going to make a claim about reducing injury load, it should be able to prove it. Everything we've built starts from that point.
Not a single one had a number attached to it.
We wanted to change that."
The Orthopaedic Sleeve exists because the lower limb bracing market had a measurement problem. Products claimed to support, protect, and unload — but none of them had been independently measured to show by how much. The UQ study changed that.
I spent ten years as a musculoskeletal physiotherapist working with everyday people dealing with these exact problems — Achilles pain, plantar fasciitis, shin splints, Sever's disease in their kids. Not elite athletes. Everyday people who needed to keep working, keep moving, and get back to the things that mattered to them.
Over that time I tried everything the market had. Taping worked well — but it irritated skin with daily use, and most people couldn't apply it themselves. Heel lifts and cups offered some relief but only went so far. Orthotics could change mechanics, but they couldn't address the way load was being distributed across the tissue during movement. And the braces? Some could do one useful thing. None of them could do all of it at once.
The gap was obvious. What wasn't obvious was how to fill it properly — without guessing, without just making another comfortable product with a marketing claim attached. That required Andrew's expertise, and it required independent measurement. The UQ study was the proof of concept. The Orthopaedic Sleeve is what we built around it.
My background is in the mechanical behaviour of the foot — how it moves, how load travels through its structures, and how external interventions interact with that movement. That kind of thinking sits at the intersection of biomechanics, materials, and structural engineering. It's a different lens from clinical rehabilitation, but when Cody described the gap he was seeing in practice, the engineering problem was immediately clear.
Existing braces were designed around compression and comfort. Very few were designed around the mechanics of what the tissue was actually doing under load. Cody knew what outcomes he needed to produce for his patients. My job was to figure out how to produce them structurally — and then build a product that could be manufactured, regulated, and delivered correctly.
The Orthopaedic Sleeve is the result of applying those two disciplines together: Cody's decade in rehabilitation and his understanding of tissue loading physiology, combined with a rigorous mechanical approach to foot movement and structural behaviour. We didn't set out to make a better brace. We set out to build what the existing market hadn't.
A Market Full of Claims. Zero Measurements.
Every major lower limb brace on the Australian market claimed to "support", "protect", or "reduce load" on injured structures. None of them had published a number. No percentage reduction. No p-value. No measurement protocol. The clinical community was prescribing on brand familiarity and patient feedback alone.
University of Queensland + VALD Performance
TOSS engaged the University of Queensland's School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences to conduct an independent biomechanical study using VALD's Hill-type muscle modelling framework — the same technology used in elite sport and clinical research. This wasn't a company-commissioned marketing study. It was a formal UQ study under ethics approval #2024/HE001495, with pre-registered outcomes and published methodology.
Four Independently Measured Biomechanical Effects
The study returned four independently measured findings: a 32% reduction in gastrocnemius EMG amplitude (p=0.002), an 8.1% reduction in modelled Achilles tendon force, a 5.1% reduction in heel contact time, and a 2° reduction in ankle plantarflexion angle at terminal stance (~10% reduction in end-range compression). These are the numbers the market had been missing.
ARTG Registration. Seven Conditions. One Sleeve.
The Orthopaedic Sleeve was designed around the biomechanical mechanisms identified in the UQ study — not the other way around. It was registered on the ARTG as a Class I Medical Device, meeting TGA Essential Principles for a product making therapeutic claims. The same sleeve, through four distinct mechanical pathways, addresses seven lower limb conditions.
Deeper Research. More Conditions. Better Evidence.
The UQ study is the beginning of the evidence base, not the end of it. TOSS is committed to ongoing research partnerships that generate condition-specific data, refine the prescribing rationale, and expand the clinical evidence base for lower limb bracing as a category. A dedicated clinicians page, a research partnership program, and deeper condition-level data publication are all in active development.
Evidence Before Claims
We don't make a performance claim we haven't measured. The 32% EMG reduction, the 8.1% Achilles force reduction — these came from an independent university study, not a copywriter. If we can't put a number and a p-value on it, we don't say it.
Specificity Over Comfort
Lower limb injuries are not all the same. A calf tear has a different primary mechanism than a soleus tear. Anterior ankle impingement requires a different intervention rationale than plantar fasciitis. We build condition-specific copy, condition-specific prescribing guidance, and condition-specific clinical evidence. Generic is not good enough.
Clinician-Grade Transparency
Every clinician who prescribes the Orthopaedic Sleeve should be able to see the full methodology, the ethics approval number, the exact measurement protocols, and the study outputs. The Clinicians page exists precisely for this. If a physiotherapist, podiatrist, or sports medicine physician can't defend their prescription with the data we provide, we haven't done our job.
Ethics Approval #2024/HE001495 — University of Queensland Human Research Ethics Committee. ARTG Registered Class I Medical Device.
A short introduction from Cody and Andrew — who we are, why we built this, and what we're trying to do differently.
Ready to Try the Sleeve?
Or Have Questions for Our Team?
We're a small founding team and we're reachable. If you have questions about the research, the product, or a specific clinical case — reach out.
Buy the Orthopaedic Sleeve — $180 AUD Contact Us Directly