A hot/cold stackable compression system that can be used for pain relief & to promote healing
In-Covery Systems, a Prescott-based company formed less than two years ago, is thinking big when it comes to providing healing and support to people suffering from joint pain and injuries.
Its Go-PadZ products are billed as a “stackable compression system,” consisting of compression sleeves made for knees, arms and other trouble spots. They include a pocket for a gel pack that can be frozen or heated to provide both types of thermotherapy, depending on the user’s needs.
In-Covery President Jim Check, a diehard golfer and eight-year Prescott resident, came up with the idea after he’d undergone shoulder surgery and was unimpressed by the bulky sling he was given to wear for recovery.
“I live by myself. I’ve got an arm that’s disabled and I’m strapped to a big old foam pad on my arm and they say, well, put this thing on. I mean, I don’t have an arm. How am I going to put this thing on?” Check says.
“I went out that night and got some stuff. I had hook and loop technology and a glue gun and an old shirt, and I made a shirt that I could put a cold pad on. I took that to the surgeon. They went, ‘Oh my gosh, where’d you get this cool shirt?’ I told them I just made it last night.”
Check’s doctors encouraged him to pursue the idea.
He said the effect is similar to putting on a store-bought ACE bandage to support your knee, then using another one to wrap a hot or cold pad onto that knee for increased comfort. The only problem with that, he says, is that the top bandage ends up cutting off blood flow through a tourniquet-like effect.
So Check, working with his CFO and across-the-street neighbor Doug Gronna and Heather Royer, In-Covery’s vice president of design and quality control, found high-quality elastic material that didn’t collapse or bunch up, but allowed more range of movement. Multiple sleeves can be “stacked” on a leg or arm, or extended to the back or hips. Heather Royer was instrumental in designing & refining the idea until it could be applied for a patent.
The gel pads go into a neoprene pouch lined with netting that attaches to the sleeves with Velcro. The user can wear it with or without a gel pad, and use it hot or cold. The advantage compared to their competitors is that Go-Padz are instantly mobile; allowing a person to move about freely with the hot or cold pads attached.
Check said Go-PadZ have gotten rave reviews from early clients, medical professionals and the hairstylists at a local salon who agreed to be his “guinea pigs.”
The team linked up with Tony Hamer, president of Prescott-based Growth, Strategy and Innovation LLC., who has worked with the team to accelerate the business and provide manufacturing space here in Prescott. In-Covery is applying for a patent after a patent attorney could not turn up anything else like Go-PadZ out there.
The product also got the attention of John Gunby, a PGA golf pro based at Antelope Hills Golf Courses who was named to the Arizona Golf Hall of Fame late last year in recognition of his 40-plus year career. He has become the spokesman for Go-PadZ, giving demonstrations in person and in videos.
In-Covery has begun manufacturing knee and shoulder sleeves kits that are available at the Club at Prescott Lakes, Antelope Hills Golf Courses and Talking Rock Golf Club, as well as the Center for Physical Excellence and The BioMechanics, a Prescott physical therapy and sports medicine practice.
Customers go online to www.go-padz.net and buy individual sleeves or an entire stackable compression set, with prices ranging from $10 to $100.
The 2020 pandemic put the brakes on much of In-Covery’s business plan, which included setting up booths at public events and getting Go-Padz products into hospitals.
While some of the products have been made in California, Check says, the plan is to have everything done locally. “We’re going to be a Prescott-based company forever.”
Toward that end, In-Covery has recently started making its Go-Padz sleeves and pockets at the industrial park at Prescott Regional Airport.
