You can check out the agenda of the Austin Peay State University Health and Performance Summit, get your ticket for the summit by clicking on the link below and select register now:

Visit the website and Register now

For sponsorship information, attendees can visit the event website or contact Dr. Tim Leszczak, Chair of the APSU Health and Human Performance Department, at Leszczakt@apsu.edu.

You can watch the video interview below or you can listen to the audio interview above:

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview located at the top of this blog post.

Here are some of the best quotes of our conversation with Spencer:

Q1. Background & Career Journey

“I clawed myself out of that hole through these principles of taking care of oneself in a holistic manner. I put effort into what I put into my body, into my mind, how I trained myself, how I slept — and that investment in those areas helped me claw out of that space.”

“As I read that historical document — Field Manual 7-22 — I realized that the program the US Army was trying to implement, essentially I had done in my own private practice in industry and academics for the better part of a decade.”

“The mission and vision of Garmin is they exist to help people beat yesterday. And that simple sentence aligns with my entire life’s work. Hands down.”

“When I came back in at the US Army, my sole goal was to give. Give whatever I could to the institution.”

Q2. Role at Garmin Health

“My role is part relationship building, part strategic vision and direction for the organization, and part translating science into real world application for different opportunities.”

“Across a week, I can work with military organizations, researchers, tactical professionals, strength and conditioning coaches, and also healthcare providers to help them understand what problems they’re actually trying to solve, what questions they’re trying to answer, and what interventions they can make based off those data points.”

Q3. Training, Recovery & Rehabilitation

“I see the biggest change in the space going from reactive decision-making to proactive.”

“The best organizations are finding which metrics — and I’m gonna say just a couple, not all of them — they zoom in on a couple metrics that they find have the strongest correlation or causation to their genre of people or population, and they focus on those.”

“Context matters. When organizations start to understand that all this data matters, but then having the individual of whose data you’re taking provide the context of what goes on the 23 hours outside of training — that’s where the magic happens.”

“With heart rate variability, there’s a lot of folks that haven’t dove into what that means over time, and they’re looking at it in a very acute sense. In reality, you need to look at the trend and then also the variation over time as the two most important variables.”

Q4. Innovation & Future Trends

“In the next three to five years I see a ton happening around individualized and contextualized decision support — the use of AI, or language models, to provide that contextualized specific intervention for the individual.”

“I think we already have more data than we need. It’s about creating a better interpretation or educating folks on how to interpret that data. Right now with the amount that we have, I would say it’s a lot of noise. So how do we create a strong signal versus so much noise with data?”

“I see a merger of many different tools that build a larger ecosystem. Wearables are absolutely an amazing tool, but they’re not the only tool for organizations to be able to implement change.”

“Imagine if you go to your doctor and he pulls up your data and says, ‘Actually, you’re moving 30% less than last year. You’re sleeping 15% less. I would say you’re not doing great.’ That’s being able to zoom out and look at some of those larger things — looking at health in a longitudinal way instead of just snapshots.”

Q5. Health & Performance Summit at Austin Peay State University

“My first goal anytime I speak is to give practical application for everybody that’s there. How to actually apply what they’ve heard is generally the gap.”

“The athlete narrative is what got human performance optimization off the ground within the United States military. But that narrative is not gonna be what’s gonna take us to the next level. It got us off the ground, but it’s not what war fighting is.”

“When you look at what a war fighter is asked to do — in the face of imminent death — it is nowhere close to what an athlete does on a field. Not only is it a higher stress environment, there are different skills required, a different cognitive approach.”

“I’m going to show what from the athlete preparatory approach has worked and will continue to work — and what will now fail us as we’ve gotten the momentum we need with these programs. We no longer need to build leader engagement around it; now we need to fund these programs, operationalize them, and focus actually on the war fighter.”

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Participants:

• Dr. Tim Leszczak is the Department Chair and Professor in the Department of Health and Human Performance at Austin Peay State University.

• Dr Bill Burgos is an adjunct professor at Austin Peay State university. He is also an experienced NBA Strength & Conditioning coach. He has worked for many NBA teams (Orlando Magic, NY Knicks, Timberwolves..). He also worked in the MiLB with the Pittsburgh pirates. He is also the CEO of LONU a next generation AI based nutrition platform.

You can check out the agenda of the Austin Peay State University Health and Performance Summit, get your ticket for the summit by clicking on the link below and select register now:

Visit the website and Register now

For sponsorship information, attendees can visit the event website or contact Dr. Tim Leszczak, Chair of the APSU Health and Human Performance Department, at Leszczakt@apsu.edu.

You can watch the video interview below or you can listen to the audio interview above:

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview located at the top of this blog post.

Here are some of the best quotes of our conversation with Tim and Bill:

Q1. To start, can each of you briefly share your background in sports and what led you to become involved with this summit?

Dr. Bill Burgos

“My career started at Austin Peay as a student athletic trainer, which exposed me to sports medicine and eventually strength and conditioning. That path led me from professional baseball to the NBA, where I spent more than a decade as a head strength coach. While my background is heavily rooted in basketball, I see myself as a human performance coach working with athletes across all sports. One of the experiences that had the greatest impact on my career was attending a summit, where I met a strength coach who helped open the door to my next opportunity. That experience showed me the value of networking and professional development, and it’s one of the reasons I wanted to help create this summit.”

Dr. Tim Leszczak

“My path into sports performance was somewhat unconventional. I originally studied accounting, but I eventually found my passion in fitness, wellness, and campus recreation while working at the University of Arkansas. I’ve always been interested in exercise, training, and nutrition, and that passion evolved into a deeper interest in human performance. Today, I teach foundational concepts related to sport performance and movement science at Austin Peay, helping prepare the next generation of professionals in the field.”

Q2. What inspired the creation of this summit, and what are the key goals you’re hoping to achieve for attendees?

Dr. Bill Burgos

“The summit was inspired by both my own career journey and a gap I noticed between what students learn in college and what they encounter in the workforce. While Austin Peay does an excellent job preparing students academically, I realized that many students still needed opportunities to connect with employers, understand emerging trends, and see how performance concepts are applied in the real world. Through this summit, we want to expose students and professionals to current innovations, create meaningful networking opportunities, strengthen relationships with Fort Campbell and the military community, and ultimately help attendees better understand what’s possible in their careers. More than anything, we want to make a lasting impact on students’ lives and professional development.”

Dr. Tim Leszczak

“The idea for the summit began with a desire to strengthen the connection between Austin Peay State University and Fort Campbell while creating a meaningful educational experience for a broad range of professionals. Our goal is to bring together strength and conditioning coaches, athletic trainers, physical therapists, coaches, military personnel, and students for a collaborative learning experience. We wanted to build a summit that covers the full spectrum of human performance—from mental performance and recovery to physical preparation and Olympic lifting—while providing practical information that attendees can immediately apply in their own environments.”

Q3. Can you walk us through the agenda and highlight some of the sessions, speakers, or topics that you’re most excited about?

Dr. Bill Burgos

“What excites me most about this year’s lineup is that every speaker brings a unique perspective while contributing to the broader theme of human performance. The summit blends expertise from professional sports, collegiate athletics, sports medicine, and the military, showing how these disciplines intersect and learn from one another. I’m especially excited about speakers like Dr Andy Barr, Ryan Metzger, Paul Robbins, and Sergeant Spencer Posey because each offers practical insights that can directly impact coaching, injury prevention, performance, and leadership. These are professionals I’ve learned from throughout my career, and bringing them to Austin Peay creates an incredible opportunity for attendees to gain knowledge that is both current and immediately applicable.”

Dr. Tim Leszczak

“We’ve put together what I believe is a very well-rounded and robust agenda. The day begins with Chris Dunaway of the Los Angeles Dodgers discussing innovation in performance and the importance of tailoring solutions to individual athletes rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach. From there, attendees will learn about injury prevention, recovery science, Olympic weightlifting instruction, military performance, and mental performance strategies. Personally, I’m particularly interested in the Olympic lifting and mental performance sessions because they align closely with areas where I want to continue growing professionally. Overall, the agenda was intentionally designed to provide diverse perspectives across the entire performance spectrum.”

Q4. Who is this summit designed for, and why should coaches, practitioners, students, executives, and other professionals consider attending?

Dr. Bill Burgos

“This summit is for anyone who wants to continue learning and improving, whether they’re in their first year of practice or their twentieth. Coaches, athletic trainers, sports scientists, physicians, military professionals, and students will all find value because they’ll be exposed to experts from multiple disciplines working toward the same goal: improving human performance. Throughout my career, I’ve learned that the best practitioners are constantly seeking knowledge outside their own specialty. This summit helps attendees understand how different professionals collaborate, communicate, and contribute to athlete and tactical performance, making it valuable regardless of one’s specific role.”

Dr. Tim Leszczak

“Our target audience includes strength and conditioning coaches, athletic trainers, physical therapists, coaches, students, ROTC cadets, and other professionals interested in performance and wellness. We designed the summit to be broad enough that people from different backgrounds can benefit while still being focused on practical performance topics. Whether someone is trying to expand their network, learn about new trends in the field, improve their coaching skills, or simply gain exposure to new ideas, there will be valuable takeaways throughout the day.”

Q5. There are many conferences and events in the sports industry today. What makes this summit at Austin Peay State University different, and what unique experience or value will attendees take away?

Dr. Bill Burgos

“What makes this summit unique is the combination of collegiate athletics, professional sports, and military performance all under one roof. That’s a blend you don’t often find at other events. Austin Peay’s proximity to Fort Campbell creates a natural connection between these worlds, and we’ve assembled speakers who represent some of the best expertise across those domains. The result is a highly collaborative environment where attendees can learn not only from experts in their own field, but also from professionals whose experiences may challenge their thinking and broaden their perspective on performance.”

Dr. Tim Leszczak

“Unlike many large conferences that feature hundreds of presentations spread across multiple days, our summit is intentionally smaller, more focused, and highly interactive. Everyone will be learning together in the same room, creating a shared experience and stronger opportunities for networking and discussion. Most importantly, we’ve asked our speakers to provide practical strategies that attendees can immediately take back and implement the very next day. Our goal is not simply to inspire people, but to equip them with actionable tools they can use right away in their professional practice.”

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As we announced last week, Austin Peay State University will host its inaugural Health and Performance Summit on Saturday, October 17, 2026, bringing together approximately 100 professionals from the tactical, clinical, collegiate, and private-sector performance industries for a full day focused on strength, resilience, recovery, and human performance innovation.

You can check out the agenda of the Austin Peay State University Health and Performance Summit, get your ticket for the summit by clicking on the link below and select register now:

Visit the website and Register now

Event Details

• Date: Saturday, October 17, 2026

• Location: APSU Health Professions Building, Clarksville, Tennessee

• Hosted By: APSU Department of Health and Human Performance

• Audience Size: Approximately 100 industry professionals

• Focus Areas: Strength, resilience, recovery, tactical performance, wellness, rehabilitation, and sports medicine

Featured Speakers

This week we are delighted to announced a new speaker at the 2026 Austin Peay State University Health and Performance Summit We have more speakers to be announced. This week’s new speaker is Dr Bill Burgos, an experienced NBA S&C Coach and Adjunct Professor at Austin Peay State University.

New speaker:

• Dr Bill Burgos an experienced NBA Strength & Conditioning coach. He has worked for many NBA teams (Orlando Magic, NY Knicks, Timberwolves..). He also worked in the MiLB with the Pittsburgh pirates. He is also an adjunct professor at Austin Peay State university. He is also the CEO of LONU a next generation AI based nutrition platform.

Agenda

Expected Audience

Attendees are expected to include:

• Gym owners

• Athletic trainers

• Strength and conditioning coaches

• Clinicians and rehabilitation professionals

• Collegiate performance staff

• Tactical performance professionals

• Military personnel connected to the U.S. Army’s Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) initiatives at Fort Campbell

Why Attend

The summit is designed for professionals looking to stay at the forefront of health, performance, recovery, and human optimization.

Attendees will have the opportunity to:

• Learn from nationally recognized speakers and industry experts

• Explore emerging trends in tactical and athletic performance

• Network directly with practitioners, clinicians, coaches, and military professionals

• Gain practical insights that can be applied immediately within training, rehabilitation, wellness, and performance settings

• Build relationships with decision-makers across collegiate, tactical, clinical, and private-sector organizations

• Connect with professionals shaping the future of human performance innovation

The event’s intimate format is intentionally designed to encourage meaningful conversations, collaboration, and high-quality networking opportunities rather than large-scale convention-style interactions.

Why Vendors and Sponsors Should Participate

The summit provides vendors and sponsors with direct access to a highly targeted and influential audience actively involved in purchasing decisions across the health and performance industry.

Sponsors will benefit from:

• Face-to-face engagement with professionals in fitness, rehabilitation, tactical performance, and sports medicine

• Exposure to decision-makers from collegiate programs, private facilities, and military performance initiatives

• Opportunities to showcase products, services, and technologies in a focused professional environment

• Brand visibility within the rapidly growing Clarksville market and greater Nashville region

• Access to military-connected professionals affiliated with the U.S. Army’s H2F initiatives at Fort Campbell

• The ability to build long-term relationships with practitioners and organizations shaping the future of performance and wellness

Because the summit audience is highly specialized and professionally engaged, sponsors can expect more meaningful interactions and stronger relationship-building opportunities than at broader consumer-focused events.

Why the Summit Matters

The summit is designed to create meaningful networking and business development opportunities between:

• Industry leaders

• Practitioners

• Decision-makers

• Sponsors

• Emerging health and performance innovators

With nationally recognized speakers and a highly targeted audience, sponsors will have direct access to professionals who influence purchasing decisions across:

• Fitness

• Tactical performance

• Rehabilitation

• Wellness

• Sports medicine

The event’s location also provides access to both the rapidly growing Clarksville market and the greater Nashville region.

For sponsorship information, attendees can visit the event website or contact Dr. Tim Leszczak, Chair of the APSU Health and Human Performance Department, at Leszczakt@apsu.edu.

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Participants:

• Raphaël Ravet, Chief Commercial Officer, Myocene, a leading Belgian based sports tech company.

• João Ribeiro, Head of performance, SC Braga (Primeira Liga).

As a reminder, Myocene is a Belgium based sports technology company revolutionizing how muscle fatigue is measured and managed. Recognizing the need for objective and precise monitoring in athletic performance, Myocene has developed an innovative device that combines a sensor, stimulator, and proprietary algorithm to assess the loss of force and speed linked to muscle fatigue. In just two minutes, the device generates a comprehensive muscle fatigue index, offering clear insights into an athlete’s readiness, recovery, and overall physical condition.

By providing objective, data-driven feedback, Myocene empowers teams and coaches to make smarter decisions about training and recovery. Myocene helps identify muscular imbalances, optimize performance, and reduce the risk of overtraining. Trusted by leading sports organizations Myocene is setting a new standard in performance monitoring and athletic recovery.

João Ribeiro is a leading performance and sports science professional currently serving as Head of Performance for S.C. Braga in Portugal’s Primeira Liga. With a background in exercise physiology, high-performance training, and sports science research, Ribeiro has played a key role in optimizing athlete performance within one of Portugal’s top football clubs. He holds a PhD in Sports Sciences from the University of Porto and has combined elite applied practice with academia through lecturing and research in human performance, monitoring, and rehabilitation. Recognized for integrating data, sports science, and performance innovation into professional football, Ribeiro is widely respected for his expertise in athlete development, recovery, and performance optimization.

Picture: João Ribeiro (SC Braga)

You can watch the video interview below or you can listen to the audio interview above:

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we discussed the following topics:

Q1. Current Practices

• How do you currently define and measure muscle fatigue in your environment, and how consistent is that definition across your staff?

  What are the primary tools or modalities you rely on today—and which have proven most actionable?

Q2. Decision-Making & Application

• Can you walk through how fatigue data actually influences day-to-day decisions like training load, recovery protocols, or return-to-play?

Q3. Challenges & Limitations

• Where do you see the biggest gaps or limitations in current fatigue monitoring—whether that’s accuracy, cost, athlete compliance, or interpretation?

Q4. Individualization vs. Standardization

How do you balance individualized fatigue profiles for each athlete with the need for scalable systems across an entire team?

Q5. Future Outlook

• Looking ahead 3–5 years, what do you think will fundamentally change in how we monitor and manage muscle fatigue—especially with advances in technology and data integration?

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview located at the top of this blog post.

Here are some of the best quotes of our conversation with João and Raphaël:

Q1. Current Practices

João Ribeiro:

“We face muscle fatigue as a multidimensional approach — neuromuscular, perceptual, performance decay. We cannot oversimplify the way we measure it. So we use objective data and subjective data — for external load we use GPS systems, and for internal load we use biochemical markers like CK, as well as subjective markers from wellness questionnaires.”

“We’re not measuring muscle fatigue itself, we are inferring about muscle fatigue. Imagine a player is doing more than he’s used to — we can assume he may be facing some fatigue. But we are always inferring, not measuring it directly. That’s why we also use Myocene and maximum voluntary contraction tests to get more objective measures of muscle status.”

Raphaël Ravet:

“The proper method to assess peripheral fatigue is by measuring this loss of force. The Myocene technology uses a combination of a force sensor, a specific neurostimulator, and an algorithm to calculate an index. When an athlete is in a rested state, the muscle produces a force and the system computes an index.”

“When there is muscle fatigue, the muscle responds less to a given stimulation — in this case produced by the neurostimulator of the Myocene system — and therefore the index drops. We have here a specific marker of a key aspect of performance, which is muscle fatigue, and we also address something which other methods cannot: objectivity.”

Q2. Decision-Making & Application

João Ribeiro:

“We make adjustments based on that data. The player maybe cannot train at all — he’s completely out of training according to the data we have from fatigue. Or, the most common scenario, is to adapt partially the training session — he can be present in some exercises and be out for the most demanding ones.”

“We also use this data to adapt recovery strategies. If a player is too fatigued, we promote the continuity of recovery modalities, or we adapt the recovery training session itself. If players tell us they are too fatigued, our day off can even be anticipated or changed according to that — especially if the fatigue is most demanding in a mental term.”

Raphaël Ravet:

“It’s not just about completing GPS metrics or data output. Athletes need to be able to recover, resist fatigue, and sustain repeated training in order to make sure they’re truly ready to reincorporate the team. A tool like Myocene can bring that — is the athlete able to sustain and repeat that load? That’s what really matters for return to play.”

Q3. Challenges & Limitations

João Ribeiro:

“There is no gold standard — fatigue is complex, and I think that is the biggest gap. We need to use a variety of tools, which is very, very difficult. Another issue is the data noise we obtain from these measurements”.

“The overload of data is sometimes contradictory — but it’s part of the process. If fatigue is complex, we need to analyze all the data. But this interpretation, I think, is the hardest part. And in some tests, we need athlete compliance, and that really impacts the measurements.”

Raphaël Ravet:

“Thanks to the Myocene system, the player is not involved in the measurement — which gives very actionable data, because you can take a decision right away based on that. On one side we use a specific and validated method to assess fatigue, well-described in the scientific literature. And on the other side, the player is not involved, which removes the compliance issue entirely.”

“We address a key limitation of other methods: objectivity. We don’t need the player to be compliant, and we have a baseline to compare against — which is very, very valuable. That’s something João himself has confirmed he values from the Myocene system.”

Q4. Individualization vs. Standardization

João Ribeiro:

“What we do is use the same system for everyone — the protocol is standardized. But the interpretation is individualized — it’s completely different depending on each player, his profile, his responsibility in the team. Some players can cope with high levels of fatigue, even while playing, and that’s why we need to know very well the profile of the player and the way he copes with these kinds of demands.”

“There are different responses to the same load. For instance, if a player is a midfielder and he’s 80% recovered, maybe he can cope a little with the next game. But if he’s a winger and he’s only 80% recovered, maybe we don’t want to risk it — because he will be doing a lot of high intensity running in the game. So the position and profile really matter in the interpretation.”

Raphaël Ravet:

“The common point for all players is that they need to be ready on game day. They may have different capacities to resist fatigue — some fatigue more because they play more, play less, or occupy more demanding positions. But what you want to know is: is my athlete ready to either train hard, resume a new micro cycle, or play on game day?”

“You can really put a figure on fatigue — you know if they are 100% ready, 90% ready, or 65% ready, and you know the gap. This is the real interest of a method like Myocene: you can quantify fatigue and know exactly what the athlete still needs to recover in order to be ready on game day.”

Q5. Future Outlook

João Ribeiro:

“We need more tools like this. We need to assess this internal load in the muscles and joints — we don’t have many tools for that right now. We have Myocene measuring muscle fatigue, but we need more technology that can be integrated directly into training sessions to really measure this internal load in real time. We have no device for that right now, only Myocene, but used before or after training sessions.”

“Another thing is the integration of data. AI is here, so it will help us for sure. Machine learning models and the integration of different sources of measurements will for sure help us in the near future. I believe in that strongly.”

Raphaël Ravet:

“We’ve moved a very well-known technology method used in labs for more than four decades to assess peripheral fatigue — or specific low frequency fatigue related to calcium release impairment — and we’ve moved this technology to real life. We’ve learned a lot in the last five years, and we’re going to continue to learn even more as we have more users, more feedback, more publications, and more protocols from each team using it.”

“There is a blind spot in athlete monitoring. The industry has been very focused on measuring external load — GPS, force plates — the body is very well monitored. But the new era, the room for improvement, is on the internal load side. For a given load, the physiological impact is different for every player. We’re just at the beginning of potentially a new era where internal load and objective markers are going to shape the future of sport performance.”

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As we announced last week, Austin Peay State University will host its inaugural Health and Performance Summit on Saturday, October 17, 2026, bringing together approximately 100 professionals from the tactical, clinical, collegiate, and private-sector performance industries for a full day focused on strength, resilience, recovery, and human performance innovation.

You can check out the agenda of the Austin Peay State University Health and Performance Summit, get your ticket for the summit by clicking on the link below and select register now:

Visit the website and Register now

Event Details

• Date: Saturday, October 17, 2026

• Location: APSU Health Professions Building, Clarksville, Tennessee

• Hosted By: APSU Department of Health and Human Performance

• Audience Size: Approximately 100 industry professionals

• Focus Areas: Strength, resilience, recovery, tactical performance, wellness, rehabilitation, and sports medicine

Featured Speakers

This week we are delighted to announced a new speaker at the 2026 Austin Peay State University Health and Performance Summit We have more speakers to be announced. This week’s new speaker is Sgt Spencer Posey, the Military & Human Performance Lead for Garmin Health. Spencer will be speaking on the session about synergies between athletic excellence and military preparedness.

New speaker:

• Sgt Spencer Posey is a published and certified health and human performance leader with more than 15 years of experience across military, healthcare, academic, and private-sector performance settings. He currently serves as Military & Human Performance Lead for Garmin Health, where he supports wearable analytics, readiness metrics, and data-driven performance strategies for military and tactical populations. His previous work includes serving as an Advanced Health Scientist and Lead Scientist in Human Performance with Booz Allen Hamilton and as a Holistic Health and Fitness Director in the U.S. Army. Posey is also the Founder and CEO of Denali Fitness and Nutrition and has presented nationally on human performance, resilience, readiness, and health optimization.

Agenda

Expected Audience

Attendees are expected to include:

• Gym owners

• Athletic trainers

• Strength and conditioning coaches

• Clinicians and rehabilitation professionals

• Collegiate performance staff

• Tactical performance professionals

• Military personnel connected to the U.S. Army’s Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) initiatives at Fort Campbell

Why Attend

The summit is designed for professionals looking to stay at the forefront of health, performance, recovery, and human optimization.

Attendees will have the opportunity to:

• Learn from nationally recognized speakers and industry experts

• Explore emerging trends in tactical and athletic performance

• Network directly with practitioners, clinicians, coaches, and military professionals

• Gain practical insights that can be applied immediately within training, rehabilitation, wellness, and performance settings

• Build relationships with decision-makers across collegiate, tactical, clinical, and private-sector organizations

• Connect with professionals shaping the future of human performance innovation

The event’s intimate format is intentionally designed to encourage meaningful conversations, collaboration, and high-quality networking opportunities rather than large-scale convention-style interactions.

Why Vendors and Sponsors Should Participate

The summit provides vendors and sponsors with direct access to a highly targeted and influential audience actively involved in purchasing decisions across the health and performance industry.

Sponsors will benefit from:

• Face-to-face engagement with professionals in fitness, rehabilitation, tactical performance, and sports medicine

• Exposure to decision-makers from collegiate programs, private facilities, and military performance initiatives

• Opportunities to showcase products, services, and technologies in a focused professional environment

• Brand visibility within the rapidly growing Clarksville market and greater Nashville region

• Access to military-connected professionals affiliated with the U.S. Army’s H2F initiatives at Fort Campbell

• The ability to build long-term relationships with practitioners and organizations shaping the future of performance and wellness

Because the summit audience is highly specialized and professionally engaged, sponsors can expect more meaningful interactions and stronger relationship-building opportunities than at broader consumer-focused events.

Why the Summit Matters

The summit is designed to create meaningful networking and business development opportunities between:

• Industry leaders

• Practitioners

• Decision-makers

• Sponsors

• Emerging health and performance innovators

With nationally recognized speakers and a highly targeted audience, sponsors will have direct access to professionals who influence purchasing decisions across:

• Fitness

• Tactical performance

• Rehabilitation

• Wellness

• Sports medicine

The event’s location also provides access to both the rapidly growing Clarksville market and the greater Nashville region.

For sponsorship information, attendees can visit the event website or contact Dr. Tim Leszczak, Chair of the APSU Health and Human Performance Department, at Leszczakt@apsu.edu.

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You can watch the video interview below or you can listen to the audio interview above:

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on:

• The NFL draft recap, new NFL Schedule. Aaron Rodgers’ new contract with the to Pittsburgh Steelers,

• NBA draft & playoffs,

• College athletics 5 plus 5, MBB/College FB,

• NHL playoffs,

• LIV updates,

• MLS season, 2026 World Cup,

• MLB season

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview with Ron located at the top of this blog post.

Here are some of the best quotes of our conversation with Ron:

1. NFL Draft recap, new NFL schedule, Aaron Rodgers to Pittsburgh

“Pittsburgh really shined in the NFL draft. The weather was tremendous on Thursday, Friday a little bit of rain. I took my daughter on Saturday afternoon. They’ve become the model. Every city that hosts — and next year it’s going to be in Washington DC — I believe Washington will shatter the record that was set recently by Pittsburgh, beating Detroit from two years ago because of their location. People will train down from New England, New York, Philly, Baltimore, and up from Atlanta and Florida to go to this event. It was a very, very cool event. Pittsburgh pulled it off and it was great. To see 700,000 additional people in the city was overwhelming.”

“The Steelers, Aaron Rodgers signed a one-year deal more than twice what he made last year — 22 million for this one year with an accelerator that could get him to 25 million. Some people are talking about this now while organized team activities are taking place. For the first time ever it seems like the growth here is going to be in brand-new countries that have never hosted an NFL regular season game. Melbourne is going to have a game, Rio in Brazil, and Paris, France — the Steelers are going to play there.”

“The NFL has, of the 32 teams, assigned countries to certain teams. For example, the Cowboys’ only country they’re assigned to is Mexico. The Pittsburgh Steelers are assigned to Germany, Ireland, and Mexico. They’re trying to get those countries excited about and supporting those teams, so what better way than to go there and play a game? That’s where this seems like the growth is, and that was very apparent on day three of the draft.”

“Boy, it seems like the NFL loves them some Eagles. The Eagles are playing on Thanksgiving in Dallas, they’re hosting on Christmas Eve, and they’re on a lot of the radar for national games, as are the Steelers. So it’s going to be a great football year and it’s pretty exciting.”

2. NBA Draft and NBA Playoffs

“The NBA Draft Lottery took place. It looks like Washington got the first pick, Utah second, Memphis third, Chicago fourth. In no particular order, I don’t think it’s clear-cut who’s one, two, three, and four in the draft. The players are AJ from BYU, Peterson from Kansas, Boozer from Duke — of course his dad played in the NBA and was an All-Star — and Caleb Wilson from UNC Chapel Hill. They are considered to be without a clear top four. You could argue what order, and it should be interesting what Washington does. There’s a little bit of drop-off from five and down.”

“Spurs versus OKC. This is what we’ve all wanted. This is one versus two. This is going to be an awesome series. Those two teams are going to be around for a long time because they are both so young.”

“The Knicks could get to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999 with Patrick Ewing. So that’s pretty exciting in the NBA. I think OKC versus the Knicks, and OKC wins back-to-back titles.”

3. College athletics: 5 plus 5, college basketball, college football

“Brand new rule, it’s called five plus five. When you graduate high school — or when you turn 19 — you have five years you can play. They’re trying to rush this through with the NCAA and all the big conferences. There are players that are playing that are 26 or 27 years old, getting an eighth or ninth year. This is insanity, right? Let’s streamline this, let’s make it incredibly simple so everybody understands.”

“If you get injured, you don’t get that year back. You have to do it in five years. So that would cap everybody out at roughly 23 or 24 years old. The only exemptions would be pregnancy, military, and religious missions. It all kind of makes sense because we’ve got guys going in that are on second marriages, they’ve got child support, alimony — and it’s like, how do you play college sports when you’re 26 or 27 years old?”

“This will give freshmen more of an opportunity because they’re really missing out on opportunities coming out of high school. You can leave any time you want to go play professionally, but you can’t play any time past those five years. Simple as could be.”

“Ohio State, $50 million is what they’re going to pay. They have a budget of roughly $50 million. That’s above and beyond NIL — just here’s our budget for our athletic department, we’re spending $50 million this year on our football team. If you’re not going to spend 50, and you’re in the SEC or Big Ten, then can you compete with a $50 million payroll?”

“They really want to push through 24 teams in the college football tournament, up from 12. And in 2027, March Madness is going to go from 68 teams to 78. Ten additional teams will get in. But now you may see teams with three losses making the football playoff. I don’t know if that’s a good idea, but they’re going to give more opportunities to teams.”

4. NHL Playoffs

“We’ve got a Game 7 coming up, Buffalo versus Montreal. The winner takes on the Carolina Hurricanes. Then you’ve got a tremendous Colorado Avalanche team that is going to play the Golden Knights of Vegas, and the winners of those series will go to the Stanley Cup Finals.”

“No more Tampa Bay Lightning, no more Florida Panthers. They’ve won quite a few recently. Back to back, yes. So now we’re seeing a bit of a changing of the guard.”

5. LIV Golf updates

“They are on life support. They lost $6 billion in their 54-round type format. Five guys in particular want to come home and play in the PGA — Jon Rahm, Bryson, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, and Cameron Smith all saying, ‘Can we come back and play for the PGA?’”

“I believe they will take them back. I think it’s happening already. It’s forgive and forget, and probably we’ll just pretend like it never happened that they left the PGA. But for all practical purposes, LIV is dead.”

6. MLS season and World Cup ticket prices

“The MLS is going to be on a little break because the World Cup is starting on June 11. There are going to be 11 US cities hosting the World Cup. There’s been controversy about the prices going through the roof, and now it looks like the prices are finally coming down a little bit.”

“With food prices, gas prices, cost of living — for them to try to demand $5,000 a ticket or $10,000 a ticket, it’s obscene. It feels predatory, and people just won’t buy it. It’s not an inelastic product. It’s elastic. The rubber band will only stretch so far, then I just won’t go.”

“There have been lawsuits and people trying to figure out why the prices of the tickets are so high. It is very difficult, even with electronic tickets, to control the secondary market once you decide you want to go down that road. Some have argued it’s impossible to control the secondary market. But it’s something they better figure out really fast because this thing’s jumping on us June 11th.”

“They’ve got high-end facilities, they’re ready to do it, and this is probably a once-in-a-lifetime type of situation for a lot of people. I think we’re going to do a really nice job hosting it in the United States.”

7. MLB season

“We are roughly a third of the way through and a couple things jump out at you. The Rays in Tampa, their building’s been fixed after the hurricane, they’re playing there, and they have 30 wins already. That’s number one in the AL East. The Yankees are number two.”

“We had rivalry weekend, which I found very interesting. The Mets play the Yankees, the Phillies play the Pirates, Rangers and Astros — it made a lot of sense and sparked interest around the league.”

“In the Central we’ve got two teams over .500. How about the Sacramento Athletics, number one in the AL West right now. The Braves have the most wins in baseball. The Phillies got off to a horrific start, fired their manager, hired Don Mattingly, and they’ve gone on a run since then.”

“The Cubs look really good in the Central. Everybody in the NL Central is over .500. The West, it’s all Dodgers. Padres looking really good too.”

“There’s a number of brand-new Japanese players that are doing very well this year for the first time. We’re going to see more and more players coming in from the Nippon League in Japan to become stars in MLB.”

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This week our guest writer is Jordan Stewart-Mackie, a high-performance Scientist and PhD researcher with expertise in wearable technology integration and performance intelligence systems across elite football (Leicester City FC, West Bromwich), basketball (NBA), rugby, swimming, and academy environments.

Picture: Jordan Stewart-Mackie

The Trust Architecture in Performance Innovation

Sport Tech ROI Lives or Dies in the “Decision Window”

By Jordan Stewart-Mackie MSc, CSci, PhD Researcher

In the quiet hours before a game, or in the compressed minutes after a session, there is a decisive exchange between coach and athlete. It is shaped by intuition. Refined by experience. And increasingly mediated by a screen. But here is the non-negotiable truth: if the data on that screen does not command immediate trust, it does not exist.

As an industry, we have mastered measurement. We are failing intervention. We are not short of data. We are short of decisions.

What we are building, at scale, are “Data Graveyards”: repositories of highly accurate, poorly timed, and ultimately unused information. The shift required is simple but not easy: from accuracy to Contextual Intelligence. From outputs to decisions. From data systems to trust systems.

The Human Cost of Noise

Data fatigue and data latency are not technical problems. They are system design failures.

When an athlete inputs daily wellness data and sees no change in their environment, engagement does not dip. It dissolves. When a practitioner spends 60 minutes cleaning data to extract one insight, they are not data-driven. They are operating inside friction.

At the highest level, the cost is not inefficiency. It is a misinterpretation. The inability to distinguish between one fatigue state and another is not a small error. It is the difference between adaptation and injury.

If your technology cannot provide that distinction within the “Decision Window”, the time between session completion and the next prescription, you have not built a performance tool. You have built a digital autopsy.

The Decision Window Is the Constraint

The Decision Decay Curve (Figure 1) defines the constraint. Data utility peaks within the first 15 to 30 minutes post-session, the Golden Hour, where insight becomes intervention. From that point, value erodes. At 60 minutes, the window closes. The athlete has left. The plan is set. By two hours, information is retrospective only. Beyond that, your data enters the Data Graveyard, where it carries no decision impact.

Figure 1 is not a visual. It is a system test. Where does your output land in time? The further right of the Decision Window it falls, the sharper the decline in decision impact. Data still holds value, but its potency to influence the next training block diminishes with every hour of latency.

A critical caveat: this curve describes real-time decision utility, not the value of data itself. Aggregating data over weeks, months, and seasons remains essential for identifying long-term trends, understanding cause-and-effect relationships, and building the evidence base that informs future decision thresholds. The curve does not argue against big data. It argues against confusing retrospective analytics with real-time intervention. Both matter. They serve different purposes.

Figure 1: The Decision Decay Curve — a system test. Where does your product’s output land?

Mapping the Landscape: Where Does Your Product Sit?

Not all sports technology fails equally. The Sport Tech Landscape (Figure 2) separates solutions not by innovation but by decision impact under pressure.

Tier 1 — Contextual Intelligence. Delivered in minutes. Filtered. Actionable. Drives behaviour inside the Decision Window.

Tier 2 — Reporting Loop. Valuable insight, delivered too late. Latency kills impact.

Tier 3 — Baseline Monitoring. Low friction, low consequence. Necessary, not differentiating.

Tier 4 — Data Graveyard. Continuous monitoring without action pathways. Trust erodes, adoption collapses.

Figure 2 is a positioning tool. Tier 2: reduce latency. Tier 4: rebuild feedback loops. Tier 1: protect speed and clarity. Only Tier 1 operates where performance intelligence actually happens.

Figure 2: The Sport Tech Landscape — a positioning tool. Plot your solution. Identify your engineering priority.

The Blind Spot: Reporting ≠ Value

The most persistent fallacy in sport tech: more data equals more value. In high-performance environments, the opposite is true:

• Clarity beats Complexity.

• Timing beats Volume.

• Relevance beats Resolution.

There is a deeper discipline beneath these principles: decision quality is bounded by data quality. If the underlying measurement carries unacceptable error, or if the same metric means something different across two systems, then speed and clarity only accelerate a flawed conclusion. Every performance department must define its internal tolerance for measurement error and understand how meaning shifts between technologies. This is not a technical exercise. It is a strategic one. Without that foundation, even Tier 1 delivery produces Tier 4 outcomes.

The same principle applies to product teams: a unified system is the way forward, not one exceptional technology that cannot integrate with the wider purpose. The performance departments that generate the greatest return are not those with the best individual tools. They are those where every tool speaks the same language, feeds the same decision architecture, and operates within agreed tolerances. If your product exists in isolation, its accuracy is irrelevant. Integration is the multiplier.

The real shift: from Reporting (what happened) to Performance Intelligence (what to do next).

Engineering the Trust Bridge

The Workflow of Action (Figure 3) defines the minimum system required to convert data into impact. Raw signal is collected without disrupting the athlete. A filter suppresses noise and elevates what matters. Context interprets meaning and assigns priority. The Trust Bridge then demands clarity, timing, and confidence before anything reaches a decision-maker. If all three hold, behaviour changes and performance follows. If any one breaks, data falls into the Reporting dead-end: delayed, untrusted, unactioned.

The test is simple: can a coach or athlete act on this in under 10 seconds? If not, it is not performance intelligence.

Figure 3: The Workflow of Action — every stage must be crossed. The 10-second test is the standard.

A Call to Build Differently

For investors evaluating sport tech:

– Ask founders to define their decision latency in minutes, not hours. If they cannot, the product is a reporting tool, not a performance tool.

– Plot the product against the Sport Tech Landscape. Tier 2 and Tier 4 solutions carry structural ROI risk regardless of the underlying technology.

– Evaluate whether the product drives measurable behaviour change at the coaching level, not just data collection volume.

For product teams:

– Map every output against the Decision Decay Curve. If your insight arrives after the Decision Window closes, re-engineer delivery before adding features.

– Build every feature against the Trust Bridge standard: does it deliver clarity, timing, and confidence simultaneously?

– Apply the 10-second test to every dashboard, alert, and report. If a coach cannot act on it in 10 seconds, simplify or remove it.

For practitioners:

– Audit your current technology stack against the Sport Tech Landscape. Identify which tier each solution occupies and prioritize accordingly.

– Demand visible, timely return on every data point your athletes contribute. If a technology takes input without returning actionable insight, it is extraction, not partnership.

– Use the Decision Window as the non-negotiable benchmark when evaluating new technology purchases. Speed of insight to decision is the metric that matters.

Looking Ahead: From Wearables to Humanwear

There is a deeper shift emerging beneath the problems described in this piece, and it will redefine the relationship between athlete and technology entirely.

Most performance systems today are built around wearables: devices athletes strap on, charge, sync, and tolerate. They require conscious engagement. They demand workflow. They introduce friction at precisely the moments when friction is least affordable. The athlete adapts to the technology, when it should be the other way around.The next generation will not be wearable. It will be humanwear.

Imagine biometric fabrics woven into training kit that monitor internal load states without a single sensor being attached. Smart materials that detect changes in muscle stiffness, hydration, and thermal regulation through the garment itself. Surfaces embedded with force-sensing capabilities that capture ground reaction data from every stride, every change of direction, every landing, without the athlete knowing the system exists.

Imagine ambient intelligence systems in training environments that fuse optical tracking, environmental sensing, and physiological inference into a single contextual layer, delivered to the practitioner before the athlete reaches the changing room. No syncing. No cleaning. No delay.

This is not science fiction. The component technologies already exist across adjacent industries: adaptive textiles in medical monitoring, soft robotics in rehabilitation, embedded sensing in automotive and aerospace. What sport needs is the integration architecture to bring them together in a way that serves the Decision Window.

The goal is not more data. It is less friction between signal and decision. The ultimate performance technology is the one the athlete never thinks about, the practitioner trusts completely, and the coach acts on instinctively. Invisible in operation. Indispensable in impact.

Because the real constraint has never been measurement. It has always been decision velocity under pressure. The organizations and innovators who solve for that, who engineer trust into the fabric of the system rather than bolting it on afterward, will not just build better products. They will define the next era of elite performance.

Final Thought

We do not need more data. We need better decisions. The organizations that understand this will not just build better tools. They will build Trust Architectures: systems where data moves at the speed of performance, and decisions happen when they still matter.

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Austin Peay State University will host its inaugural Health and Performance Summit on Saturday, October 17, 2026, bringing together approximately 100 professionals from the tactical, clinical, collegiate, and private-sector performance industries for a full day focused on strength, resilience, recovery, and human performance innovation.

You can check out the agenda of the Austin Peay State University Health and Performance Summit, get your ticket for the summit by clicking on the link below and select register now:

Visit the website and Register now

Event Details

• Date: Saturday, October 17, 2026

• Location: APSU Health Professions Building, Clarksville, Tennessee

• Hosted By: APSU Department of Health and Human Performance

• Audience Size: Approximately 100 industry professionals

• Focus Areas: Strength, resilience, recovery, tactical performance, wellness, rehabilitation, and sports medicine

Expected Audience

Attendees are expected to include:

• Gym owners

• Athletic trainers

• Strength and conditioning coaches

• Clinicians and rehabilitation professionals

• Collegiate performance staff

• Tactical performance professionals

• Military personnel connected to the U.S. Army’s Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) initiatives at Fort Campbell

Why Attend

The summit is designed for professionals looking to stay at the forefront of health, performance, recovery, and human optimization.

Attendees will have the opportunity to:

• Learn from nationally recognized speakers and industry experts

• Explore emerging trends in tactical and athletic performance

• Network directly with practitioners, clinicians, coaches, and military professionals

• Gain practical insights that can be applied immediately within training, rehabilitation, wellness, and performance settings

• Build relationships with decision-makers across collegiate, tactical, clinical, and private-sector organizations

• Connect with professionals shaping the future of human performance innovation

The event’s intimate format is intentionally designed to encourage meaningful conversations, collaboration, and high-quality networking opportunities rather than large-scale convention-style interactions.

Why Vendors and Sponsors Should Participate

The summit provides vendors and sponsors with direct access to a highly targeted and influential audience actively involved in purchasing decisions across the health and performance industry.

Sponsors will benefit from:

• Face-to-face engagement with professionals in fitness, rehabilitation, tactical performance, and sports medicine

• Exposure to decision-makers from collegiate programs, private facilities, and military performance initiatives

• Opportunities to showcase products, services, and technologies in a focused professional environment

• Brand visibility within the rapidly growing Clarksville market and greater Nashville region

• Access to military-connected professionals affiliated with the U.S. Army’s H2F initiatives at Fort Campbell

• The ability to build long-term relationships with practitioners and organizations shaping the future of performance and wellness

Because the summit audience is highly specialized and professionally engaged, sponsors can expect more meaningful interactions and stronger relationship-building opportunities than at broader consumer-focused events.

Why the Summit Matters

The summit is designed to create meaningful networking and business development opportunities between:

• Industry leaders

• Practitioners

• Decision-makers

• Sponsors

• Emerging health and performance innovators

With nationally recognized speakers and a highly targeted audience, sponsors will have direct access to professionals who influence purchasing decisions across:

• Fitness

• Tactical performance

• Rehabilitation

• Wellness

• Sports medicine

The event’s location also provides access to both the rapidly growing Clarksville market and the greater Nashville region.

For sponsorship information, attendees can visit the event website or contact Dr. Tim Leszczak, Chair of the APSU Health and Human Performance Department, at Leszczakt@apsu.edu.

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Picture: Fitbit Air

Google’s launch of the Fitbit Air and Google Health Coach marks one of the company’s most ambitious attempts yet to reshape the consumer health and wellness market. While Google has owned Fitbit since 2021, the company has spent the past several years integrating Fitbit technology into its broader ecosystem of Android devices, Pixel hardware, Gemini AI systems, and cloud-based health infrastructure.

Picture: The Fitbit Air Special Edition Performance Loop band, Co-designed with Stephen Curry.

The Fitbit Air and Google Health Coach launches represent more than just another wearable product cycle. Together, they signal a strategic transition from traditional fitness tracking toward what Google hopes will become a fully AI-driven personal wellness ecosystem.

The broader wearable market has already evolved significantly over the last decade. Early devices focused mainly on step counting and basic activity tracking. Smartwatches then expanded the category into communication, notifications, apps, payments, and productivity. More recently, companies such as Oura and Whoop shifted the market toward passive biometric monitoring and recovery-focused wellness analytics.

Google is now attempting to take the next step: turning health data into an intelligent conversational system powered by AI.

Rather than simply tracking metrics, Google Health Coach aims to interpret data, provide recommendations, predict patterns, and eventually act as a proactive wellness companion. This transition from “tracking” to “continuous health guidance” could potentially redefine how consumers interact with wearable technology over the next decade.

What Are Fitbit Air and Google Health Coach?

Fitbit Air

Fitbit Air is Google’s new lightweight, screenless fitness tracker designed around passive health monitoring and simplicity.

Unlike most smartwatches, Fitbit Air intentionally removes:

• displays,

• notifications,

• apps,

• messaging,

• and other distracting smartphone-like functions.

Instead, the device focuses exclusively on:

• continuous biometric tracking,

• recovery analysis,

• sleep monitoring,

• and wellness data collection.

Google describes Fitbit Air as its “smallest and most affordable tracker” and emphasizes that it is designed for 24/7 wearability and comfort.

The device includes sensors for:

• heart rate monitoring,

• heart rhythm monitoring,

• SpO2 tracking,

• heart rate variability (HRV),

• sleep stages,

• skin temperature,

• resting heart rate,

• and atrial fibrillation (Afib) alerts.

The hardware itself is intentionally minimalist:

• no screen,

• seven-day battery life,

• compact “pebble” design,

• lightweight build,

• and interchangeable bands.

This design philosophy reflects a broader industry trend toward “calm technology” or “digital minimalism,” where devices are meant to quietly operate in the background rather than constantly compete for user attention. Reddit discussions around the launch repeatedly referenced this “less distracting” philosophy as one of the product’s most appealing aspects.

The Fitbit Air also carries a highly aggressive price point of $99, positioning it well below premium competitors such as Oura Ring, Apple Watch, and Whoop subscriptions.

Google Health Coach

Google Health Coach is the more strategically important launch.

The AI assistant is powered by Google Gemini models and is integrated into the newly rebranded Google Health platform, which replaces the legacy Fitbit app.

Google Health Coach combines:

• fitness coaching,

• sleep optimization,

• recovery analysis,

• nutrition guidance,

• behavioral recommendations,

• and conversational AI interfaces.

The system can:

• generate personalized fitness plans,

• analyze recovery trends,

• answer natural-language health questions,

• adapt recommendations based on injuries or travel,

• and synthesize information from multiple health sources.

The broader Google Health app also aggregates data from:

• Fitbit devices,

• Pixel Watch,

• Health Connect,

• Apple Health,

• and potentially medical records.

This means Google is not merely building another wearable ecosystem. It is attempting to build a centralized AI health operating system capable of integrating data from multiple devices and services.

This shift is critically important because it changes the value proposition from:

“Here are your metrics”

to:

“Here is what your metrics mean and what you should do next.”

That transition may ultimately prove more valuable than the wearable hardware itself.

Are Fitbit Air and Google Health Coach a Game Changer?

The answer depends on what aspect of the market one examines.

The Fitbit Air hardware itself is probably not revolutionary. Screenless wellness wearables already exist through:

• Oura Ring,

• Whoop,

• Hume,

• and other passive tracking devices.

However, Google’s larger ecosystem strategy may prove highly disruptive.

Why It Could Be a Game Changer

1. AI Becomes the Primary Interface

Most current wearables still rely on dashboards, scores, graphs, and charts.

Google Health Coach attempts to create a conversational interface for wellness.

Instead of manually interpreting data, users can ask:

• “Why did I sleep poorly this week?”

• “Why am I feeling fatigued?”

• “How should I adjust training after travel?”

• “Why is my recovery lower today?”

This significantly lowers the cognitive burden on users.

Historically, many wearable users eventually disengaged because:

• there was too much data,

• metrics became repetitive,

• or insights lacked actionable meaning.

AI interpretation could dramatically improve long-term engagement if executed effectively.

2. Google’s AI Infrastructure Is a Major Advantage

Unlike smaller wearable companies, Google has enormous AI capabilities through Gemini.

This gives Google several structural advantages:

• large-scale model training,

• multimodal AI,

• conversational interfaces,

• cloud infrastructure,

• search integration,

• and behavioral personalization.

Competitors like Oura and Whoop possess strong wellness expertise, but Google’s AI infrastructure is likely much larger in scale.

This could accelerate:

• personalization,

• predictive analytics,

• and adaptive coaching.

3. Affordable Pricing Could Expand the Market

The $99 Fitbit Air dramatically lowers the barrier to entry.

This is important because premium wellness devices have become expensive:

• Apple Watch Ultra exceeds $700,

• Oura Rings can exceed $400,

• Whoop requires expensive recurring subscriptions.

Google may significantly expand the wellness wearable market by offering:

• lower hardware costs,

• optional subscriptions,

• and cross-platform compatibility.

This creates pressure on competitors whose models rely heavily on premium pricing.

4. The “Screenless” Strategy May Be Perfectly Timed

Consumers increasingly experience notification fatigue and screen exhaustion.

The Fitbit Air’s lack of a display is not a limitation — it is the product strategy.

The device intentionally avoids:

• notifications,

• social feeds,

• apps,

• and constant interruptions.

This aligns with growing demand for:

• mindfulness,

• digital minimalism,

• and low-distraction technology.

Many Reddit users specifically praised the absence of a screen as the product’s strongest feature.

Why It May Not Be a Game Changer

Despite the excitement, major challenges remain.

1. Privacy Concerns Are Significant

Health data is among the most sensitive categories of consumer information.

Google still faces trust issues related to:

• advertising,

• data collection,

• platform dominance,

• and surveillance concerns.

Even if Google maintains strict separation between health data and advertising systems, many users remain skeptical.

This may limit adoption among privacy-conscious consumers.

2. AI Health Advice Still Has Limitations

AI-generated wellness recommendations can:

• oversimplify problems,

• hallucinate explanations,

• miss medical nuance,

• or create overconfidence.

Fitness and wellness are highly contextual fields.

For example:

• poor sleep may result from illness,

• recovery issues may reflect stress,

• or HRV fluctuations may be completely normal.

Human interpretation still matters.

This is especially important if Google expands deeper into preventative health recommendations.

3. Wearable Fatigue Is Real

The market is already crowded.

Consumers already own:

• Apple Watches,

• Garmins,

• Oura Rings,

• Whoop bands,

• and legacy Fitbit devices.

Convincing users to:

• switch ecosystems,

• migrate data,

• and adopt another subscription
  is difficult.

4. Subscription Resistance Could Slow Growth

Google Health Coach requires Google Health Premium, priced around $10/month.

Consumers increasingly resist recurring subscriptions for:

• fitness apps,

• streaming,

• productivity software,

• and wellness services.

Many Reddit users already expressed skepticism about paying for AI-generated health coaching.

The Types of AI Insights Provided by Fitbit Air and Google Health Coach

The central promise of Google Health Coach is transforming raw health data into actionable intelligence.

The AI insight system appears to operate across several major categories.

1. Sleep Intelligence

Sleep is one of the most valuable areas for wearable analytics because:

• it affects recovery,

• mental performance,

• mood,

• metabolism,

• and long-term health.

Google Health Coach analyzes:

• sleep stages,

• HRV,

• consistency,

• interruptions,

• breathing patterns,

• and recovery signals.

The AI then generates:

• bedtime suggestions,

• sleep optimization recommendations,

• recovery guidance,

• and behavioral interventions.

Over time, Google may build predictive sleep models that identify patterns linked to stress, illness, or burnout before users consciously notice them.

2. Recovery and Readiness Scores

Recovery analysis appears heavily inspired by Whoop and Oura.

The AI examines:

• HRV,

• resting heart rate,

• sleep quality,

• activity load,

• and stress signals.

It can then recommend:

• lighter workouts,

• recovery days,

• hydration,

• or sleep prioritization.

This category is particularly valuable for athletes and highly active users.

3. Adaptive Fitness Coaching

Rather than static plans, Google Health Coach aims to generate adaptive recommendations.

For example:

• reduced training after poor sleep,

• modified workouts during travel,

• progressive cardio load targets,

• or injury-aware recommendations.

This creates a far more dynamic coaching system than traditional fitness apps.

4. Behavioral Pattern Recognition

Longitudinal analysis may become one of Google’s strongest advantages.

Over time, the AI may detect:

• recurring fatigue cycles,

• declining recovery,

• elevated stress,

• reduced activity consistency,

• or changes in behavioral habits.

This moves wellness tracking from isolated daily scores toward deeper behavioral intelligence.

5. Conversational Health Interfaces

The conversational layer is arguably the most transformative feature.

Users can ask natural-language questions such as:

• “Why was my recovery poor?”

• “What habits are affecting my sleep?”

• “How can I improve energy levels?”

This fundamentally changes the relationship between users and wearable data.

Instead of interpreting charts manually, users interact conversationally with an AI wellness system.

The Impact of Competition: Oura, Whoop, Apple, Garmin and Others

Google enters an extremely competitive market.

Each major competitor occupies a different position within the wearable ecosystem.

Oura Ring

Oura Ring pioneered passive wellness tracking and recovery-focused analytics.

Its strengths include:

• elegant industrial design,

• strong sleep analysis,

• high comfort,

• and premium branding.

Oura remains especially popular among:

• wellness enthusiasts,

• executives,

• celebrities,

• and biohacking communities.

However, Google potentially has advantages in:

• AI infrastructure,

• broader ecosystem integration,

• pricing,

• and data aggregation.

Oura may maintain differentiation through:

• hardware design,

• simplicity,

• and luxury positioning.

Whoop

Whoop 5.0 may face the greatest competitive pressure.

The Fitbit Air closely mirrors the Whoop philosophy:

• screenless design,

• continuous monitoring,

• recovery analysis,

• and coaching-driven experiences.

However, Google significantly undercuts Whoop’s pricing model.

Reddit reactions repeatedly highlighted that:

• Fitbit Air offers lower hardware costs,

• free functionality exists without mandatory subscriptions,

• and Google Health integrates broader AI capabilities.

Whoop appears to be responding by emphasizing:

• human coaching,

• clinical expertise,

• and performance specialization.

This may become a broader industry trend:
AI systems handling routine coaching while humans focus on higher-value expertise.

Apple

Apple Watch Series 10 remains the dominant mainstream wearable.

Apple’s strengths include:

• hardware quality,

• medical-grade sensors,

• ecosystem lock-in,

• and brand loyalty.

However, Apple Watch is fundamentally a smartwatch first and wellness tracker second.

Google is betting that many users:

• no longer want another screen,

• do not need apps on their wrist,

• and prefer passive wellness systems.

The two companies may ultimately converge toward different philosophies:

• Apple = multifunction wearable computing,

• Google = AI wellness intelligence.

Garmin

Garmin dominates endurance and outdoor athletics.

Garmin excels in:

• advanced training metrics,

• GPS accuracy,

• multisport ecosystems,

• and athletic performance analysis.

Google is unlikely to displace Garmin among elite athletes anytime soon.

Instead, Fitbit Air targets:

• mainstream wellness,

• casual fitness,

• and AI-driven lifestyle optimization.

How Fitbit Air and Google Health Coach Are Likely to Evolve Over Time

The long-term evolution will likely center more on software than hardware.

1. Predictive Health Intelligence

Google’s future likely involves predictive wellness systems.

The AI may eventually forecast:

• illness risk,

• burnout,

• stress overload,

• recovery decline,

• or behavioral deterioration.

This would move wearable technology closer to preventative healthcare.

2. Deeper Medical Integration

Google already references medical record integration within Google Health.

Future capabilities could include:

• doctor-facing summaries,

• medication management,

• chronic condition monitoring,

• and preventative screening support.

This would move Google closer to regulated digital healthcare.

3. Multimodal AI Wellness Systems

Google’s Gemini ecosystem enables multimodal inputs.

Future systems may combine:

• biometrics,

• meal photos,

• voice analysis,

• behavioral data,

• location patterns,

• and calendar stress indicators.

This would create increasingly personalized wellness intelligence.

4. More Sophisticated Behavioral Coaching

The future of AI wellness likely depends less on raw data and more on behavioral psychology.

Google may increasingly optimize:

• habit formation,

• adherence,

• motivation,

• and long-term engagement.

This could make wellness systems substantially more effective.

5. Hardware May Become Less Important

Ironically, the wearable itself may eventually matter less.

Google’s larger strategy appears to center around:

• data aggregation,

• AI interpretation,

• and ecosystem intelligence.

The AI platform could ultimately become more important than any individual device.

Recommendations to Teams on How to Best Utilize Fitbit Air and Google Health Coach

Organizations, sports teams, employers, and wellness programs can potentially derive substantial value from these systems if implemented carefully.

1. Focus on Long-Term Trends

Daily fluctuations are often noisy and misleading.

The greatest value comes from:

• longitudinal analysis,

• behavioral consistency,

• workload balance,

• and recovery patterns.

Teams should emphasize trends over isolated metrics.

2. Combine AI With Human Expertise

AI should support — not replace — coaches, physicians, trainers, or wellness experts.

The strongest model is likely:

• AI for continuous monitoring,

• humans for judgment and interpretation.

3. Prioritize Privacy and Consent

Health data is extremely sensitive.

Organizations should establish:

• transparent data policies,

• consent frameworks,

• sharing boundaries,

• and clear governance structures.

Trust is essential for adoption.

4. Educate Users on Metrics

Many users misunderstand:

• HRV,

• recovery scores,

• cardio load,

• and readiness metrics.

Proper education is necessary to avoid:

• overreaction,

• anxiety,

• or misinterpretation.

5. Use Wearables to Reinforce Habits

The ultimate value is not the data itself.

It is behavioral change.

Organizations should use Google Health Coach to reinforce:

• sleep consistency,

• recovery discipline,

• stress management,

• and sustainable training practices.

Conclusion

Google’s Fitbit Air and Google Health Coach represent one of the most important shifts in the wearable industry since the rise of the smartwatch.

The Fitbit Air hardware itself is intentionally minimalist:

• affordable,

• screenless,

• lightweight,

• and designed for passive wellness monitoring.

But the larger strategic ambition is much broader.

Google is attempting to build an AI-powered health operating system capable of:

• aggregating data,

• interpreting wellness signals,

• predicting behavioral trends,

• and delivering continuous personalized coaching.

The launch also reflects several broader industry trends:

• AI becoming the interface layer for health,

• growing consumer interest in passive wellness tracking,

• digital minimalism,

• and increasing demand for personalized preventative health guidance.

Whether this becomes a true industry breakthrough depends on several unresolved factors:

• user trust in Google’s handling of health data,

• the quality and reliability of AI-generated advice,

• competitive responses from Apple, Oura, and Whoop,

• and consumers’ willingness to pay recurring subscription fees.

Even if Fitbit Air itself does not dominate wearable hardware sales, Google Health Coach may still prove highly influential because it points toward the likely future of consumer wellness technology: not simply tracking data, but continuously interpreting, contextualizing, and guiding human behavior through AI-powered health intelligence.

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Curt built his career at the intersection of strength and conditioning and sports science, beginning as an athlete before transitioning into coaching when his playing career ended. He started out as a strength and conditioning coach, gaining hands-on experience in training and athlete development while working in environments where sports science was just beginning to emerge. During this time, he effectively operated across multiple roles—blending coaching with early sports science responsibilities—which gave him a strong foundation in both performance training and data-driven decision-making.

Prior to his current position, Curt held various performance-focused roles across team and private training settings, where he worked directly with athletes on development, rehabilitation, and performance optimization. These experiences exposed him to different systems, technologies, and athlete needs, helping him build a holistic understanding of performance environments. Today, as Vice President of Health & Performance at Excel Sports Management, he leverages that background to oversee performance, medical, and sports science initiatives, ensuring athletes receive individualized, high-level support throughout their careers.

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on:

• His journey & journey.

• His role & day-to-day impact

• His philosophy on performance training

• Individualization & athlete care

• What makes Excel Sports Management unique

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview with Curt located at the top of this blog post.

Here are the quotes from the interview with Curt:

1. Background & Journey
“Growing up I would have loved to become an athlete… But at one point we fail out or the talent gets above us and we have to move on. I was more of a strength and conditioning coach by trade—that was the lens I viewed everything through. As a strength coach in that time, you kind of had to wear the hat of sports scientist before all these roles were created, and getting really good insight into the tech and what you’re looking to measure really helped me later on in my career. Having a good understanding of what those people are looking at and how those worlds come together helps create a system that sports science fuels and performance fuels.”

2. Role & Day-to-Day Impact
“My role specifically is always changing. Working within the agency is kind of this middle space between the team setting and a private setting. My role now is creating the environment and making sure the team has all the resources they need to deliver. A lot of what I do is understanding the landscape of performance and what’s out there, and if our athletes are training elsewhere, it’s about knowing who the good groups are so we can make sure they have the right support system. Ultimately, we can fill in the gaps no matter what support system they already have.”

3. Philosophy on Performance Training
“You have to look at this holistic picture of what the athlete is. There’s so much stuff out there—it’s easy to get lost in it—so it starts with asking, what problem are you trying to solve? The larger picture is that there’s a lot of context that goes into what makes someone perform well. With younger athletes, you’re still trying to grow those attributes, but once you’re established, it becomes about refining and maintaining performance. With vets, it’s about keeping you healthy so you can stay on the field—because if you’re still playing at that point, it’s because you’re a hell of a player, and we just want to keep you there.”

4. Individualization & Athlete Care
“The biggest thing you can do is the level of understanding. You know someone better after 20 years, and our goal is to get to that level of understanding with athletes. We’re never going to get it perfect, but every experience helps us learn—whether it’s something that works or doesn’t. It’s about how we utilize the tech and the numbers, but also conversations and what we’re seeing day to day, to better understand them. The better we understand them, the better we can support them—or help others support them. Ultimately, it comes down to time—time building relationships and time with the data—and I don’t think anyone is more directly aligned with the athlete than us.”

5. What Makes Excel Unique
“The differentiator for us right now is that we exist—having a performance team within an agency hasn’t really existed before. Our role is to be that internal support group for each athlete. Our North Star is on-field or on-court performance, because if you’re playing at your best, that drives contract value and opportunities. We can meet athletes at different levels, from annual checkups to fully hands-on support, but the goal is always to create a system that helps them pinpoint what’s going to move the needle. Ultimately, we’re trying to make those blurred lines less blurry when it comes to development and longevity.”

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Women’s Sports Tech Ecosystem Analysis

The Women’s sports tech ecosystem is something that we have covered extensively in 2024. We have done group podcast interviews and organized panel discussions with top female executives, coaches, startup founders. It has become clear to us that there is a lack of resources, technologies and research in the world of women’s sports tech. But it does not mean it cannot be changed. We at Upside believe that there is a huge upside in the world of women’s sports tech. So we thought that, as we are nearing the end of 2024, it would be a good idea to do an analysis on the Women’s sports tech ecosystem to discuss the market size opportunity, the key trends, drivers, challenges, vendors with recommendations to pro teams.

Market Size and Growth

1. Global Sports Tech Market Overview:

   • The global sports technology market was valued at around $25 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 20-25% through 2030, reaching approximately $60-$75 billion by the end of the decade.

   • Women’s sports tech is estimated to make up a significant, but still relatively smaller portion of this total market. The women’s sports tech market could be worth between $1.5 billion and $3 billion by 2025, with annual growth rates of 15-25%.

2. Key Growth Drivers:

   • Increased Investment in Women’s Sports: Over the past decade, there has been a marked rise in investment in women’s sports across various domains, including media rights, sponsorships, and infrastructure. For example, the WNBA, women’s soccer leagues, and women’s tennis have all seen increased revenue streams and viewership, which in turn creates demand for technology solutions tailored to female athletes.

   • Rising Popularity and Visibility: As more women’s leagues gain visibility through media partnerships and fan engagement, there is a growing recognition of the need for tech solutions that can improve performance, health, and fan experiences. For instance, the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and WTA Tennishave become major focal points for fan engagement technology.

   • Focus on Female Athlete Performance and Health: There’s a growing recognition of the physiological differences between male and female athletes, leading to a demand for products that cater to female-specific needs. This includes tools for menstrual cycle tracking, wearable tech designed for women, and training programs tailored to female athletes' unique biomechanics.

   • Corporate Sponsorship and Support: Leading sports brands, including Nike, Adidas, and Under Armour, are increasingly developing women-focused products. This investment extends to technology, including wearables and apps designed specifically for female athletes, which also stimulates the tech ecosystem.

Key Trends

1. Wearable Technology: There has been a surge in wearable tech tailored for female athletes, considering unique physiological differences. Devices like heart rate monitors, performance trackers, and recovery monitors are becoming more popular.

2. Data Analytics & Performance Metrics: Advanced data analytics is helping female athletes track and enhance performance. AI and machine learning models are being leveraged for personalized training programs, injury prevention, and recovery optimization.

3. Fan Engagement & Social Media: Women’s sports leagues are increasingly adopting digital platforms and apps to engage fans. The use of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and live-streaming technology is also helping boost visibility and fan interaction.

4. Gender-Specific Training Tools: Technologies that focus on understanding and addressing female biomechanics, nutrition, hormonal cycles, and injury risks are expanding. Tools like menstrual tracking apps and female-specific fitness programs are growing in popularity.

5. E-Sports & Gaming: The rise of women in e-sports and gaming is driving innovation in training tools, mentorship programs, and esports performance tracking technologies.

Key Drivers

1. Increased Investment in Women’s Sports: More funding is being directed to women’s sports from both private and public sectors. Corporate sponsorships and media coverage are on the rise, leading to the need for advanced technology to support growth.

2. Growing Popularity and Professionalism: As women’s sports become more competitive and mainstream, there’s a greater demand for innovative technologies to optimize training, improve performances, and enhance fan experience.

3. Female Athletes’ Wellness Focus: A growing recognition of the importance of mental and physical wellness in women’s sports is driving the development of technologies that offer better health monitoring, injury prevention, and recovery solutions.

4. Technological Advancements: Innovations in artificial intelligence, big data, and machine learning are providing solutions tailored for women’s sports needs, helping to close the gender gap in sports performance analytics and health tech.

5. Advocacy for Gender Equity: Movements advocating for gender equity in sports are pushing for equal access to advanced sports technologies for female athletes.

Key Challenges

1. Lack of Female-Specific Data: Most existing sports technologies have been developed with male physiology in mind, leading to a gap in data that specifically caters to women’s sports needs.

2. Limited Funding & Sponsorship: While investment in women’s sports is growing, it still lags behind the male-dominated sports market, which hinders the widespread adoption of cutting-edge technologies.

3. Gender Bias in Tech Development: There is often a lack of diversity in tech development teams, which means that many technologies do not fully address the unique needs of female athletes.

4. Inadequate Market Awareness: Many sports organizations and athletes are still unaware of the potential benefits of tech solutions designed for women’s sports.

5. Affordability & Accessibility: Many of the latest technologies are expensive, making them less accessible to smaller teams and less-established leagues.

The percentage of research focused on women's teams within the broader field of sports research is still relatively small but is steadily growing. While precise figures are difficult to pinpoint, estimates based on available data and industry reports suggest the following:

Key Insights on Research in Women’s Sports

1. Overall Research Focus in Sports:

   • The global sports research market spans a wide range of disciplines, including sports performance, biomechanics, nutrition, injury prevention, sports psychology, wearables, fan engagement, and more. In many cases, the focus has historically been skewed toward male athletes, especially in elite professional sports, leading to a larger share of research funding and attention directed at male-dominated sports (e.g., football, basketball, rugby).

2. Research Allocation in Women’s Sports:

   • General Estimate: As of recent studies, it’s estimated that around 5-10% of sports research is dedicated specifically to women’s sports and female athletes. This includes both academic and applied research (such as applied sports science, performance analytics, and health research for women in sports).

3. Recent Shifts and Growth:

   • Over the past decade, the percentage of research focused on women’s sports has seen a significant uptick. This shift is largely due to increased visibility, more investment in women’s professional leagues, and a growing recognition of the physiological differences between male and female athletes. As the need for female-specific performance optimization, injury prevention, and health solutions (such as menstrual cycle tracking or hormonal considerations) becomes more apparent, more research funds are being allocated to this area.

   • Some estimates suggest that research focused on female athletes might be increasing at a rate of 10-20% annually in specific sectors like sports science and technology.

4. Sports Science and Medical Research:

   • Within sports medicine, only about 5-6% of studies have focused on female athletes (a figure reported by journals like the British Journal of Sports Medicine). This has been a key concern for organizations like the Women’s Sports Foundation and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), which advocate for a more equitable approach in research.

   • In biomechanics, performance analytics, and technology (e.g., wearables, AI-driven performance tracking), the number of women-specific studies is still relatively small but has started to increase, as companies and institutions acknowledge the importance of female-specific data in training and recovery programs.

5. Industry-Specific Research Funding:

   • Corporate Investment: Major sportswear brands and tech companies (like Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, and WHOOP) are increasingly funding research into women’s health, performance technology, and fitness tracking for female athletes. However, the percentage of their total sports research budget dedicated to women’s research remains modest. Estimates suggest around 15-20% of the R&D budgets of sportswear companies may be allocated to female-specific products, which includes everything from sportswear designto health tracking technologies (e.g., wearable tech and apps that cater specifically to women).

6. Recent Developments:

   • With the growing emphasis on gender equity in sports, initiatives like the Women in Sport Initiative and collaborations between sports tech companies, universities, and female sports organizations are beginning to address these gaps. Universities like Harvard and Stanford are ramping up their focus on women’s sports research, and funding for female athlete health and performance has become more of a priority in grant-making from both public and private sectors.

So net net, currently, 5-10% of sports research is dedicated to women’s sports and female athletes, with this percentage growing due to increasing recognition of the need for gender-specific data in performance, health, and injury prevention. As investment in women’s sports continues to grow and the demand for female-specific technology (such as menstrual cycle tracking and wearables) increases, research dedicated to women’s teams and athletes will likely continue to rise and potentially reach 15-20% by the 2030s.

Key Vendors in Women’s Sports Tech Ecosystem

Here’s a comparison of some key vendors that provide technology solutions for women’s sports:

Picture: Upside Global, confidential, 2026

Pictures: Oura, Fitbit, Catapult Sports, OvulaRing, 2026

Pictures: Whoop, 2026

Picture: DaVinci Wearables, 2026

Picture: FitrWoman (Orreco), 2026

Key Insights on DaVinci Wearables:

• Targeted Features: DaVinci Wearables provide cutting-edge smart sensors that track real-time performance, movement, and biometrics, offering athletes detailed feedback on their training sessions and biometrics. It is known for its advanced sensor technology, which measures a range of metrics including movement efficiency, joint stress, and more, helping athletes refine their technique and reduce injury risks.

• Price: The pricing model for DaVinci Wearables is custom and depends on the needs of the team or individual athletes. Pricing is typically negotiated based on volume (team size) and the level of customization required.

• Unique Selling Point: DaVinci Wearables stands out for its highly advanced biometric and performance tracking sensors that provide real-time feedback on movement patterns, posture, and even joint stress, which is critical for preventing injuries. These wearables can be highly beneficial in both training and recovery phases.

Key Insights on Orreco:

• Orreco Te@m platform, which has menstrual cycle tracking embedded but also levels the playing field with cutting edge AI now available to women teams. Menstrual cycle phases and symptoms can now be quickly mapped against GPS training data, match stats, jump data etc. This type of support had historically be restricted mainly men’s teams. Orreco are helping change the game in this regard by making same these cutting edge tools available to womens teams, athletes and performance staffs.

Picture: Orreco Te@m platform

Key Insights on Vivosense Medical (OvulaRing):

• Targeted Features: Vivosense Medical focuses on tracking the menstrual cycle and ovulation phases for female athletes. By understanding hormonal fluctuations, this technology provides valuable insights into how these phases affect performance, recovery, and injury risk. The wearables help athletes optimize their training schedules based on their menstrual and ovulation cycles.

• Price: Vivosense Medical’s pricing is customized based on usage and the needs of the individual or team. It generally involves discussions around volume and personalized features, making it suitable for professional teams and individual athletes looking for specialized insights.

• Unique Selling Point: The technology focuses on the link between hormonal cycles and athletic performance, which is critical for female athletes to achieve optimal results. The insights from this wearable can assist in tailoring training to peak performance during different phases of the cycle, and also prevent injuries by understanding when the body is more susceptible to strain

Recommendations for Teams

1. Invest in Wearables & Analytics: Teams should prioritize wearable devices (e.g., Oura, Catapult Sports) that provide comprehensive data on performance, recovery, and injury prevention. These tools help personalize training and optimize athlete performance while reducing injury risk.

2. Leverage Gender-Specific Tech: Teams should consider using tech designed with female athletes in mind, such as FitrWoman for menstrual cycle tracking and Oura Ring for sleep and recovery. This will help tailor training and recovery strategies for women athletes’ specific physiological needs.

3. Adopt Recovery Tools: Recovery is critical in elite sports. Technologies like PowerDot and WHOOP can provide effective muscle recovery solutions and help athletes maintain peak performance levels, especially during heavy training cycles.

4. Promote Data-Driven Decisions: Encourage teams to integrate video analysis tools like Hudl for tactical analysis and feedback, and use AI-driven platforms such as Tempo to monitor and optimize training regimens, helping athletes improve faster and smarter.

5. Add menstrual cycle monitoring together with advanced analytics: Encourage teams to add menstrual cycle monitoring together with advanced analytics (e.g. Orreco) engines (e.g. mapping with match data, GPS data, jump testing in Te@m) to level up the playing field.

6. Create Customizable Wellness Programs: Since wellness plays a key role in performance, consider apps like MyFitnessPal or FitrWoman for creating personalized nutrition and training programs that align with athletes' health cycles and needs.

7. Make Tech Accessible for All Levels: While cutting-edge tools like Catapult may be out of budget for some smaller teams, it's worth exploring more affordable options like Fitbit or Strava for tracking fitness, training, and recovery at different levels.

Conclusion

The women’s sports tech ecosystem is rapidly evolving, with key innovations in wearable tech, performance analytics, and wellness tracking. The demand for female-specific technologies is rising, and teams must focus on leveraging these tools to enhance performance, prevent injuries, and foster wellness. However, challenges related to funding, accessibility, and data gaps remain. By strategically adopting these technologies and considering the unique needs of female athletes, teams can stay competitive and contribute to the continued growth of women’s sports.

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Chris Moseley is currently the Head of Medical at the New York Red Bulls, where he oversees the club’s entire medical strategy, including athletic training, physiotherapy staff, and coordination with external doctors to support both first-team and development players. He joined the club in 2024 after a long tenure at Middlesbrough FC, where he spent over two decades—progressing from First Team Physiotherapist to Head Physiotherapist in 2011 and working across more than 1,000 matches. Earlier in his career, he served as a First Team Physiotherapist at Stoke City F.C., building a strong foundation in elite football medical performance before moving into senior leadership roles

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on:

• His background and what led him to the Red Bulls NY.

• His role at the Red Bulls NY, and what a typical day looks like.

• His approach towards injury reduction and innovation.

• How he sees the world of injury reduction in elite sports evolving in the coming years.

• Which technologies he would build if he had unlimited resources.

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview with Chris located at the top of this blog post.

Here are the quotes from the interview with Chris:

Q1. Background & Journey to the Red Bulls NY

“My journey in professional sports started 35 years ago as an apprentice footballer at Stoke City Football Club. Unfortunately, my career was ended prematurely through injury, and during that time my rehabilitation wasn’t great. That experience really inspired me—I didn’t want that to happen to anybody else. I always had ambitions of becoming a physiotherapist, so I went back to study and completed a degree in sports rehabilitation, which at the time was quite novel and focused entirely on the assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation of sports injuries.”

“From there, I gained experience working with clubs like Bolton Wanderers and Newcastle United before returning to Stoke City full-time, while also completing my physiotherapy degree. I later moved to Middlesbrough, where I spent 22 years working with the first team as head physio. It was a very forward-thinking environment—we were involved in early sports science developments, including GPS validation. Eventually, I had a conversation with a colleague working within the Red Bull system about an opportunity in New York. After discussing it with my family and doing my due diligence, I made the move. I had to validate all my qualifications in the U.S., but once that was completed, I joined the New York Red Bulls, where I’ve now been for two years.”

Q2. Role at Red Bulls NY & Typical Day

“A typical day as head of medical starts with an early meeting where we discuss injured players and their programs for the day. That’s followed by a more detailed rehabilitation and load management meeting with the performance staff, where we look at player load across the day, week, and month—identifying any spikes or red flags. After that, we report back to the head coach with any recommendations or adjustments to training, and then we begin preparing for the players’ arrival.”

“Once players arrive, a lot of our time is spent working individually with them—making sure they’re completing their activation and corrective exercises based on their pre-season screenings. We’ve moved away from traditional strength and conditioning and instead microdose it into the activation phase before training, which has improved compliance and buy-in. During training, part of the staff covers the session while others focus on rehab. At the end of the day, we come back together for a full review—discussing load, injuries, and next steps. It’s a continuous daily cycle of monitoring, communication, and adjustment.”

Q3. Approach to Injury Reduction & Innovation

“There’s no such thing as injury prevention—injury reduction is the aim. What we’re really looking for is maximum player availability. We can measure everything now, but the key is what you do with that information. You can have great data on a player and they don’t perform, or poor data and they’re your best performer—so it’s all about interpretation. At the same time, we can’t get away from the personal touch. You have to be with the players, assess them, talk to them, and understand how they’re feeling on a daily basis.”

“A big focus for us is lumbar pelvic control—we do a lot of manual work to make sure the body is functioning efficiently before reinforcing that through exercises and transferring it onto the field. Communication is probably the most important factor in injury reduction. The medical staff, sports science staff, and coaching staff all need to be aligned. It’s a risk management business—sometimes you take calculated risks to get players on the field for important games—but those decisions have to be collective, transparent, and understood by everyone, including the player.”

Q4. Future of Injury Reduction in Elite Sports

“AI is exploding in the medical world, but ultimately it still comes back to understanding the results and making the right decisions. You can have all the technology in the world, flag players at risk, and still decide to play them—it comes down to communication, trust, and alignment between staff. Technology can inform decisions, but it doesn’t replace the need for human judgment and collaboration.”

“One of the advantages we have is being part of a global Red Bull network, where we can collaborate with clubs across different countries and share knowledge on complex cases. That kind of collective intelligence is incredibly valuable. The future of injury reduction isn’t just about better technology—it’s about how you integrate that technology into a system that prioritizes communication, collaboration, and informed decision-making.”

Q5. Dream Technology

“If I could build any technology, it would be something to regenerate spinal cord injuries—to repair nerve damage. That would obviously have massive implications in sport, but it goes far beyond that. Being able to improve or restore function in people with spinal injuries would be life-changing on a much larger scale.”

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Gavin Benjafield is the Performance Director at Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC), where he leads an integrated performance department spanning strength and conditioning, sports science, nutrition, data, and mental performance. Originally from South Africa, he has over 20 years of experience in elite football, beginning his career at Ajax Cape Town before progressing to Ajax Amsterdam in the Netherlands and later working in the Premier League. He holds a background and degree in exercise physiology, with expertise in final-phase rehabilitation and sports science, having developed his career during a time when practitioners were more generalist before the field became highly specialized. In 2018, he joined LAFC at its inception, drawn by the rare opportunity to build a high-performance model from the ground up, and has since played a key role in shaping the club’s performance philosophy and interdisciplinary approach.

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on:

• His background and what led him to LAFC.

• His role at LAFC, and what a typical day looks like.

• His approach towards performance training, S&C, rehab and innovation.

• How he sees the world of performance training in elite sports evolving in the coming years.

• Which technologies he would build if he had unlimited resources.

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview with Gavin located at the top of this blog post.

Here are the quotes from the interview with Gavin:

Q1. Background & path to LAFC

“I’ve been involved in football for close on 20 years. I’m South African, I started with Ajax Cape Town, then moved to the Netherlands with Ajax Amsterdam, and later worked in the Premier League before landing in Los Angeles in 2018. My background is exercise physiology, final phase rehabilitation, sports science—at that time we were still pretty generalists, and the industry has since become much more specialized. The big attraction for me coming to LAFC was that I’d never been in a club where I had the opportunity to build something from the ground up. In 2017 the club didn’t really exist at first-team level, so it was like having a piece of land and saying, ‘this is how we’re going to build the house.’ That opportunity was unique, and I felt this may be the only time in my career where I could do something like that.”

Q2. Role at LAFC & typical day

“My role as Performance Director is primarily overseeing areas like strength and conditioning, sports science, data science, nutrition, and mental performance coaching. It’s very much a managerial role—I’m the connector between all those disciplines, the players, the coaching staff, and the leadership. I’ve stepped away from being a specialist; instead, I hire experts in each field and make sure everything is aligned. There isn’t really a ‘normal’ day, but we do fall into a rhythm. We start early—around 7:45 the medical and performance teams meet to align on the day, then smaller staff meetings follow, and by 9:00 we meet with coaches. From nine to ten is really important for player interaction, maintaining those relationships. Training starts mid-morning, and the rest of the day flows from there. The challenge is that it becomes very cyclical, so you have to deliberately create moments to reflect, sit down with staff, and think about how to improve—because that’s really where the gold is found.”

Q3. Approach to performance, S&C, rehab & innovation

“For me, performance is a singular unit—everyone’s role is ultimately pointed toward improving team performance. Whether you’re in nutrition, strength and conditioning, or data, the question is always: how are you enhancing the player and the team? We are one team with different specializations. I often use analogies like Formula One, where even one person’s role is critical—if they don’t execute, the whole system is impacted. Or like an orchestra, where everyone plays a different instrument but must be aligned. I really emphasize teamwork, collaboration, and communication. My philosophy is not rigid—it’s fluid, because every season presents a different challenge. Whether it’s schedule congestion, injuries, or travel, you need a unique approach each time. Ultimately, our goal is to maximize player potential, maximize availability, and navigate the season as effectively as possible.”

Q4. Future of performance training

“I think we now have so much information at our fingertips that we’re actually becoming distracted. It’s very easy to keep adding new tools, new technologies, new ideas, thinking they will enhance performance—but often we’re just diluting what was already working. If we look back five years, we have to ask whether all these additions have really produced better outcomes. Distraction is becoming one of our biggest enemies. We can’t create more time with athletes, so if we keep adding more tasks, we’re just overloading both staff and players. I use the analogy of a backpack—if we keep adding more, we just end up tiring ourselves out. I believe the future is about simplification and consistency. If we reduce the number of ‘new’ inputs, we can apply things more consistently, and that’s what actually allows athletes to adapt and improve over time.”

Q5. Dream technology

“If I had unlimited resources, I would build a single, discreet device that captures everything—something like a continuous monitoring system that combines all the functions we currently separate across multiple tools. I want to see how an athlete moves from fatigue back to readiness, how travel impacts them, how they respond to both physical and mental stress over time. Right now, a lot of what we do is still a best guess, especially early in the training week. Ideally, we’d have continuous physiological data that helps us make better decisions day by day. The key is that it has to be simple—players don’t want to wear more technology, they want to wear less. At the moment, we risk turning athletes into robots by asking them to wear multiple devices. The goal should be one solution that gives us richer insights while staying completely in the background and allowing athletes to perform naturally.”

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The Upside Newsletter

🔥Upside Chat with Mike Messer (Nashville SC), Jason Han (Ex LAFC), Darcy Norman (Chicago Fire FC), Gavin Benjafield (LAFC) on Strategies During the MLS Playoffs & Offseason, 2026 Soccer World Cup.

This week we have the honor to interview again a group of sports performance executives to talk about the latest trends in the world of sports performance and rehabilitation…

Listen now

7 months ago · 1 like · Julien Blin

The Upside Newsletter

⭐Upside Team Profile: LAFC (MLS) & Chat with Gavin Benjafield, Head of Performance & Jason Han, Head of Rehabilitation / Team Physical Therapist.

Dear Colleagues…

Listen now

3 years ago · Julien Blin

• Devan McConnell, the High performance director at Utah Mammoth (NHL).

• Raphaël Ravet, the Chief Commercial Officer of Myocene, a leading Belgium based sports technology company revolutionizing how muscle fatigue is measured and managed.

• Frederick Donnell, the Head Football Athletic Trainer at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV / NCAA).

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

Here are some of the best quotes of our conversation with Devan, Raphaël and Frederick:

Q1. From Data to Decisions

🔹 Frederick Donnell

“We can get all the data we want, but at the end of the day, the real challenge isn’t on the practitioner side—it’s getting buy-in from the athletes. We can lead a horse to water, but we can’t make them drink it. You can show a player that their recovery score is low or their sleep is poor, but that doesn’t guarantee they’ll change their behavior. So for us, the missing piece in translating data into injury reduction isn’t necessarily better technology—it’s actually getting athletes to engage with and act on the information we’re giving them.”

🔹 Devan McConnell

“I think we’ve reached a point where we can measure almost everything in isolation—force plate metrics, HRV, sleep, workload—but what we still haven’t figured out is how all of these variables interact together. One metric might be down while another is up, and the workload might be stable, so how do we actually interpret that collectively? The real challenge is building a system that connects all these data points into something meaningful, rather than just looking at them separately. That ability to understand how the pieces of the puzzle interact is what’s still missing when it comes to truly driving injury reduction.”

🔹 Raphaël Ravet

“Today, most technologies are very good at quantifying outputs and external load—we can measure movement and workload extremely well. But where we still have a gap is in understanding the physiological response to that load, the internal side. Many of the tools we use are still influenced by athlete perception, motivation, or emotion, which introduces bias. What we really need are fully objective markers that track internal load reliably, without being affected by those factors. Improving that aspect—getting closer to true physiological response—is where I see the biggest opportunity to better support injury risk reduction and rehabilitation.”

Q2. Individualization vs. Scalability

🔹 Frederick Donnell

“When you’re managing large rosters, it really comes down to trusting your staff and making sure everyone is aligned. There are very few opportunities to truly work one-on-one with an athlete, especially during rehab, so you have to rely on your team to execute the plan properly. That means constant communication, making sure everyone understands the goals for each athlete, and staying organized across a large group. There’s no textbook that teaches you how to build that kind of trust—it comes from experience and ongoing collaboration. At scale, individualization isn’t about doing everything yourself, it’s about building a system where your staff can deliver it consistently.”

🔹 Devan McConnell

“For us, it starts with building structured systems and processes. We begin with a broad program based on key physiological principles and then segment players into groups using their data. From there, it progressively becomes more individualized—factoring in injury history, preferences, and performance needs. Eventually, especially in rehab or return-to-play, it becomes extremely specific to the individual and their situation. So the balance comes from layering—starting broad for efficiency, and then filtering down into deeper levels of individualization where it matters most.”

🔹 Raphaël Ravet

“From a product development standpoint, we have to design tools that respect the reality practitioners face—limited time and large groups of athletes. That’s why we focused on creating a single, actionable metric that provides immediate insight. It’s not meant to replace decision-making, but to support it quickly and efficiently. When you’re managing many athletes, you don’t have time to interpret complex datasets, so the information has to be simple, reliable, and individualized. The goal is to make it easier for practitioners to act in real time, without adding complexity to their workflow.”

Q3. Return-to-Play: Art vs. Science

🔹 Frederick Donnell

“In the past, a lot of return-to-play decisions were based on observation and judgment, but that’s not something I’m comfortable relying on alone. The last thing I want is to look at how someone is moving and make a call without objective data, because if that athlete gets reinjured, the consequences are real. What we’ve done is build protocols using sports science—force plates, testing, and data tracking—so we’re covering every base. That allows us to go to coaches with confidence and say whether a player is ready or not. For me, the goal is to reduce guesswork as much as possible by grounding decisions in measurable data.”

🔹 Devan McConnell

“I see return-to-play as a true combination of art and science. Data and technology are incredibly valuable for identifying red flags, quantifying progress, and supporting decisions, but the experience and intuition of skilled practitioners are just as important. We have clinicians with decades of experience whose ability to assess athletes is exceptional, and combining that with objective data creates the best outcomes. If you rely only on one side, you’re missing something critical. The balance may shift depending on the situation, but both elements need to be present to make the most informed decisions possible.”

🔹 Raphaël Ravet

“One key gap in return-to-play has been the ability to assess fatigue resistance, especially in comparing an injured limb to a healthy one. It’s not enough to restore maximum strength—fatigue resistance is often still compromised after injury. By measuring this, we can identify imbalances that weren’t previously visible and better understand whether an athlete is truly ready. Technology won’t replace the expertise or intuition of practitioners, but it adds another important dimension to the decision-making process. It’s essentially a new box to tick, helping make return-to-play more complete and more objective.”

Q4. The Next 3–5 Years of Innovation

🔹 Devan McConnell

“We’re already collecting more data than ever before, but the real question is how we make sense of it. Right now, we still struggle to connect the dots between different physiological systems and performance indicators. I’m interested to see whether AI can help us process that complexity—whether it can identify patterns, relationships, or even new questions that we haven’t considered yet. The potential is there, but it will depend on how effectively it can turn large amounts of data into meaningful insights.”

🔹 Frederick Donnell

“As new technologies emerge, we’re going to keep getting more data, but the real challenge is how we use it in a practical way. For me, it comes down to shifting from being reactive to proactive. Instead of responding after an injury happens, we need to use data to identify issues early and intervene before they become problems. For example, if we see asymmetries or changes in movement patterns, we can act immediately and start a conversation with the athlete. That’s where technology becomes valuable—when it helps us prevent issues rather than just manage them after the fact.”

🔹 Raphaël Ravet

“AI has strong potential not only in injury risk reduction but also in optimizing performance. Beyond identifying risks, it could help predict when an athlete will reach their peak performance within a training cycle, allowing practitioners to better plan and periodize training. This shifts the focus from just avoiding injury to maximizing performance outcomes. In the coming years, the biggest impact will likely come from tools that can integrate data and provide predictive insights that are both actionable and reliable.”

Q5. Alignment Between Practitioners and Vendors

🔹 Frederick Donnell

“One of the biggest challenges with new technologies is time. If a tool requires 10 or 15 minutes per athlete, it’s just not realistic in our environment. We’re managing large numbers of athletes, and there’s very little opportunity for extended one-on-one sessions. That means tools need to be efficient and allow athletes to be somewhat self-sufficient, while we still oversee the process. If it doesn’t fit into our daily workflow, no matter how good it is, it’s not going to be used.”

🔹 Devan McConnell

“From a practitioner standpoint, time constraints and athlete motivation are major factors. Athletes have limited time and are focused primarily on performance and competition, so if a tool doesn’t clearly impact their ability to perform, it’s difficult to get consistent engagement. Even if we believe strongly in the value of a technology, adoption becomes a challenge if it doesn’t align with the athlete’s priorities or fit seamlessly into their routine. That’s something vendors really need to understand when designing solutions.”

🔹 Raphaël Ravet

“From the vendor side, it’s critical to design products that fit real-world conditions and workflows. Early on, we worked very closely with practitioners and early adopters to refine both the technology and the protocols around it. Having a scientifically valid tool isn’t enough—it has to be usable and actionable in daily practice. That’s why collaboration is essential. By putting the product directly in the hands of practitioners and learning from their feedback, we were able to build something that aligns with their needs and constraints.”

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Dhia Amara is a Tunisian-born strength and conditioning specialist who grew up in Montreal, where he developed an extensive academic and professional foundation in exercise physiology. After earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, he spent five years working with varsity teams and Team Canada basketball, while also gaining experience in research at local hospitals. His career took an international turn in 2020 when his online presentations caught the attention of a professional football team in Saudi Arabia. He spent several years in Saudi Arabia’s top division and later worked with the Saudi Olympics to help athletes prepare for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

Currently serving as the Lead Strength and Conditioning Coach for CF Montreal, Amara returned to his hometown after being recruited for his specialized philosophy on player development. His approach is heavily rooted in an “outcome approach,” focusing on high-performance metrics such as deceleration capacity, isometric work, and eccentric strength to ensure athletes are robust enough to handle the demands of elite soccer. Beyond physical training, he acts as a central figure in the performance department, bridging the gap between medical, nutritional, and coaching staff while advocating for the increased individualization of player loads through the integration of wearable technology and data analysis.

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on:

• His background and what led him to CF Montreal.

• His role at CF Montreal, and what a typical day looks like.

• His approach towards S&C, and innovation.

• How he sees the world S&C in elite sports evolving in the coming years.

• Which technologies he would build if he had unlimited resources.

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview with Dhia located at the top of this blog post.

Here are the quotes from the interview with Dhia:

Q1. Tell me about your background and what led you to CF Montreal?

“I was born in Tunisia and then I grew up in Montreal... I did all my school and internships here. I did a bachelor degree and a master degree in exercise physiology... I touched base on many things like rehab, management, and performance... I even worked in a hospital to work with researchers. I worked for five years with the varsity team... and I did a couple of camps with Team Canada basketball. In 2020, during COVID, I started to do conferences online. A person responsible from a team in Saudi Arabia attended the online conference... He liked my philosophy and he offered me a contract in Saudi Arabia. I went to Saudi Arabia to work for a football division one team for two years, then I got an offer from the Saudi Olympics to prepare for the Olympic Games in Paris. Then CF Montreal contacted me... they were looking for someone who can help them to develop the physical qualities of the players... Jill Gagan, who was the first person with whom I did my internship, knew me and we stayed in contact. After four years and a half in Saudi Arabia, I decided to come back home.”

Q2. What is your role at CF Montreal? What does your typical day look like?

“Basically, we don’t have a typical day, but the days they sometimes look alike a bit. We start in the morning around 7:30 or 8:00 AM with the staff... I start to see my planning for the day. Slowly the players start to come, so we start to check their readiness—who is sick, who is overloaded. The medical team tells us about the players who are in or out, and I change my plan if I have to. In the gym, I help the guys prepare; some have individual work, some have core work for the team. We have a meeting with the coaching staff, then we do our practice. Some training we do before or after practice, depending on the quality we would like to work, like speed or hypertrophy. By 2:00 PM we are done with the players... then we have another meeting with the medical staff to see what happened during the day and talk about the next day. When we don’t have big training sessions, we have more time to analyze and talk about what we want to do next month.”

Q3. What is your approach towards S&C and innovation?

“I don’t have a magical recipe... I call it an outcome approach. I have something I want to improve, I know I need to put this amount of dose for that athlete, and I manage through the week to give them that dose. We focus a lot on deceleration work... we use a lot of work on the field to improve these qualities. For example, we have a big downhill at the club that we use for overspeed because gravity pulls you, so you use less energy to reach high speeds. We expose the athlete to something bigger than what they can get in training or a game... so when they are exposed to it, they feel it is normal. Regarding innovation, the goal is not to collect as many useful tools as we can, but to select what fits our philosophy. I am sticking to my philosophy and always look for tools that can improve it. If it is not solving a problem, then what is it for? I don’t want to buy something I’m going to use only once; I want something I need every week or every two weeks.”

Q4. How do you see the world of S&C in elite sports evolving in the coming years?

“Many football players now have their personal coaches, and it’s going to become more and more [common], so I feel we have to collaborate with them. The goal is to establish trust between me, his coach, and him because I am the only one who knows the total load he underwent. We will reach a state where we have a lot of importance because we are the ones who understand the language of the coach, the nutritionist, and the medical staff—we are the connective tissue of all the departments. Our department will become big, maybe five people minimum in every organization, because to individualize all the work and respond to all the duties, you need more people. We are getting into an era where everything is individualized—even collective football training—because some players exceed their capacity during games and need to be managed. It’s going to be individualized every day, everywhere, and this is the new era of S&C.”

Q5. If you could build any new technologies and had unlimited resources, what would you build? Why?

“What I would do is something that I was thinking about for one year now... many athletes now wear Whoop. I wish we had a tool where Whoop is connected to the GPS. Now we have different data from everywhere—wellness questionnaires, HRV, GPS, force plates—and we have to interpret all this and convince the coach. I feel with AI, it could take the GPS load, gym load, sleep, and everything, and in the morning give me a number that says ‘this player is 70% ready for today’s training.’ It would take all the data, summarize it, and give me a score with recommendations so I can decide quickly. It’s not about adding more; it’s about making sense of what we have already. I have already a lot; I just need something that helps me to decide faster.”

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You can watch the video interview below or you can listen to the audio interview above:

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on:

• The NFL draft in Pittsburgh April 23-25 with 750,000 additional people expected.

• NCAA updates: The transfer portal, March Madness.

• WNBA updates.

• NBA & NHL playoffs,

• MLB season debut.

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview with Ron located at the top of this blog post.

Here are some of the best quotes of our conversation with Ron:

🏈 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh

“It is going to be the new Woodstock. The original Woodstock had around 400,000 to 500,000 people, and when you look at what happened in Detroit with about 750,000 people and over $200 million in new revenue, I expect all of that here in Pittsburgh. There will be more people here than at any point in the city’s history, so just brace for impact. This has really become a pilgrimage—people just show up to be part of it—and because the NFL is a 12-month-a-year league, there’s really no offseason, which is why the draft has exploded into something none of us have ever seen before.”

🎓 NCAA (Transfer Portal & March Madness)

“The transfer portal has really turned into free agency—there’s a lot of movement, and players can go to the highest bidder without sitting out, which is a huge shift from how college sports used to operate. The challenge right now is that there still doesn’t seem to be much structure or formal contracts, so it’s evolving in real time and changing the entire landscape. And with March Madness, when you have situations where emotions run high, especially with Hall of Fame coaches, it’s important to handle things the right way—if you’re going to apologize, use the person’s name, because at that level, everyone should know better.”

🏀 WNBA

“The new financial structure in the WNBA is a major step forward. You’re looking at a minimum salary now at $300,000, up from $66,000, and the average salary jumping from about $120,000 to $600,000. There’s a $7 million salary cap, super max deals at $1.4 million, and even systems like a core player designation, similar to a franchise tag. I don’t see how this is a bad thing—the players are happy, the revenue is clearly there, and after nearly 30 years, the league’s growth and team valuations are finally catching up with where they should be.”

🏀🏒 NBA & NHL Playoffs

“Late March and early April is always one of the most exciting times in sports because everything is coming together at once—the regular seasons are wrapping up, playoff spots are being decided, and you’ve got a lot of strong teams across both the NBA and NHL. Injuries, momentum, and matchups are all playing a role, so there’s a lot of uncertainty about who’s going to make a run. That’s what makes it such a fun and exciting time to be a sports fan.”

⚾ MLB Season Debut

“You’ve got a 19-year-old signing a $140 million contract for nine years without ever playing a major league game, and that’s what makes this so risky. Seven teams passed on him in the draft, so clearly there were questions, and this kind of deal is very uncharacteristic, especially for a team like Pittsburgh. It caught the league and a lot of fans off guard, but at the same time there’s real excitement about his potential, so now the spotlight is on him to see if he can actually live up to that investment.”

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The Upside Newsletter

🔥Upside Chat: Dr Ron Dick, Duquesne University, Ex NBA/NCAA Exec on the NHL/NBA/MLS Favorites, MLB Spring Training, Aaron Rodgers, March Madness, Leo Messi

This week we had the honor to interview again Dr. Ron Dick, associate professor of sports marketing at Duquesne University in the school of business. Ron also worked for 20 years in sports, including 15 years in the NBA with the Sixers and the Nets, and then five years in the NCAA…

Listen now

a year ago · Julien Blin

Frederick Donnell is the Head Football Athletic Trainer at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), where he oversees all aspects of sports medicine, rehabilitation, and return-to-play decision-making for student-athletes. He began his career after discovering a passion for athletic training during an internship at Florida Atlantic University, before earning his master’s degree from the University of South Florida. Donnell gained valuable experience across both collegiate and professional sports, including roles with the Atlanta Falcons, Coastal Carolina, and the University of Central Florida.

Known for his evidence-based approach and emphasis on collaboration, he works closely with strength and conditioning staff, coaches, and sports science teams to ensure athlete health, performance, and long-term development, with the ultimate goal of helping players safely reach the next level.

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on:

• His journey to the NCAA.

• His role at UNLV.

• His approach towards training, S&C and innovation.

• How he sees the world of S&C evolving in the next 5 years.

• How sports medicine and S&C tend to intertwine.

• The impact of AI in the world of elite sports.

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview with Frederick located at the top of this blog post.

Here are the quotes from the interview with Frederick:

Q1. His Background

“Back in undergrad at FAU, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I had about a year left and was trying to figure it out, so I ended up interning with the sports medicine staff—and that’s where everything changed. I fell in love with the profession.”

“After FAU, I went to the University of South Florida for my master’s, then spent time with the Atlanta Falcons as a seasonal assistant, Coastal Carolina covering football and baseball, and then four years at UCF before coming here to UNLV.”

“It’s funny because the people I interned under back then are now in top roles in the NFL, and to see everyone grow together in this profession has been really special.”

Q2. His Role at UNLV

“You can almost call me a medical supervisor for the program—I tend to have the final say on whether a student-athlete can participate in practices, games, or workouts.”

“I’m essentially their voice when communicating with the strength staff and coaching staff about what they can and can’t do.”

“I oversee all rehab and treatment, and you can almost consider me the medical director of the staff, especially when it comes to return-to-play decisions.”

“My ultimate goal is to get these guys back on the field in a safe but timely manner—and hopefully help them reach the next level and play on Sundays.”

Q3. His Approach to Training, S&C, and Innovation

“I teach my staff four key points: inhibit, lengthen, activate, and integrate—that’s the foundation of how we approach rehab and training.”

“We want to calm down overactive muscles, improve range of motion, then activate and finally integrate movements that are specific to their sport and position.”

“I’m not going to have a defensive back doing offensive line drills—everything we do is tailored to the individual because that creates purpose and buy-in.”

“Everything we do here is evidence-based—we’re not going to do something the same way for 20 years without adapting to new research.”

“We’re constantly looking at data and using tools like force plates and force frames to make informed decisions instead of just guessing when an athlete is ready.”

Q4. The Future of S&C (Next 5 Years)

“There’s a lot more research now being done in the weight room compared to 20 years ago—back then, people were just repeating the same methods without much data.”

“Now strength and conditioning is becoming much more evidence-based, with smarter programming that avoids overtraining and looks at long-term development.”

“The best programs today are built by professionals who are actually developing structured plans—not just pushing athletes harder for the sake of it.”

“One concern I have is athletes having too much say in their programming—they should have input, but ultimately the experts in the weight room should lead.”

Q5. The Interplay Between Sports Medicine and S&C

“The triangle of communication between sports medicine, strength and conditioning, and coaching staff is absolutely essential.”

“What I communicate to the strength staff and coaches has to be identical—everyone needs to be on the same page.”

“If the strength staff sees progress in the weight room, that needs to be communicated so we can progress the athlete safely.”

“We never want a student-athlete to be confused about what they can or can’t do—that’s why communication is everything.”

Q6. The Impact of AI in Elite Sports

“AI definitely has a role in healthcare, but I’m not worried about a robot taking over my job—it’s more about how it can assist us.”

“If you didn’t write a note, it never happened—so using AI for note-taking and documentation can save a huge amount of time.”

“There are also opportunities to use AI for building rehab programs, which can be very time-consuming.”

“If AI can help us manage our time better—especially in a hands-on profession like ours—that’s where it becomes really valuable.”

“We need to put our egos aside and ask, ‘How can we use AI to be more efficient and better at our jobs?’”

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• Michael Messer, the head of rehabilitation at Nashville SC (MLS).

• Darcy Norman, the Director of Performance at Chicago Fire FC (MLS).

• Karam Al-Hamdani, the Director of Sports Medicine and Head Athletic Trainer at the CF Montreal (MLS).

• Jason Han, the former head of rehabilitation at LAFC (MLS). Jason is also the head of business development in North America at OneBase health.

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

Here are some of the best quotes of our conversation with Michael, Darcy, Jason and Karam:

🧠 Q1. The Next Competitive Edge in the MLS

Darcy Norman

“I think it’s data and information systems. The groups that are willing to take on the challenge of implementing technology — and more importantly, building the systems and processes around it — are going to have a serious advantage. It’s a ton of work, but if you can get good data and turn it into meaningful information, it allows you to adapt faster to trends, league demands, and the global game. Ultimately, better information leads to better decisions and faster progress.”

“From a pure resourcing standpoint, MLS is still behind Europe. Some clubs here have very small or even non-existent departments compared to what you see overseas. But the teams that recognize this gap and embrace data and technology as a way to create an edge are the ones that will benefit the most.”

Jason Han

“The data is incredible, especially now with AI — you can process information from your own team and across the world at light speed. But we’re in this in-between stage. You can have all the data in the world, but if you don’t have enough people to implement it and build relationships with players, it doesn’t matter. The real competitive edge will come from combining data with the human side — and that requires investment in people.”

Karam Al Hamdani

“I really think the next competitive advantage is the creation of true R&D departments within clubs. You can have the best technology and AI systems, but if you don’t have dedicated people whose job is to interpret that data and turn it into meaningful, actionable insights for players and staff, then data is just data. The value comes from translating it into something usable.”

Michael Messer

“I’m really interested to see what happens after the World Cup in the U.S. It could shift resources, interest, and even the talent pipeline. In the U.S., we’re competing with other sports for top athletes, unlike many European countries. So the next edge might also come from improving our academy systems and attracting better athletes into soccer earlier.”

🤝 Q2. Collaboration Between Departments

Karam Al Hamdani

“Collaboration has evolved massively. When I started, it was basically one trainer, one assistant, and one fitness coach doing everything. Now you have full departments — medical, performance, analytics — all with strong opinions and ideas. The key is constant communication and having meaningful meetings with clear agendas and actionable outcomes. That’s what creates true synergy.”

“You have to be prepared, but also flexible. No matter how much planning you do, there will always be curveballs. So best-in-class collaboration is about preparation, communication, and the ability to adapt in real time.”

Darcy Norman

“As clubs grow, it becomes harder to keep everyone aligned. You might have more expertise, but also more complexity. So you need a really clear mission, vision, and values. Otherwise, you waste time and create friction. Collaboration today is about being interdisciplinary, efficient, and respectful of time — because if not, burnout becomes a real risk.”

Jason Han

“It really comes down to leadership. You can have five or ten smart people in a room, but if no one is truly leading and creating structure, things fall apart. You need clear processes, accountability, and clarity on who is responsible for what. At the same time, you have to stay flexible because in sport, things change instantly.”

Michael Messer

“What you’re starting to see is a better understanding across departments of how each role contributes to the bigger picture. But that only works if there’s strong leadership at the top to align everyone toward a common goal. Whether it’s rehab, performance, coaching, or analytics, everyone needs to be working toward the same vision.”

⚡ Q3. Athlete Fatigue (Physical & Psychological)

Darcy Norman

“Fatigue is a massive question — and I don’t think it’s ever fully solvable. It starts with leadership, culture, and good planning. Monitoring tools help, but they all have limitations. For example, with GPS, we thought we understood workload, but then realized we were missing 30–40% of what players were actually doing.”

“At the end of the day, the most important tool is still communication. Having honest conversations with players — ‘How are you feeling? Are you ready today?’ — is often more valuable than any piece of technology. The data helps guide you, but it doesn’t replace that human interaction.”

Jason Han

“What players do outside the facility is a huge, often untapped part of fatigue management. You can control training, recovery, and protocols inside the building, but you also need to educate players on their choices outside — sleep, activity, lifestyle. Ultimately, it comes down to helping them understand what they truly want and aligning their behaviors with that.”

Karam Al Hamdani

“You can have all the tools — Oura rings, Whoop, questionnaires — but it always comes back to honest conversations. You combine how the player feels physically, how they feel mentally, what the data says, and what you see clinically, and then you make a decision.”

“Fatigue today isn’t just physical — it’s travel, time zones, emotional stress, performance outcomes. You take all of that, mix it together, and try to make the best possible call. But communication is always the key.”

Michael Messer

“For me, communication is always the first line. A simple daily RPE or honest conversation can be incredibly powerful. The challenge is taking all the available data and turning it into a simple, confident decision — especially when that decision might impact training or game selection.”

“There’s so much technology out there, but the real challenge is using it consistently and meaningfully. And ultimately, you need the coach to trust the information you’re presenting if it’s going to influence decisions.”

🔮 Q4. Future of the MLS Athlete

Darcy Norman

“As academies improve and the talent pool grows, the overall quality of the MLS athlete will continue to rise. From a performance standpoint, I’d like to see players become more ‘pound-for-pound’ strong — not necessarily bigger, but more powerful and efficient relative to their body weight.”

“With better players and increased competition, everything speeds up — decision-making, intensity, execution. Players adapt to that environment, and it elevates the entire level of the game.”

Karam Al Hamdani

“I think the future MLS athlete will be smarter and more educated. With better academy systems and more resources in areas like performance and nutrition, players will develop stronger decision-making skills and a deeper understanding of the game.”

Jason Han

“As the quality of teammates and competition improves, the overall level rises. But I think a big shift will be players treating their bodies like precision-managed systems — combining objective data with their internal drive and passion for the sport. That balance will create better athletes.”

Michael Messer

“The level of the athlete will continue to improve across physical, technical, and cognitive areas. Physically, MLS players are not far off globally, but where you see the gap is at the very top end — the elite of the elite.”

“The biggest opportunity for growth is probably on the technical and tactical side — developing smarter players, stronger identities, and more refined styles of play through better academy development.”

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• Dr. John DeWitt, Director of applied sports science in the athletic department and a faculty member, Rice University (NCAA team).

• Paul Silvestri, Sr director of sports health and performance, University of Florida football (NCAA team).

• Drew Lukes, Senior PT at Duke University and the head of sports science, Duke university’s women soccer team (NCAA team).

• Tyler Friedrich, Associate Athletics Director, Applied Performance at Stanford University (NCAA team).

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on the following questions:

Q1. Time Management

In a high-performance NCAA environment where demands are constant, how do you personally and professionally manage your time? Are there specific systems, tools, or habits that help you stay effective and avoid burnout?

Q2. Athlete Fatigue (Physical & Psychological)

Fatigue management is becoming increasingly complex. What methods or technologies do you rely on to monitor both physical and psychological fatigue in your athletes? And how do those insights actually influence your day-to-day decision-making?

Q3. Lessons Learned

Looking back on your career so far, what are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned? And if you had the opportunity to do something differently earlier on, what would it be—and why?

Q4. March Madness Predictions

With March Madness around the corner, who do you see as the team to beat this year? What stands out to you about their performance, preparation, or overall structure?

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview located at the top of this blog post.

You can leave a comment by clicking on the button below:

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Here are some of the best quotes of our conversation with them:

Q1. Time Management

Dr. John DeWitt

“In our environment, there’s always another question to answer or another dataset to explore, and if you’re not careful, you can spend all your time chasing analysis. What I’ve learned is that you have to weigh the value of the question against the time it will take to answer it. If the insight isn’t going to directly help improve performance or reduce injury risk, then it’s okay to say no. That discipline is critical—otherwise, you’ll find yourself stuck behind a computer all day without actually moving the needle for your athletes.”

Paul Silvestri

“One of the biggest lessons for me in managing time has been empowering my staff. I don’t set their schedules—one of my assistants handles that for the entire group. It gives them ownership, it builds trust, and it helps them create balance in their own lives. And that balance is huge, because when people feel good outside of work, they’re much more effective inside of it. For me personally, I try to recognize that there are going to be really busy stretches, but when things slow down, I make it a priority to invest that time back into my family and reset.”

Tyler Friedrich

“A huge key to managing time effectively is being extremely diligent with your front-end work. How you collect your data, how you store it, how clean and organized it is—those things determine how efficient you’ll be later. If you build strong systems and dashboards upfront, you can answer a lot of questions almost instantly instead of digging through hours of data. At the same time, we really emphasize taking advantage of downtime. In college athletics, there are moments—like breaks in the schedule—where you actually can step away, and we encourage our staff to use those moments because they don’t always come around.”

Drew Lukes

“One of the realities of working in this setting is that your time is not always your own. You can have a perfectly planned day, and within seconds, something urgent comes up and everything changes. So for me, it’s about being what I’d call ‘rigidly flexible.’ I try to block off time for things that matter—like working out or taking care of myself—because I know that directly impacts how well I can take care of others. It doesn’t always go as planned, but having that structure in place gives me a better chance to stay consistent.”

Q2. Athlete Fatigue (Physical & Psychological)

Paul Silvestri

“We use a lot of tools—GPS, force plates, different monitoring systems—but one of the biggest changes we’ve made recently was simply adjusting our schedule. Moving to morning practices gave our athletes more time during the day to recover, handle school, and just live their lives. The feedback has been incredible. Guys are telling us they feel more normal, less rushed, and more in control of their day. That psychological piece is huge. You can measure everything in the world, but if athletes don’t have the time and space to manage their lives, those tools only go so far.”

Drew Lukes

“For us, monitoring fatigue is really about building a complete picture. We use wellness questionnaires, but we fully understand their limitations. So we combine that subjective data with objective measures like force plate outputs, GPS data, and other performance markers. It’s not about relying on one metric—it’s about layering them together to create a profile of where the athlete is at. And beyond the data, a big part of it is education and trust. Athletes need to understand why we’re asking these questions and believe that being honest won’t negatively impact them.”

Tyler Friedrich

“We have more data than ever—force plates, GPS, wellness surveys—all feeding into our daily decision-making. But without strong relationships and proper education, that data doesn’t mean much. Sometimes the most valuable insight still comes from simply asking an athlete how they feel. And what’s interesting is that performance doesn’t always align with the numbers. You can have an athlete put up the best performance of their career on a day when their metrics aren’t great. That’s why our job is to use the data to inform decisions, not dictate them, and to always keep the bigger picture in mind.”

Dr. John DeWitt

“When we talk about fatigue, I think it’s important to distinguish between acute fatigue—what an athlete is feeling from recent activity—and chronic fatigue that builds over time across a season. The same data can help us identify both, but the interpretation changes depending on the question we’re asking. Ultimately, though, the data is just the starting point. When we see something change, that should trigger a deeper investigation—talking to the athlete, understanding context, and figuring out what’s really going on. And when it comes to psychological fatigue, we’re still largely relying on subjective tools like questionnaires. We don’t yet have a truly objective way to measure that piece.”

Q3. Lessons Learned

Dr. John DeWitt

“One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that coaches and athletes aren’t interested in the complexity of your analysis—they want to know what it means for them. Early on, I would get excited about the process and want to walk people through all the technical steps. But over time, I realized that what really matters is delivering a clear, actionable recommendation. The process is important for us, but the outcome is what drives impact.”

Drew Lukes

“We have a saying that really stuck with me: we take what we do very seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Earlier in my career, I would take things very personally when something didn’t go as planned, and it would affect how I showed up day to day. Learning to separate those things—to still care deeply about the work but not let it define me—has been a huge shift and has made me a better practitioner.”

Paul Silvestri

“Early in my career, when something went wrong—whether it was an injury or a rehab setback—I would internalize it and take it very personally. Over time, you realize that even when you do everything right, things can still go wrong. That’s just part of the profession. The key is learning how to respond, how to adapt, and how to keep moving forward without letting those moments define you.”

Tyler Friedrich

“One concept that’s really shaped my approach is having strong convictions, but holding them loosely. I believe in what I do, and I’m confident in our systems, but I’m always open to evolving those beliefs based on new research, new experiences, or new perspectives. As you grow in your career, that mindset helps reduce pressure and allows you to be more adaptable, which ultimately leads to better outcomes.”

Q4. March Madness Predictions

Paul Silvestri

“If you had asked me before last night, I would’ve confidently said Florida—but after that loss, I think Arizona really stands out. They’re one of the most complete teams I’ve seen this year. They have a great mix of experienced players and young talent, and they seem to be playing really well together at the right time.”

Dr. John DeWitt

“I haven’t followed every team closely, but I’ll go out on a limb and say Houston. They’re playing in a familiar environment for this next stretch, which can be a big advantage, and they seem to be well-positioned to make a deep run.”

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Qualisys is the maker of OnTraq by Qualisys, which brings lab-quality, video-based biomechanical analysis to elite sports teams without complexity, helping teams establish and monitor consistent athlete baselines. Built on Qualisys’ proven foundation of biomechanical accuracy, OnTraq makes research-grade movement analysis accessible to any staff member while fitting naturally into regular training routines.

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

Here is a look at OnTraq software:

Here is below a picture of the OnTraq’s dashboard:

Here is a video explaining how OnTraq works:

📝Show Notes: During the interview with Luis Justiniano and Oskar Lindh, we discussed their backgrounds and the evolution of their work at Qualisys, a company with more than 30 years of expertise in motion capture and biomechanics. They explained how their product, OnTrack, translates this legacy into a practical solution for elite sports by combining high-accuracy data with ease of use. Designed to fit seamlessly into training environments, OnTraq enables teams to quickly collect baseline biomechanical data, monitor athletes over time, and generate actionable insights without disrupting workflows. The platform addresses key use cases such as return-to-play decision-making, performance tracking, and even scouting, allowing practitioners to identify movement deviations, track progress, and support data-driven decisions.

We also explored the core benefits and differentiation of their solution, including its speed, accuracy, and ability to deliver immediate feedback, as well as its subscription-based business model that lowers adoption barriers by bundling hardware, software, and support. Luis and Oskar highlighted the rapid growth of the sports biomechanics and markerless tracking market, driven by increasing demand for athlete data and broader adoption beyond academia. Looking ahead, they emphasized their ambition to become the standard for baseline testing in team sports, with a strong focus on continuous product development, deeper integrations, and expanding partnerships with professional teams to scale globally and refine the platform based on real-world feedback.

Here are the best quotes from the interview with Luis and Oskar:

Q1. Tell me about your background

Luis Justiniano explains:

“I’m the Sales Director for Elite Sports in the Americas, where I lead the team responsible for driving adoption of our OnTraq solution across North America. My role focuses on working closely with professional teams and organizations to understand their needs and help them integrate motion capture technology into their performance workflows.”

Oskar Lindh adds:

“I come from a background as a UX designer, where my focus has been on translating user needs and requirements into valuable, intuitive products. Over time, I transitioned into a broader role as product manager, where I now oversee the full lifecycle of the product—from design and development to launch—ensuring everything fits together and delivers real value to users.”

Q2. Tell me about your company and product

“Qualisys has more than 30 years of experience in motion capture technology, particularly within biomechanics, where we’ve built a strong reputation for delivering highly accurate systems. With OnTraq, we’ve taken that deep expertise and transformed it into a product designed specifically for sports environments.”

“OnTraq is built to provide a flexible, practical way to collect baseline biomechanical data and deliver immediate feedback to coaches and practitioners. It allows teams to capture data quickly, accurately, and reliably, while monitoring athletes throughout the season.”

“What we’re really doing is combining the ease of use you’d expect from consumer-grade tools with the high-quality data and precision of advanced motion capture systems. The goal is to make it simple to generate actionable insights without the complexity that traditionally comes with motion capture.”

Q3. What are the main use cases you are addressing in elite sports?

“One of the primary use cases is supporting return-to-play decisions. Teams can use the system to collect objective movement data during rehabilitation, helping them define clearer protocols and make more informed decisions about when an athlete is ready to return.”

“Another major use case is performance tracking—monitoring how athletes progress against their baseline over time. By testing more frequently, teams can identify trends, detect deviations, and better understand how training is impacting performance.”

“We also see applications in scouting and player development, where teams can evaluate athletes across different levels and use the data to help them improve. Ultimately, the goal is to enable regular, efficient testing that provides both immediate feedback and long-term insights.”

Q4. What are the benefits for teams to use your product?

“One of the biggest benefits is speed and efficiency. Teams can test athletes in less than five minutes, often in under a minute per player, without disrupting their regular training workflow.”

“At the same time, they’re getting high-quality, accurate data along with actionable insights. Coaches and practitioners can immediately access key metrics and use them to make faster, more informed decisions.”

“By building baselines and tracking changes over time, teams gain a much clearer understanding of athlete performance and movement patterns. This is particularly valuable for both performance optimization and injury management, as it allows them to detect asymmetries or deviations early and respond accordingly.”

Q5. What are your competitive advantages?

“Our competitive advantage comes from the combination of speed, ease of use, and data quality. We’re able to deliver high-precision biomechanical insights in a way that’s fast and practical for everyday use.”

“We also bring more than 35 years of experience in biomechanics, which gives us a strong foundation in accuracy and credibility. This isn’t just a standalone tool—we provide a complete ecosystem that includes hardware, software, data processing, and trend analysis dashboards.”

“What really differentiates us is our ability to simplify complex motion capture workflows without compromising on quality. We’re making advanced biomechanics accessible to teams in a way that hasn’t been possible before.”

Q6. Tell me about your business model

“Our goal is to make motion capture technology more accessible, which is why we use a subscription-based model. This allows teams to get started without the large upfront investment typically associated with these systems.”

“The subscription includes everything—hardware, software, installation, training, and ongoing support—so teams have a complete solution from day one.”

“We offer different tiers, such as bronze, silver, and gold, depending on the organization’s needs. It’s typically structured as a two-year commitment, but we’ve built flexibility into the model. If circumstances change, teams can return the system, which reduces the risk and makes adoption easier.”

Q7. What is your take on the state of the sports markerless market?

“The market is clearly growing, driven by an increasing demand for player data and a deeper understanding of how athletes move. Biomechanics, in particular, has expanded significantly—it’s no longer limited to academic research but is now widely adopted across sports organizations.”

“We’re seeing a broader trend where data is being collected across the entire athlete lifecycle—from games to training sessions and rehabilitation. This reflects a shift toward more data-driven decision-making in sports.”

“At the same time, there’s a strong need to make these technologies more accessible and practical for coaches and practitioners. That’s where solutions like ours come in—bridging the gap between advanced biomechanics and everyday usability.”

Q8. What are your plans for the next 12 months?

“Over the next 12 months, our focus is on continuing to develop and improve the product by incorporating feedback from teams and users. We want to ensure that what we’re building truly aligns with the needs of different sports and organizations.”

“Our broader ambition is to become the standard for baseline testing in team sports. While we’ve already built a strong foundation by simplifying workflows and maintaining accuracy, there are still many features in development.”

“This includes deeper integrations, enhanced data insights, and expanded capabilities that will further improve usability and value. At the same time, we’re looking to scale through partnerships and build more case studies with professional teams, helping us demonstrate impact and grow adoption globally.”

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