Pulse Jam

Same Old Workout Routine? Try Climbstation - Rock Climbing Indoors

So here we are in mid-winter, some of us doing the same workouts every week:  treadmills, stationary bikes/spin classes, etc.  ClimbStation is looking to shake things up.  With no ropes or harness to put on, and no supervisor needed, the ClimbStation is perfect for amateurs as well as pros.  ClimbStation now makes climbing available to all climbing fans and provides a robust workout enhancing fitness and strength through mulitple muscle groups.

So what does a rock climbing simulator have to do with technology?  With ClimbStation, users begin with a touch-screen, user interface.  A track is selected and away you go.  During the climbing workout, climbing statistics are displayed, such as, time, height, length of route climbed, and calories burned.  at the end of the climb, users can save the workout for future use.   Top scores are recorded on a leaderboard for comparison against others.  Additionally up to six ClimbStations can be linked together for climbing competitions.  Yet another creative application of Sports Intelligence.

Pulse Gear: Weighted Agility Gloves

If you want stronger and quicker hands then you must train to have stronger and quicker hands.  For sports where hand and forearm speed and strength are important, these weighted agility gloves or WAG, developed by Draz Athletics, could help.  The glove was designed for better strength, quickness, agility, and dexterity of fingers, hands, wrists and forearms.  All muscles groups are actually exercised, particularly fingers.  What makes these gloves intriguing is the specially curved weights that go all the way down the fingers, which allows for constant resistance during any sport specific motion while allowing full movement of the fingers, such as dribbling, catching, rebounding, grabbing a hockey stick, baseball bat or tennis racket.

Wags are used today in over 40 sports and at all levels from pro to youth leagues.  We do come across a large number of sports gear applications and have to say these do hold promise.  As many of you athletes and coaches know, if you want to have the best hands on the field, in the gym, or anywhere sports are played, then you must train to have the strongest, quickest, most gifted fingers and hands.  Just like any other body part or discipline.

How Can I Watch Hockey On The Web?

Now I like sports as much as the next guy or girl, but there are some folks and you know who you are, that absolutely cannot live without having access to a steady fix of hockey games, either on TV or on the web.  For you rabid hockey fans the National Hockey League has created GameCenter Live -- the League's Web- and subscription-based service that provides coverage of out-of-market games on a nightly basis.  You don't just watch a game (or four of them, at the same time); you follow real-time stats, shot analysis, dial up video highlight clips and chat with fans around the world.

There's plenty that dazzles the eye on GameCenter Live, but its most important aspect is something less observable and more implicit: that the way games are being presented on NHL.com today could be the groundwork for how they're presented on television in the future.

The NHL has streamed games online for the last few seasons. In the past, they were an online component of Center Ice, the League's successful subscription service on cable and satellite.

GameCenter Live is a next generation upgrade that has transformed the digital viewing experience. Fans have the ability to watch up to four games at once. The audio options range from television calls to radio voices. There are detailed real-time stats, including ice time. Text-based play-by-play is offered, with on-demand video highlights of goals. A rather addictive shot-tracker allows the viewer to assess the quality of offensive chances. Finally, the GameCenter chat allows for running commentary from around the world, although much of it is reduced to trash talk.

This immersive experience has produced some blockbuster numbers for the NHL, which reports that subscriptions for GameCenter Live are 231 percent up from last year.

We have yet to see if the total immersion experience is the wave of the future for television, but for now, it's definitely changing the way puckheads are able to experience hockey on the Web; even if the flow of information can be delightfully overwhelming.

Sports imPULSE - new destination for our blog

Just a quick reminder, we are going through a brand reorganization. Our sports technology blog can now be found at SPORTS imPULSE.   PulseJam will be the new home for our sports intelligence platform. As always, we appreciate the comments and feedback and look forward to continuing the conversation of sports and technology.

Gender Engineering

Sounds freaky and no it's not a new sci-fi movie.  Gender Engineering is the next generation of design technology to maximize fit and performance in athletic footwear. Mizuno has learned through extensive research that there are fundamental differences between the running styles of men and women. Gender Engineering from Mizuno adjusts to those issues – by creating shoes that more closely fit the different running styles of the male and female runner, in return maximizing performance.

Essentially the width of the sole has been increased for males to provide a more stable and secure run, increasing feelings of balance. For women, Mizuno has made the soles more flexible with more pronounced grooves, as well as making the heel rounder slowing inward role of the ankle. This is because women tend to pronate their feet more due to a wider pelvis.

As the saying goes, what will they think of next...

Rescue Technology For Winter Sports

 In the wake of the most tragic start to the avalanche season in North 
American history -- 23 fatalities in the past few weeks -- avalanche 
awareness, safety, and rescue equipment is becoming a necessity for 
skiers, snowboarders and outdoor enthusiasts heading to the mountains 
across the continent.

Working with more than 200 outerwear, ski boot and helmet manufacturers,
RECCO has developed technology that increases safety at mountain resorts.
The popular winter sports products incorporate a pinky-size RECCO tab that 
returns harmonic radar signals emitted by a RECCO detector operated by 
ski patrollers and mountain rescue teams for rapid pinpoint location. The reflectors are available in 
wearable products available through multiple popular brands, including The North Face, Arc'teryx, 
Helly Hansen, Volcom, Atomic Ski Boots and PRO-TEC Helmets. The cool thing is these reflectors 
don't require a battery as they are integrated into products worn on the body.

The dual function, hand-held device can greatly reduce the search times from hours to minutes. 

Saving lives is about saving time, and searching for someone buried in an avalanche is similar to looking
for a needle in a haystack. RECCO's advanced rescue technology can now make rescuers' jobs faster 
and easier, providing another chance for buried victims.

Pulse Gear: Looking For That Smooth Swing?

Yes we're in the middle of winter, but it's never too soon to be thinking about how to improve your golf game.  As our focus is sports technology, we've found a golf club that uses the principles of physics to improve your game.

As you can see in the photo, the golf club has a tiny wheel inside of it. I’m not really certain what powers it, but this wheel can spin at a dizzying speed of 20,000 rpm. The spinning motion allows the user to “feel” the correct shot. 

How can this work? Some of you might remember a little experiment that you did in a high school or college physics lab where you spun a bicycle wheel, and then you could miraculously balance the axle end on the side of a desk, as long as the wheel was spinning.  OK, maybe you just copied it from the smart kid in class, but you get the idea.

In short, spinning a wheel within a golf club removes any shaky movements that the golfer can unintentionally put on it. The result is a smoother swing that will strike the ball at a correct angle.

Don't know if it will work,yet.  But will certainly give it a try.  If you want to try it out it can be purchased on the SKLZ website for about $200.

Smart Speed

We hear it all the time, technology is the future, technology is the future.  And as you know, we've been highlighting technology products and solutions focused on sports and performance.  Here's an interesting and innovative wrinkle, technology focused on athletic testing.  I have talked with many coaches, trainers and athletic facilities who are looking to streamline this activity and we are beginning to work with a few to create custom solutions.  As we expand our portfolio of technology tools, we will most certainly begin working with Fusion Sport and their Smart Speed application.

Smart Speed may be the future of athletic testing. Instruments that can record an athlete`s ability in an instant to a computer - no paper, no clipboards and saving time on reporting, organizing and indexing.  A pain point, isn't it?

A number of sports programs are beginning to use this as their everyday coaching assistant - expanding their fitness testing for speed/power, agility and endurance.  Furthermore, given the automatic data collection Smart Speed becomes a useful tool for Combines and Showcases.

It's refreshing to see the technology advances in athletic testing and we look forward to identifying additional solutions in this very important area.  Please let us know of any new applications, as we would love to highlight them for whole athletic community.

Bored On The Treadmill? Try GameRunner

As some of you may know, every year CES introduces the world to cool gadgets and new technologies.  The health and fitness industry takes advantage of this opportunity to showcase products that blend technology with fitness and sports.  A very important topic for us.

One of the coolest things at CES was the treadmill/video game combo from GameRunner.  You are literally in the game and have to walk or run after your opponent.  Their flagship game, First Person Shooter, puts you in the middle of a war situation and you have run your way out without getting killed.

Interesting concept and I look forward to other games.  I might get tired of being shot at during my entire workout, but then again, maybe that's the point.

Getting On Board

It's not exactly clear who built the first snowboard.  Some say the sport was born in 1929, when M.J. "Jack" Burchett constructed a board out of plywood and attached it to his feet with clothesline and horse reins.  While this has yet to verified, it is certain that in 1965 Sherman Poppen of Muskegon, Michigan, created the prototype for the original mass-produced board, tieing two skis together for his daughters on Christmas morning.  His wife named it the Snurfer, and it became a hit.

Soon a young rider named Jake Burton Carpenter began toying around with the Snurfuer design, and in 1977, after graduating from New York University, he founded what would later become the biggest snowboard company in the world.  Meanwhile in 1970, a surfing fan named Dimitrije Milovich started working on another design, inspired by his sledding down a hill on a cafeteria tray.  Winterstick, the company he formed in 1976 , is still around today.  The industry was on it's way.

The first national snowboard competition was held in 1982 at Suicide Six near Woodstock, Vermont, and five years later, during the 1987-88 season, the four events that made up the first snowboarding World Cup took place.  But it wasn't until 1998 that the ultimate outsider sport received the establishment's highest recognition:  inclusion in the Olympic Games at Nagano, Japan.