New tech measures stress on athletes
Vert’s line of sportswear aims to prevent injuries
Athletes love numbers. Not just scores, but practically any other statistic about their performance.
Acompany in Fort Lauderdale is expanding its role in that arena.
Vert initially developed technology to measure the jumping of volleyball and basketball players. The device, worn as a waistband or attached to clothing, measures the height of an athlete’s jump, tracks total jumps and electronically transmits the data to a smatrphone or iPad.
Now Vert is moving into apparel and footwear for sports that involve running, flipping and dancing.
New uses are “all about injury prevention,” said founder and president Martin M at ak.
“Besides jumping, wecameout with the ability to measure every movement in the G-force [the force of gravity] of that movement. You can see exertion that the muscle is doing and the stress being put on the body,” Matak said.
The Miami Heat are one of the teams using Vert, although only in practice, spokesman Tim Donovan said.
NBA teams aren’t allowed towear Vert during regular games, but the Heat’s Development League team, the Sioux Falls Skyforce, has been using Vert even in games, beginning in March.
Vert could be used with star players like Dwyane Wade, whom the Heat wants to preserve, or with rookies to see how much exertion they’re putting into the game, Matak said.
Vert also is working with two other companies to develop uses for its technology in running, cycling and competitive cheerleading.
Working with Hallandale Beach-based Zensah, Vert is creating a line of sportswear it calls “G-Vert.”
Zensah sells socks and underwear for sports such as cycling and running. With G-Vert carried in a pocket of their athletic sock, runners can monitor the stress they’re putting on their body.
Ze’ev Feig, CEO of Zensah, said he has had discussions with companies that had other sen----
sor technologies, but “we never felt strong about any of those companies. Vert has something special.”
Feig said Vert’s measurements will show whether a runner is tired or not running correctly. “Anything that can help reduce the risk of injury is invaluable,” he said.
Matak said G-Vert, to be launched this summer, will be a subscription-based model similar to Fitbit, which costs about $50 a year. He said Vert and Zensah will share revenue on units sold during the first phase of development.
Vert also is working with Nfinity Athletic Corp., an athletic footwear brand in Atlanta, to develop cheer-leading-measure-ments to improve athletic performance.
Tate Chalk, founder of Nfinity, said he had been looking for sports wearable technology for two years when he discovered Vert in February at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
“We’ve looked at other products, but they count steps or how far you’ve run or biked,” he said. Competitive cheerleading is about short bursts of energy over a period of time, Chalk said.
“Competitive cheerleading has gymnastics tumbling, jumps, dances. It’s high flying action,” he said.
Nfinity has demonstrated the G-Vert technology, sewn into a pocket in compression shorts, to competitive cheerleaders and their parents, who are concerned about their children overtraining and getting hurt.
The product “is a wonderful way for coaches to track their efforts and for kids to compare their efforts,” Chalk said.