In the recent years, technology companies have been moving towards new forms of wearable solutions. One such company is VERT, who have recently come out with a new wearable fitness monitor that conveniently tracks jump rate and jump load information for optimal athletic performance.
“The key thing we’re focusing on is a jump rate feature. Its a brand new dynamic in fitness, especially when it comes to jump rope exercises or crossfit,” VERT CEO Martin Matak tells SportTechie in a phone interview.
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VERT has recently partnered with USA Volleyball as well as the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) to help amateur athletes with performance as well as injury prevention. “There’s always some sense of ‘I can jump this high.’ What we fell upon is this whole side of injury prevention that we didn’t realize how valuable it was. Most kids these days play the same sport more often and without breaks, and similar to concussion injuries, theres this epidemic going on with ACL injuries and other leg-related injuries, and our technology automatically helps knowing that information in any type of jumpsport,” said Matak.
In fact, injury prevention is only one key aspect of this wearable. “Technology has caught up where there’s all types of benefits, there’s the performance/training side of it, the injury prevention side, and of course the entertainment side.” said Matak. “Now all these new dynamics in jump load are going to be really important, and with sports like volleyball and basketball when you come down to the amateur level, knowing that information is so crucial so you don’t overdo it.”
The VERT Wearable Jump Monitor is a small device worn on the waist. During workout, the monitor records jumping data and then sends the information to the VERT app to give you real-time analysis of each jump you make. Some features it records include jump count, best jump, average high (your top 25% highest jump) and more.
Although wearable technology has been around for quite some time, only recently have they been picking up steam in the consumer markets. Matak believes that Apple has had a profound effect on this emerging market with their new Apple Watch. “Once you have someone that really comes into the marketplace to set the standard for things, that’s when it changes and you have a new industry, and I think the timing of that is this year.”
“Apple is going to put [wearable technology] on the map. From now until the end of this year, Apple is gonna make wearables-awareness for the average consumer, and it has not been that way yet,” said Matak.
VERT is one of the pioneers of this new market. Matak says that “Apple is looking at the wonderful new ways to measure health in so many different ways, and we’re on that forefront with the new dynamic with jump rate, and we think thats gonna be just as powerful as heart rate when it came out 40 years ago.”
As this new industry emerges, VERT will be trying to develop new ways to improve on current jump rate technology, and help with not only performance-based improvements but medical improvements. “There’s all kinds of dynamics in the medical industry which i think is gonna be profound and were at the beginning stages of it,” said Matak. “The nice thing is that when a juggernaut comes in to a marketplace and actually creates the market place, thats where it all changes.”