Category: Fitness

Categories
Fitness Smartwatches/Bands

Moov wearable adapts to your workouts, offers coaching to improve them

editors-choiceThe Premise. All those New Year’s resolutions to lose weight are already two months old. A small percentage of them are probably still in progress, most have already been given up on, and some never even got started. Of course, it’s harder to turn down a workout with a trainer that can motivate, push, and correct issues with form or impact.

The Product. The Moov is designed to be the personal trainer that it doesn’t feel awkward working out in front of. Pairing with a mobile device (only iPhone 4s or above supported currently), the Moov can be attached or worn anywhere to monitor movement and track stats. More than just a simple pedometer, the Moov can have apps created for virtually any kind of workout, with built-in support for running, body weight workouts, cycling, boxing, and swimming (it’s waterproof). Most of these workouts only require the base Moov, but boxing works best with a second unit, one on each wrist, and up to five can be used in conjunction with each other. This way, not only will distance or reps be tracked, but the device can even provide suggestions to help exercise more safely and effectively.

The Pitch. The Web site for the Moov is pretty underwhelming and just sort of generic 2014 startup with plenty of big pictures and lots and lots of scrolling. The video ads are slick though, and show off the flexibility and possible applications the device could have beyond workouts, though hearing Apple’s Siri as a fitness coach feels less encouraging and more like an Orwellian state-sponsored physical fitness mandate. Moov needs $40,000 to hit the ground running.

The Perks. The Moov can be pre-ordered for $59.95 (half the retail cost), but the product’s creators also offer backers a nifty referral link that others can click through to pre-order as well, earning the original backer a $5 credit for each pre-order. The first batch is expected to ship in the summer of this year.

The Potential.  Moov is a lot more versatile than the average fitness band, and the coaching and multi-device usage really help it stand out; of course, the quality of that coaching remains to be seen. It’s adaptability to different exercises remind one of the Atlas, byt Moov’s approach is quite different. Many people with Fitbit friends know that it becomes all they talk about or post on social media. The Moov looks like the next evolutionary step in personal fitness devices, and will certainly command the same kind of enthusiasm from anyone trying to get or stay in shape.

Categories
Fitness Health and Wellness Lifestyle Relaxation Sports

The Navigator points your putter to the precious precise path

GolfNavigatorA bunch of golf lovers led by “Dirty Larry” Feiistel (who seems like quite the clean-cut fellow) got together to develop a product to help other people learn how to golf. This training aid helps new golfers improve their putting game. It involves an attachment to a putter that helps the golfer realize the alignment of the base of the putter, which in turn, determines the direction that the ball will go. They say that it improves the swing after just 15 minutes of use; that might be a tall order, but it’s not impossible.  The developers are asking for $60 to get the first run of the Navigator, which seems to be a big step up for an idea that was borne out of pipe cleaners. It is due to navigate its way to backers in April 2014.

Categories
Fitness

XBAR creates a portable gym, proves resistance is not futile

xbar2Gyms are big giant scams, but you didn’t hear it here. In addition, many at-home exercise solutions can be costly and not versatile enough for a full body workout. The XBAR is probably one of the smallest and most dynamic solutions to this problem. It consists of a bar (that looks nothing like an X), push up docks and a resistance band. By using the XBAR in different ways, it’s possible to work out your chest, shoulders, back, legs, biceps, triceps, abs, and glutes. XBAR is small and weighs less than 10 pounds, making it very portable and easy to use anywhere. Backers looking to get jacked up can donate $150 towards the $50,000 goal for this product with an estimated delivery date of June 2014.

Categories
Fitness

RST training glove punches up hit accuracy, timing

The Premise. Muhammad Ali once said that he was so fast, he could flip the light switch in his room and be in bed before the room was dark. While maybe a little shy of the 300 million meters per second, he was still able to dodge 21 punches in 10 seconds.  The Greatest have been even greater, though,  had he access to the advanced training tools of today — including ones that are putting a digital twist on tried-and-true methods.

The Product: Reflex Strike Technology (RST) is the training glove from the future. Using adjustable lights, a built-in reflect stopwatch, punch counter, and successful strike beeps, the RST training gloves give realtime assessments to the trainer and allow the fighter to prepare for the spontaneity of a realistically unpredictable fight. With RST, fighters can practice with the same intensity of an actual fight, and have a distinct advantage over their opponent in terms of preparation.

The Pitch. The video shows the RST in action as a young boxer squares off with her trainer. From the video, the mitts look well-made, and it’s easy for the fighter to see the lights and throw the appropriate punch that the trainer dictates. RST creator Jermaine Simpkins goes into great depth about the RST in the written description on how he has combined his passion of teaching youth fighters with the technology of his product. He comes off as passionate and honest about all the RST’s strengths and downfalls, leaving the buyer no doubts about what they’re buying if the campaign can reach its $12,000 goal.

The Perks. The price is steep but the reasoning is honest. Simpkins explains that the gloves offer slightly more than the most expensive gloves on the market. Therefore, the fundamental gloves for beginners will cost $219 and the advanced version with punch count, reflex test, and training features costs $399. He expects the delivery of the fundamental gloves to arrive in February 2014, and the advanced pair to arrive in May.

The Potential. It’s great to see that Simpkins is passionate about evolving the resources that fighters have available, and it’s a good foundation for future improvement. However, Simpkins notes his product’s own downfalls such as durability and price. RST is an ambitious product, but the design needs to improve before it’s ready for  production. As the product is refined, it may be more valuable if it measures strength of impact as well.

Categories
Fitness

BeamBlock poses an opportunity for improving balance

BeamBlock

With its primary color motif, you might think BeamBlock is a trade show prop from Google, Microsoft, eBay or some other company that has adopted four colors in their logo.Or maybe it’s a a new version of Simon that you play with your feet? Alas, it’s neither electronic nor noisy. True to its name, the simple device is a cross between a (short) balance beam and a step block. Yoga teacher, personal trainer and all-around fit Londoner Thierry Giunta abstains from actually demonstrating use of the device in the campaign video, but makes up for it with some pose photos. Alas the reward tiers are as difficult to understand as the choppy audio in the campaign video. It seems, though, that one can pick up a BeamBlock for £120, an insane amount for what appears to be a plastic block. But it may arrive on your block in March 2014.

Categories
Fitness

Bergaffe tube system proposes a one-stop slope shop

The Premise. For many, the multi-function nature of the smartphone has provided one tool that can achieve the functionality of a GPS device, a camera, a camcorder, a digital music player and much more. Perhaps there’s a similar opportunity to create another kind of do-it-all product for tasks in the physical world beyond the Swiss Army Knife or Leatherman multitool.

The Product. The Bergaffe is, by the Austrian designers’ own description, a “simple tube” that is threaded that it can be connected to a variety of different ends to create tools used for what seems to be primarily winter sports. When broken down, the tube itself is nothing more than a small threaded cylinder designed to create “a series of tubes” as the Internet was once famously described. Bergaffe plans to create multiple connections to increase the functionality of the tool.

The Pitch. The short campaign video walks us through some of the Befgaffe’s bag of tricks, showing its use as a shovel, a rake, a tripod and, perhaps most impressively, a bench. The last trick, though, requires use of a snowboard.

The Perks. The Bergaffe is due to hit slopes in March. Backers can offer £120 for the full basic package. At that price, it certainly won’t compete well with many of the products such as a shovel and tripod that it can replace.

The Potential. One can see the use for some of Bergaffe’s current applications, but  the company hasn’t really offered a tantalizing view of what lies beyond and how someone could create it in the field cost-effectively. Beyond a select group of skiers and snowboarders, this probably won’t help much, and it certainly won’t be worth the price of entry the way pricing is currently set.