Miami Hurricanes using military technology to track team’s fitness

The Hurricanes are utilizing technological innovation created for the military to test to get an edge on their opponents.

Miami’s soccer staff is working with an superior health and fitness tracker called the Warfighter Check, designed by defense contractor Tiger Tech Solutions, to keep track of their players’ workout routines this spring and summertime.

“It’s a exceptional chance,” stated Eric Renaghan, Miami’s director of sports activities science. “We’re the only sporting activities group in the state that has obtain to this technological know-how, so it puts us in a really exclusive state of affairs where by we have a competitive edge more than any other team in the county appropriate now.”

Renaghan stated the check, which UM gamers dress in on their arms, appealed to him in component since it has a single-lead electrocardiogram, which separates it from other wearable physical fitness monitors like Apple Watches and Fitbits. The keep track of also collects info on respiration level, body temperature and pulse oximetry.

“An Apple Enjoy, you can get to your hand on the other aspect and contact the view and get an electrocardiogram,” Tiger Tech Solutions CEO Harrison Wittels reported. “We’re actually the 1st product in the globe that can do that from a one limb. Why that is critical is simply because that is the only way to get precise coronary heart price.”

Wittels is a Miami indigenous, so when the chance to operate with the Hurricanes arose, he jumped at it.

“When I was in high college, there was no greater crew in the state,” Wittels explained. “I’m very confident the University of Miami Hurricanes staff would’ve defeat most pro groups. … It’s a storied franchise. It carries as a lot mystique with it as some professional franchises, to be truthful. So it’s outside of thrilling.”

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The Hurricanes are the only athletics team — college or university or professional — currently using the Warfighter Watch.

“Miami’s my hometown and it was just a terrific possibility to do the job alongside one another,” Wittels explained. “We had a whole lot of other chances, to be straightforward, but it was just type of in our yard.”

Renaghan, who is UM’s initially director of athletics science, stated the sum of knowledge his office can pull from the monitors is “not even close” to details readily available from industrial health trackers.

“I assume that the primary variation among people is the form of info that’s getting pulled is specifically calculated, as opposed to possessing other metrics act as surrogates for what people cannot measure with some of people pieces of engineering,” Renaghan mentioned. “For us, currently being capable to pull people direct actions and actually have accuracy as it relates to the response that our athletes are getting is practically a match-changer for us.”

Miami is also utilizing the physique temperature information to make certain none of their gamers experience from heat exhaustion or warmth stroke while doing the job out in hot, humid South Florida weather.

“I imagine a person of the critical items of info for us, specifically in Miami, currently being how incredibly hot and humid it is, is to stop warmth injuries and be capable to appear at the entire body temperature of the athlete and see how coronary heart price is currently being impacted from the load,” Renaghan reported. “[It] lets us to pull an athlete out if we have to have to, to make certain that they don’t encounter a warmth harm and I consider the significant matter for us is seriously utilizing this details to boost our conclusion-generating approach.”

Renaghan stated Hurricanes mentor Mario Cristobal, toughness and conditioning mentor Aaron Feld and the rest of the UM staff members have been receptive to all the information his department has been collecting. The data permits the Miami personnel to alter procedures and exercise sessions to very best go well with players’ health and growth.

“Those matters that we’re having from that information are not accessible to any other crew in the region,” Renaghan mentioned. “For us, as a personnel, it is permitted us to genuinely recognize the enhancements in our athletes, and for what we do, that’s the most crucial issue to genuinely see if our packages are performing what we envisioned them to do by measuring and it permits us to make improvements in which we need to.”