Miami Hurricanes using military technology to track team’s fitness

The Hurricanes are using technological know-how built for the armed service to test to achieve an edge on their opponents.

Miami’s soccer staff is using an advanced fitness tracker termed the Warfighter Observe, designed by defense contractor Tiger Tech Options, to check their players’ exercise sessions this spring and summer.

“It’s a unique possibility,” said Eric Renaghan, Miami’s director of sports activities science. “We’re the only sports activities corporation in the place that has obtain to this engineering, so it puts us in a pretty one of a kind situation wherever we have a aggressive gain above any other workforce in the county ideal now.”

Renaghan stated the monitor, which UM players use on their arms, appealed to him in component since it has a one-direct electrocardiogram, which separates it from other wearable health and fitness screens like Apple Watches and Fitbits. The keep an eye on also collects facts on respiration amount, body temperature and pulse oximetry.

“An Apple Enjoy, you can access your hand on the other facet and contact the observe and get an electrocardiogram,” Tiger Tech Options CEO Harrison Wittels reported. “We’re basically the 1st unit in the world that can do that from a solitary limb. Why that’s important is since that is the only way to get true coronary heart price.”

Wittels is a Miami native, so when the chance to do the job with the Hurricanes arose, he jumped at it.

“When I was in superior university, there was no superior team in the region,” Wittels mentioned. “I’m fairly certain the College of Miami Hurricanes staff would’ve defeat most pro groups. … It’s a storied franchise. It carries as considerably mystique with it as some pro franchises, to be straightforward. So it is further than fascinating.”

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The Hurricanes are the only sports staff — higher education or skilled — now employing the Warfighter Monitor.

“Miami’s my hometown and it was just a wonderful prospect to get the job done collectively,” Wittels explained. “We had a ton of other prospects, to be truthful, but it was just variety of in our yard.”

Renaghan, who is UM’s initially director of athletics science, stated the total of facts his office can pull from the displays is “not even close” to facts out there from business physical fitness trackers.

“I believe that the primary difference involving those is the sort of facts that’s remaining pulled is right calculated, as opposed to owning other metrics act as surrogates for what men and women just can’t measure with some of people pieces of engineering,” Renaghan mentioned. “For us, staying ready to pull individuals direct steps and actually have precision as it relates to the reaction that our athletes are possessing is virtually a match-changer for us.”

Miami is also applying the human body temperature information to be certain none of their gamers endure from warmth exhaustion or warmth stroke even though doing work out in sizzling, humid South Florida weather.

“I feel a single of the crucial parts of info for us, primarily in Miami, getting how warm and humid it is, is to avoid warmth injuries and be in a position to glimpse at the physique temperature of the athlete and see how coronary heart amount is being impacted from the load,” Renaghan claimed. “[It] lets us to pull an athlete out if we will need to, to make certain that they do not working experience a heat harm and I believe the big matter for us is definitely applying this data to increase our determination-building system.”

Renaghan said Hurricanes mentor Mario Cristobal, energy and conditioning coach Aaron Feld and the rest of the UM staff members have been receptive to all the knowledge his office has been amassing. The info permits the Miami workers to alter procedures and exercise routines to finest match players’ overall health and enhancement.

“Those things that we’re acquiring from that data are not accessible to any other group in the country,” Renaghan stated. “For us, as a employees, it’s allowed us to truly determine the enhancements in our athletes, and for what we do, that is the most vital detail to actually see if our courses are performing what we envisioned them to do by measuring and it will allow us to make alterations where by we will need to.”