The Australian Olympic swimming team takes the potential of the Apple Watch to the extreme with the iPad to improve its performance.
It’s really interesting how Olympic athletes can take advantage of this technology, and the Dolphins, Australia’s national swimming team, have been using the Apple Watch and iPad, along with some apps, to improve the performance of their swimmers.
According to the Apple article, this combination of equipment and applications has been a catapult for make the Australian team one of the swimming contingents in the highest categories.
This statement is not only surprising, but also allows us to see how devices mainly geared towards gaming enthusiasts amateur fitness they can also become focused devices for Olympic level athletes. According to Apple, the Dolphins’ coaches have been using the sensors and activity tracking features of the Apple Watch.
Apple Watch and iPad: the key to improving sports performance
To the formulas of the Apple Watch sensors must be added the iPad and the custom applications to give as a result real-time data and analyticswhich makes these devices brutal tools with visual information that they can share with swimmers.
One of the applications mentioned in the article is the native application itself workout the one that allows you to track and allows you to see the essential metrics during training sessions, both in swimming pools and in open water.
For his part, the manager, Jess Corones, of Swimming Australia performance has commented the following:
Data is the key ingredient when designing performance outcomes for our athletes, we’ve seen increased engagement from athletes using Apple Watch, giving us more data points to inform analysis and decision making of training. The iPad has become an essential training tool because it allows us to access athletes’ health data and race images instantly from anywhere.
How swimmers use Apple Watch metrics in the pool and open water
Marathon swimmer and bronze medalist Kareena Lee
Apple’s smartwatch uses the integrated GPS and accelerometer sensors to, for example, ensure that Kareena Lee can access the metrics of your distance, route and splits. Something that before the Apple Watch was simply impossible for him, and he had to guess how far he had swum in the ocean.
I started wearing Apple Watch to measure my distance, course and splits when swimming in the ocean […] There are no set clocks or distances in the ocean, and before the Apple Watch, I was just guessing. After an injury, my physical therapist and trainer used data from my Apple Watch to monitor my training load and make sure it was consistent so I could keep training.
On the other hand, gold medalist Zac Stubblety-Cook –whoever has the best time in his test– uses his Apple Watch to visualize throughout the day the way in which you manage the training load and its recovery.
Access to real-time activity and heart rate data is important to me so I can make quick adjustments and avoid overtraining […] Being able to accurately measure my heart rate between sets has been a really valuable data point for me and my trainer to understand how well I am responding to training.
In addition, the watch employs the gyroscope and its accelerometer to determine the turns (thanks to the fact that the length of the pool has been previously established and the Apple Watch simply automatically calculates the partials and series), rhythm middle of them and even measure calorie intake.
watchOS 9 will arrive to further improve swimming metrics
For the fall, the watchOS update will implement new improvements in swimming, such as the detection of the type of stroke and kick for training in the pool, as stated by those from Cupertino in an article at the beginning of June.
Using Apple Watch sensor fusion to automatically detect when users are swimming with a board and classify the stroke type in the workout summary, along with the distance swum. Swimmers will also be able to monitor their efficiency with the SWOLF Index, which combines the number of strokes with the time (in seconds) it takes to swim the length of the pool. In addition, they will be able to see all the metrics in the training summary
iPad and custom apps make it easy to make decisions in the moment
Data is the key to improving performance, say Dolphins coaches
The Australian Dolphins were looking for a way versatile to provide the necessary information for your athletes, but at the same time it was very portable. So they developed the Locker app for iPad.
Thanks to it, it is possible to reproduce the images of the races, and thus, performance analysts can study data and provide the information to athletes during training and competitions so they can put maximum performance in the water.
Thanks to Lockers coaches are able to establish stroke and kick counts, analyze athletes technique, number of breaths, splits and start times. All thanks to images and data that are fully accessible at a glance, allowing coaches to quickly discuss it with their swimmers. And according to Jess Corones:
Most athletes learn visually, and it is incredibly powerful to be able to show an athlete what you ask them to do while they are participating in a training session. Quick decision-making is crucial in the run-up to major competitions to ensure team performance is maximized
There is no doubt that today’s smart devices are a tool that allows us to get the most out of our performancewhile at the same time we take care of our health and well-being thanks to the enormous number of functions that they have and those that will surely come in new updates.