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Wearable tech aims to give coaches better insight on players

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – They say athletes know their bodies best, but a local company is developing a new tool which hopes to provide coaches with the inside scoop on their players.

It’s wearable tech designed by Vancouver company Pathonix Innovation called a smart garment, which will allow coaches and trainers to monitor how their players are holding up in real time.

It uses near-infrared spectroscopy to keep track of the local metabolism of an athlete’s muscles.

“We can see how much energy that athlete has left, and when they’ll fatigue,” says Kevin Reilly with the company, who’s also crediting UBC’s lean launch pad program for providing support. “This gives a coach the ability to make strategic decisions in the game — when to take certain players off, when to put certain players on.”

Athletes at the Burnaby Hockey Academy are among the first to trial the technology.

“If anyone has played a video game before, they’re familiar with the health bar, or the stamina bar that you see in a lot of the soccer or NHL video games,” explains Reilly. “We’ve essentially be able to create exactly the same thing except with a real person.”

Beyond competitive situations, the tool will allow trainers to push athletes to their maximum level without overdoing it in practice environments.

Reilly says this is a product primarily intended for elite athletes at the professional and Olympic levels.

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