Mobile apps are a great tool for the London Olympians
I’ve previously done an Olympics app roundup where I talked about some of the apps you can use to track the Olympic Games, and I’ve also talked about Banjo, an app that will give you that up close and personal Olympic feel. What I want to talk about next is an app that coaches are using to help their Olympians perform better. There are a few different apps, but the one I want to specifically mention is called Coach’s Eye. This app is made to record an athletes performance, and then play it back in slow motion to analyze and find any errors.
Coach’s Eye is an app that is developed by a company called TechSmith. TechSmith is based out of Michigan, and my brother-in-law’s brother works for them, which is how I first heard about their apps. They specialize in screen capture and manipulation apps, and have a total of seven different apps they are currently supporting. I have talked about the usage of tablets with some major sports teams such as the Phoenix Suns and the Denver Broncos, but it is pretty neat to see a lot of the individual athletes and coaches embrace mobile technology to help push their sport forward. I was also a little surprised to hear to what extent these mobile devices and apps are being used at the Olympics.
In an article from Reuters, Drew Johansen, the USA Olympic diving coach, said “Every single country uses an iPad on deck and captures the dive as soon as they do it.” With the use of a mobile device, and the supporting apps, I can see how helpful the instant replay and analysis could be. To be able to freeze frame on a section of each dive where maybe the diver’s foot was wrong, and then give the instruction to correct it would be invaluable. A coach can be very specific on what to fix instead of just saying something like “keep your feet together.” Now they can be very specific on exactly what needs to be corrected. With the great variety of different apps available from mobile video libraries capable of holding all of a diver’s dives, to a GPS app that can map a cyclist’s route including speed and other factors, mobile apps are the next great tool in improving Olympic records.
[Reuters]
