Nearly 20% of the U.S. population play sports or exercises every day. In a 2023 survey of over 1000 people in the USA, consumers reported that they participate in sports and fitness activities 44 days a year, up from 31 in 2019 before the pandemic. Their number one reason for being active is that sports and fitness increase my overall health and wellbeing. The second most important reason is that they want to improve their performance in their given activity of interest. Careful measurement of form and performance. not only tells you that you’re actually improving, but it also gives you black-and-white data on how you can continue improving.
Some athletes can intuitively understand performance changes, but they’re in the minority. The best way to understand your performance is with hard data, which is where fitness trackers come into play. With over 560 million wearable fitness trackers set to ship to consumers this year, it’s clear that both everyday people and serious athletes alike want to better understand their bodies.
As the CEO of Implus, a company with 18 brands in the healthy living category, Michael Polk wanted to provide more hard data to consumers interested in improving their performance. He collaborated with the team at SKLZ, a sports training product brand, to not only deliver an easy-to-use fitness tracker, but also make biometric data accessible to more consumers.
Michael Polk Announces SKLZ’s Accessible Wearables
In April 2024, Michael Polk announced Implus’ SKLZ brand was launching wearable technology designed to help athletes improve their performance. The SKLZ Hyper Speed wearable allows athletes to measure their speed, agility, and vertical jump directly from their smartphone. This sleek wearable comes with a user-friendly app that tracks and maps performance on an easy-to-understand graph, making it simple to understand performance changes over time.
“The SKLZ Hyper Speed is a game changer for youth athletes looking for a precise and reliable device to measure their speed, agility, and vertical jump,” Michael Polk explained. “This product is a precision tool that replaces the need for expensive timing gate systems and inaccurate stopwatches, and it provides instant feedback to easily track performance gains on the SKLZ proprietary app.”
Implus and SKLZ aim to bring professional-grade performance analysis to backyards and practice fields everywhere by offering a high-tech, user-friendly solution. The Hyper Speed system combines a sleek wearable tech band with an easy-to-use mobile app, enabling athletes to create their own personalized experience. The app features instructional video drills and provides real-time feedback, tracking and graphing speed, agility, and vertical jump performance for a comprehensive review of progress over time.
The main focus of this collaboration is on youth sports and student-athletes. Many fitness trackers cost $400 or more, making them inaccessible for younger athletes. These youngsters often rely on athletic performance to score scholarships and admissions to their dream schools, so accessible performance tracking is incredibly important for these athletes. Priced at $200 and available both online and in select Dick’s Sporting Goods House of Sport stores, the Hyper Speed is much more affordable than many trackers on the market today.
By providing accessible and affordable performance tracking, Implus and SKLZ are empowering young athletes to take control of their training and development. The Hyper Speed is designed to be simple enough for young athletes to use independently while offering the sophistication needed to provide valuable insights into their progress.
Bringing Elite-Level Insights to Backyard Athletes
By making professional-level analytics accessible to everyday athletes, Implus and SKLZ are empowering the next generation of budding athletes to train more effectively. With Hyper Speed, Implus and SKLZ are democratizing access to professional-grade performance data, paving the way for a new era of athletic training where every athlete, from youth sports participants to weekend warriors, can benefit from the same cutting-edge technology and data-driven insights previously reserved for elite athletes.
