MorphWear uses Movesense to give swimmers control of their own destiny – Interview of the founder Konrad Antoniuk
Konrad Antoniuk never thought he’d become an entrepreneur.
“I swam for 15 years. I competed at Olympic trials in 2012. I can confidently say that I’ve swam over 20,000 miles,” he said. “But I thought I should have achieved more, and I wanted to validate the recommendations from different coaches. I thought measuring my technique could give me new insights that would improve my performance.”
In between laps as a D-1 swimmer at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, he developed a real-time swim instructor application designed to tell athletes when their stroke was misaligned. It won the senior project of the year award in his electrical engineering program.
It also formed the basis for the company he has founded, MorphWear, which is using Movesense sensors to improve swimming workouts and training efficiency by letting swimmers know when they are under or over performing based on metrics that measure intensity.
“I want pro swimmers to take control of their own destiny,” Antoniuk said.
In swimming, form is everything. Correct form streamlines drag and maximizes the power of each stroke. When swimmers get tired, their form breaks down. Practicing under poor form can reinforce poor technique and lock in bad habits.
With MorphWear, swimmers will wear two sensors, located just below the elbow. The sensors will quantify the stroke of each swimmer, while also measuring fatigue. The data is then imported onto a laptop or even a waterproof tablet located at the end of a swim lane.
“You get a daily dashboard and a long-term dashboard,” Antoniuk said. “We provide swimmers with the ability see the load you place on yourself. That allows you to determine what your training threshold is, and we can personalize training to each athlete’s body, and maybe even help them discover which events are best for them. Some people may excel with a 2.5 ratio of recovery to intensity. And for some people that ratio might be 1.5. We might discover that some people who’d really like to be great sprinters are really suited to becoming distance swimmers.”
Using Movesense has allowed MorphWear to focus on the very difficult work of developing the company’s data analytics.
“The design of these algorithms, how they will be able to utilize information, will require a lot more research,” Antoniuk said. “Movesense is cost-effective, open software with all of the hardware figured out, which allows us to focus our resources elsewhere.”
MorphWear is one of five companies that will demonstrate its product at CES 2019 in Las Vegas.
Read MorphWear showcase.
Visit MorphWear website.
