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Perch In the News.
09/20/2022
Perch Raises $4M for 3D Strength Tracking
Velocity-based training is flexing its strength.For context: Tried and true, for decades, strength and conditioning revolved around percentage-based training — where intensity and load are prescribed relative to an athlete’s one-rep maximum weight. Now, new research suggests that velocity-based training (VBT)—focused on measuring and improving how fast an athlete completes the rep—is more effective than the old method.
09/19/2022
Train smarter with this Cambridge startup’s weight room tech
A new technology is coming to the weight room.
Founded by three MIT athletes, Cambridge-based Perch uses computer vision and machine learning algorithms to monitor an athlete’s movements during exercise in the gym. The startup recently raised a $4 million round from investors like Bradley Bloom, Ledgeways Ventures LLC and Byron Jones, who plays cornerback for the Miami Dolphins.
09/14/2022
Weightlifting Camera and Data Company Perch Raises $4 Million Funding Round With Miami Dolphins’ Bryon Jones Among New Investors
Weightlifting camera and data company Perch has raised a new $4 million funding round that includes investment from Miami Dolphins cornerback Byron Jones. Perch makes a 3D camera that straps to weight racks to track an athlete’s movements as they lift, including calculating sets, reps, velocity, and power output via Perch’s connected app.
09/13/2022
Perch is Changing the Game of Velocity-Based Training
Dubbed as an “invaluable addition” to their training program by the Orlando Magic, weight training platform Perch has pulled in a number of new users in NFL and NCAA football and basketball teams. Among those teams include the New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers, Baylor Bears (Men’s Basketball), and North Carolina Tar Heels.
04/13/2022
Spotlight: Perch Offers a New Type of Fitness Tracker
Tech entrepreneurs are disrupting the fitness industry in a number of ways. One of the most prominent is the production of devices that can measure steps and other vitals. But these are often geared more toward cardio exercises. Now, Perch offers something similar for strength training exercises. Read about this new innovation in this week’s Small Business Spotlight.
12/09/2021
To protect and progress: Glenbrook South student-athletes lifting faster, smarter, thanks to new weight room tech
This school year Glenbrook South implemented a new piece of equipment in its weight room designed to monitor and improve training results without beating people up.
The MIT-developed Perch system consists of a 3D camera that straps to a weight rack -- it's on all 14 racks in Glenbrook South's weight room -- and a computer application.
11/12/2021
Training Like The Pros: Glenbrook South Using MIT-Developed Tech
Glenbrook South is one of a few high schools in the country utilizing equipment adopted by the NFL, MLB, NHL, MLS, NBA and NCAA. The GBS athletic program installed some new state-of-the-art technology in the weight room last summer. With a fall sports season about to conclude, Perch has been paying off.
06/27/2021
Exclusive: Saints Install Perch’s 3D Camera Technology
The New Orleans Saints have become the latest client for the 3D camera technology in their workout facility. The technology helped to propel LSU to their 2019 National Championship.
Perch co-founder Jacob Rothman recently met with the New Orleans Saints and head strength and conditioning coach Dan Dalrymple. Perch installed their 3D camera technology inside the team's workout facility in Metairie.
06/25/2021
How the Saints are using 3D cameras and motion tracking in the weight room to gain an edge
The New Orleans Saints are not necessarily trying to make bionic men, but they are feeling around on technology’s leading edge to help their players uncover their peak form in the weight room.So, roll with Saints longtime strength and conditioning coach Dan Dalrymple as he puts on his best cinematic voice.“We have,” he said with a dramatic pause, “the technology.”
06/23/2021
Terps Install 3D Cameras On Weight Racks To Assure Safe Lifting
The University of Maryland Terrapins football team installed 3D cameras on its weight racks this month to help student-athletes lift safely. The cameras track their movements and help the players achieve proper form. This could reduce the risk of lifting injuries.
The technology, called Perch, was developed by a former varsity athlete at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Perch co-founder Jacob Rothman thought of the idea while he was recovering from a herniated disk that he suffered during a routine workout.
06/16/2021
LSU Football Trainer Jack Marucci Transitioning to Director of Performance Innovation
LSU is in the market for another key position on its staff. On Wednesday the program announced that longtime Director of Athletic Training Jack Marucci, would be transitioning to a new role within the athletic department.Marucci will take over as Director of Performance Innovation for the program, where his primary focus will be to hone in on technological advances in sports science to improve the Tigers performance on and off the field.
05/15/2021
Meet Perch, the new weight room staple that’s becoming a game-changer in the SEC and beyond
Jacob Rothman wasn’t a massive college football fan. He was just your standard MIT graduate/ex-college baseball player who wanted to change the way people lifted weights.
But when longtime LSU strength and conditioning coach Tommy Moffitt made the Tigers the first collegiate or professional sports team to roll the dice on Rothman’s new velocity-based training program “Perch” in 2019, there was suddenly an obvious rooting interest for the team on the Bayou.
05/10/2021
Perch Weight Room Tech Added to More NFL, College Football Facilities
The Jacksonville Jaguars, Seattle Seahawks, Ole Miss Rebels and Georgia Bulldogs are the newest professional and college football teams to equip their exercise facilities with Perch, an AI-backed weight training platform that tracks performance during workouts. Those teams join the New York Giants, Tennessee Titans, Miami Dolphins and LSU Tigers as users of Perch.
05/07/2021
Weight Room Technology Boosts Sports Performance
In weight rooms across the country, top-flight sports teams are generating data from student-athletes beyond just how much weight is on the bar and how many times they can lift it."Right now, you go to the weight room and you lift weights, the information you have access to is your sets, your reps and how much weight you moved," says Jacob Rothman, co-founder and CEO of the fitness technology platform Perch.
04/05/2021
MIT spinoff brings artificial intelligence to the weight room
In January, 2019, a Cambridge startup called Perch sold the Louisiana State University football team on a new weight training system that uses video cameras and artificial intelligence software to boost athletic performance. One year later, the Tigers won the national championship of college football.
03/01/2021
Pro And College Teams Use New Workout Device That Enables ‘Smart’ Weight Racks
Jacob Rothman, a first and third baseman at MIT, herniated a disc in his back while doing a warm-up set of squats during the summer after his freshman year. Though that helped end his baseball career, it helped launch a new technology. He and two fellow MIT students started working on Perch in 2016. With Rothman’s own physical therapy and fitness, following his injury, serving as inspiration, they noticed how popular Fitbits and Apple watches had become as consumers sought a way to quantify their aerobic activity through technology.
02/01/2021
Perch is Reinventing the Weight Rack and Helping Athletes Train Smarter
An MIT-developed technology is helping a growing number of players and coaches – including those in the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS, and Power Five conferences – improve overall performance in the weight room and on the field. Named Perch, the device uses a combination of cameras and machine learning to monitor movements during exercise and enhance an athlete’s motivation, safety and performance in the weight room – something that co-founder Jacob Rothman says fitness technology has to date failed to address.
06/16/2020
LSU Football Strength Coach Tommy Moffitt Recaps First Week of Workouts, How Technology Has Helped in Return
Technology like Perch allows coaches and athletes to determine the speed of movement in real time and adjust the weight or exercise accordingly. "Using the velocity-based system we have, Perch, we knew all of the sets and all of the reps and all of the velocities the guys were doing before we left."
06/03/2020
An Inside Look at the Technology That Will Help LSU Football Return to Peak Physical Condition
Discovering a baseline for each athlete—whether it's an incoming freshman or a returning player—is just another way in which the Perch technology will help LSU in the coming weeks as it attempts to get its players back in shape.What Perch allows is for strength coaches like Moffitt and Jacobs, as well as each individual athlete, to find the weight that best suits the athlete and lift at the optimal speed given by the strength coach."
12/04/2019
LSU Is Winning the Weight-Room Arms Race With Real-Time Data
Three weeks after Perch installed units on each of the 22 weight racks at LSU’s indoor football facility on
Oct. 1, Tigers coach Ed Orgeron said he noticed differences in his team’s performance on the field.
“I think our guys are stronger and quicker and faster,” he said in late October. “I think as the season goes on, there’s not as many injuries this year as there were in years’ past and that’s because of our strength and conditioning.”
07/18/2019
Perch, A Techstars Startup, Is Lifting The $30 Billion Fitness Industry To New Heights
"Our hope is that with Perch, we can begin to build the foundation for "smart gyms" or gyms with equipment that has our technology installed into it, so that from the moment you walk in to when you walk out, you can get comprehensive data on your workout performance so you can improve in your next session," Rothman says.
05/17/2019
LSU football’s new power play: How strength AND speed is giving a true measure of Tigers
When compared to the technology the LSU strength program was previously using, the Perch device will
allow LSU to have one of the most efficient and effective velocity-based training programs in college athletics.
There's a culture of staying on the cutting edge within the LSU athletic department.
10/02/2018
Meet the 10 startups in Techstars NYC’s summer 2018 class
Perch aims to improve physical training and coaching by installing a camera and tablet, which is mounted on gym equipment to track and display data like number of reps and velocity. It’s currently targeting college and professional teams, and plans to expand to commercial and home gyms.
08/10/2018
These exercise startups are sweating it out
A digital camera sees the world in three dimensions and follows the movement of the barbell the user is lifting. One important measure is velocity — the speed of each lift.
The system can spot the difference between “strong and explosive” motions, or someone who is “barely completing his reps.” Future versions of Perch’s system, he says, will be able to track not just barbells but other items used in workouts, like medicine balls and kettle bells.
04/24/2018
Perch: The Future of Strength Training
“As athletic development and technology continually evolve, I’m always looking for new ways to maximize my athletes’ potential,” said AC Flora High (S.C.) strength coach Micah Kurtz. “Perch is extremely intriguing because it shows the potential to become an efficient, affordable and portable method to quantify my athletes’ strength, power and movement quality.”
01/10/2018
Perch Looks to Reinvent the Rack with Smart Tech
The Perch module attaches to just about any rack and users can sign into their accounts from a tablet, which is also attached to the rack and Perch module. Perch then films and tracks every rep, allowing both athletes and coaches to analyze the workout, while also refining future workouts."This helps to improve motivation and informs elite athletes, weekend warriors, and retirees alike of what they can be doing to move more powerfully, efficiently, and safely," Perch CEO and co-founder Jacob Rothman"
09/20/2017
Perch – A Camera/Tablet Combo Making Gains for College Athletes Everywhere
Weightlifting is not something anyone can jump into and expect results. It takes time and effort to get the movements and form down for changes to show. Perch could be the product an athlete needs to help them get that form down and prevent a potentially-serious injury from happening.
06/16/2017
Pushing the limits of athletic performance
Rothman, who played on MIT’s baseball team as an undergraduate, is co-founder of Perch, a company
that uses 3-D cameras to assess the velocity of a weightlifter’s movements and provide instant feedback
on how to improve form and minimize the risk of injury.
06/13/2017
Perch Uses 3D Cameras Attached To Weight Racks To Help Athletes Train Smarter
Perch enables Velocity Based Training (VBT), which allows coaches to put these unknowns (sleep, nutrition, work load, etc) in a black box and utilize velocity as a feedback mechanism. VBT improves safety, preventing athletes from lifting weight that is too heavy for a given day. Perch is providing an affordable, accurate, reliable, and easy-to-use system that every coach and athlete can utilize to realize the benefits of velocity based training.
01/18/2017
This MIT Startup’s 3D Cameras Analyze the Performance & Health of Athletes
In a world where wearables and fitness trackers are now the norm, the Perch team wanted to cater to athletes who need more specific metrics to guide their training. Perch aims to go beyond accelerometers that strength coaches and weightlifters use to monitor workout routines, tracking how fast a person is lifting, as well as form and power output.
01/18/2017
Introducing: Perch, The Startup Using Machine Learning In The Gym For Smart Workouts
Scaling with you as you grow, Perch allows you to create workouts, surveys, assign velocity thresholds as well as deliver content directly to an on-rack tablet. Here, the user can view and annotate historical data and workout video or export data as a CSV for integration into your current workflow.
