The New Orleans Saints have become the latest client for the 3D camera technology in their workout facility which 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 to install their 3D camera technology inside the team’s workout facility in Metairie.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.