Fitbit and Australian Swim Team Partner to Enhance Athlete Training and Performance
Fitbit health and activity trackers deliver valuable insights, guidance and tools to help coaches better prepare athletes for competitions
MELBOURNE – 8 February 2017 – Fitbit (NYSE:FIT), the leader in the connected health and fitness market, today announced it is the official high tech wearable partner of the Australian Dolphins Swim Team, and will provide meaningful data through the athletes use of Fitbit Surge and Fitbit Flex 2 to help them better prepare for meets. Through this partnership, Fitbit devices are now worn by over 100 coaches, swimmers and staff from around the country to empower participants to train smarter, stay active, eat a more well-rounded diet, and sleep better.
The partnership was created to capture statistics from Fitbit devices in athlete trials and helped the Dolphins prepare for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. Athletes wore fitness trackers from Fitbit as part of their on-land training, allowing coaches to track their exercise, active minutes and sleep quality during training and competition periods to assist with optimal competition performance and health management.
“I was excited about how Fitbit’s technology could provide powerful data to help our coaches and athletes,” said Adam Pine, Paralympic Program Director, triple Olympian and gold medalist, who saw the potential in the insights Fitbit devices could deliver. “By tracking the activities of our athletes from one competition to the next, we can actively compare the competition environments and ensure before meets, our swimmers aren’t being too active on-land, are getting enough sleep and rest, and their heart rate levels are staying within expected ranges. By comparing these metrics, our coaches have more information to help coaches ensure the success of our athletes.”
Fitbit devices were also used by 50 athletes, coaches and support staff prior to the 2015 IPC Athletics World Championships. Everyone was closely observed during three key phases of the Championships, including pre-tour (14 days of observation to understand a baseline measure of physical activity), staging camp (10 days of intense preparation managing over-activity, stress and sleep), and competition (seven days of swim meets).
The data collected highlighted significant differences between the activities of daily living compared with activity on tour, identifying a slight increase in resting heart rate on arrival into the staging camp compared to pre-tour. As coaches saw this change, they kept track of each athlete to understand resting heart rate recovery times and adjusted training programs accordingly. The team was able to get each athlete’s resting heart rate to return to their pre-tour metrics within a few days of arrival.
Using Flex 2, Fitbit’s first swim-proof device, coaches are also able to analyse in-pool training summaries by reviewing laps, duration and calorie burn of athletes in the Fitbit app. With Fitbit devices, athletes can capture all of their daily activity in one place – from swimming and other training exercises to sleep and food intake – making it easy for coaches to see the impact that their daily activities and sleep schedule have on training.
In addition to supporting the athletes and coaches with detailed training metrics, Swimming Australia is also launching the Fitbit Swimming Australia Wellness Program. The program is part of Fitbit’s Group Health program, which includes a series of health and fitness challenges, and will empower over 50 employees to get more active while promoting healthy behaviours in and outside of the workplace.
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