TUNE Up Your Running Techniques With This New Wearable From Kinematix

Did you get in your 10 thousand steps today? Walking and running on a daily basis can help people stay in shape, ease stress and assist in maintaining a balanced and healthy lifestyle. But what else can running or counting steps tell you about your body and how it operates?  TUNE, a new wearable created by Kinematix, has the answers to educate and transform every runner into a smarter and stronger athlete.

Kinematix, a Portuguese company, strives to develop products to enhance and measure body movement. TUNE is the company’s latest fitness monitor that is able to provide real time statistics based on a runner’s body movement and position. Data is collected in real time by extracting information directly from the runner’s feet through insoles containing electronic sensors. The information is collected before, during and after a workout and is synced to a small device located on the outside of the shoe.

“TUNE is able to measure both feet at the same time,” Paulo Ferreira dos Santos, founder and CEO of Kinematix, tells us. “It’s the first product in the market that can analyze symmetry between the right and left foot. It can detect a pattern of a runner and suggest a customized set of exercises to improve muscle strength, stability and technique. Runners are now able to know exactly how and why the techniques they implement are improving their performance and what they can do to take their training a step further.”

The wearable utilizes Bluetooth Low Energy wireless technology to synchronize all of its collected data to compatible iOS and Android devices. The TUNE phone application illustrates the runner’s post-run analysis, including distance traveled, time, speed, steps and statistics regarding the right and left foot.

The app also provides examples of how to do specific exercises that can help improve performance on a future run, which is determined from the retrieved information. TUNE is also waterproof and rechargeable. This device, which is less than two inches long, can withstand up to 8 hours of continuous usage.

TUNE is distinct from other wearable running devices on the market because it is able to detect precisely how long a foot is on the ground and exactly which part of the foot touches the ground and, consequently, how long each foot is in the air. Dos Santos explained that knowing ground contact time and air-time is beneficial because the fastest runners often have the shortest ground contact time.

“After reviewing their post-run assessment, runners can then adjust their technique so that they can run more efficiently with less steps the next time they run on the same path,” said dos Santos. “Running symmetry is key. Sometimes we see runners that have an amazing technique but they cannot sustain it for a long period of time. TUNE can help runners indicate when they begin to put more stress on their feet, or if a runner favors one foot over another, which often causes them to become tired faster.”

Having a good technique is a vital aspect to all sports. Dos Santos explained that TUNE’s performance enhancing technology can be applied throughout all sports, from boxing, to basketball to football.

“For us, the information from each body part tells a story,” said dos Santos. “Each sport can utilize different information regarding the feet to enhance their techniques. Boxers use different parts of their feet in different ways and positions compared to tennis players. TUNE enables athletes to assess the parts of their foot they are using most frequently in order to develop methods to keep them safe from developing pain or injury.”

Due to the technical data captured by TUNE, running coaches are able amp up their workout plans for their athletes like never before. Paulo Colaço, a professor in the faculty of Sports Science of Porto University in Portugal, has been a running coach for over 25 years. Colaço has had the opportunity to teach the best Portuguese runners, triathlon athletes and Olympians, such as Olympic silver medalist Vanessa Fernandes. For Colaço, TUNE has provided him with a challenging new outlook on how to enhance his running programs for the athletes that he trains.

“The quality data that we can obtain from TUNE allows me to measure the real effects of my training prescription and to identify the most critical data that we need to improve,” said Colaço. “At this moment as a coach I can know how my runners change their technical parameters during each repetition during interval training. I can identify critical distances in long training sessions in which my runners start to have poor parameters in air-time or heel contact time. Furthermore, I can understand if a week with more training volume is compromising their technical parameters, because I can see the effects that my strength and muscle resistance trainings have in running training and I can even check the effect of up and downhill training sessions.”

Currently, TUNE is being launched on KickStarter with a goal to raise $100,000 by August 13th to further fund the product. The company’s goal is to have the device available this fall to the public to purchase at a starting price of $250.

For dos Santos, the value TUNE could provide to the market is endless. He stated that the device could be used in schools during gym class to teach students proper running techniques as well as provide assistance to professionals in the medical field and to companies that manufacture running sneakers.

“Knowing how people are running and which part of the foot they use is of utmost importance to prevent injuries,” said dos Santos. “Podiatrists and sports bio-mechanists can use TUNE’s information to help them with their professions and to help athletes improve and stay healthy.”