New Zealand rower Eric Murray, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, designed a training program for Asensei to benefit Movember. (Courtesy of Asensei)
New Zealand rowing teammates Eric Murray and Hamish Bond—often known simply as the Kiwi Pair—won two Olympic gold medals, eight world championships, and a streak of 69 races over eight years that only ended with Murray’s retirement in 2017.
Murray also broke four world records for indoor rowing. Though he logged countless hours on ergs—in rowing terminology, an indoor rowing machine is known as an “erg”—he said was never given any technique instruction on them, just the coaching mandate to log certain distances and times. But now, with the help of Asensei, an artificial intelligence-powered connected coaching platform, Murray has released a free six-week training program for the erg that’s catered to users of all abilities, helping them learn to row properly and avoid injury.
“Rowing has been a sport where the indoor side of it has always been in the background,” Murray said in a recent call from New Zealand. “What [Asensei] is really doing is it’s bringing it to the front.”
Murray has long been one of the most recognizable faces at the Olympics due to his trademark handlebar mustache, a feature that led to his recruitment years ago as an ambassador for men’s health organization Movember. Murray’s indoor rowing tutorial has been launched in conjunction with Movember and is being called Morowing.
One of Asensei’s cofounders, Ross Arnott, spent some time living near Mount Maunganui, New Zealand, during the development of the app. The coastal town is home to the only supplier of Concept 2 rowing machines—C2 has an effective monopoly on ergs across the world—in New Zealand. That local supplier is operated by 1984 Olympic rower Gary Reid, and now employs Murray. Asensei trialled its service in Mount Maunganui where an early user was Robert Dunne, who leads Movember’s efforts in New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Movember started as a way to raise awareness for prostate and testicular cancers but has since expanded to other common men’s issues, such as mental health and suicide. One of the best preventive tools against many health issues is exercise, and the organization is always looking to encourage positive habit-forming activities.
“We go big through November, it’s our main month,” Dunne said. “We have people grow mustaches, and that’s effectively our biggest marketing campaign—those mustaches and the conversations they start. But probably one of the challenges for us is to keep those conversations going or keep that change in behavior going outside of that month because, the reality is, November is 30 days of the year but men’s health is 365 days of the year.”
Asensei cofounder and CEO Steven Webster said his company’s mission is to see what a coach sees, say what a coach says, and teach what a coach teaches. Sometime in 2019, Asensei will roll out kinetic capture smart apparel that can track an athlete’s biomechanics. That product is intended to be sport agnostic, but indoor rowing was the first supported sport because the Concept 2 and its PM5 performance monitor can provide sufficient data to the real-time coaching platform.
The third phase Asensei is bringing to market is its content delivery. Webster, who guided the Edinburgh University Karate Club to 10 consecutive national championships in his native Scotland, understands that the job of coach is split evenly between instructing technique and offering inspiration. With noted sports stars like Murray providing real-time advice, Webster likens the experience for Asensei users to a first-person “All or Nothing” documentary.
“I want you to be the protagonist in your own journey,” Webster said, “but it’s a hero’s journey and you’re following one of your heroes.”
Murray crafted a program that includes a balance of aerobic, mid-range intensity, high-intensity intervals, helping rowers learn to pace themselves. At times, the Asensei program will prompt him to share recollections of certain races and tell stories of pivotal moments in his career. Because Murray believes users should have a training target, everyone will also be challenged to try a two-kilometer test row at the beginning and end of the program. “I guarantee you everyone will go faster,” Murray said.
Dunne’s initial exposure to Asensei predated Murray’s program, but he said the real-time feedback he received was unique and compelling. While other fitness programs record or live-stream classes, Asensei wants to tap into AI for a truly personalized workout.
“I’ll often joke about how little we’ve moved on from the Jane Fonda workout video. It may be on your iPhone, but it’s still watching someone in a warehouse somewhere with someone to their left and someone to their right,” Webster said, before later adding: “It’s all about how maximize the knowledge of a coach and their knowledge of a sport and teach it to Asensei, so Asensei can teach it to an athlete.”
Asensei recently raised a round of $2 million with the majority of the investment coming from early stage venture capital firm KB Partners, which is based near Chicago and specializes in sports tech. The fund, which is led by founder Keith Bank, was impressed by the experience of Asensei’s leadership team. The trio of C-suite executives all have logged decades in tech, with Webster spending nearly 10 years managing teams within Adobe and Microsoft.
The company’s name is a play on the martial arts backgrounds of Webster and cofounder Bill Burgar while emphasizing the literal meaning of sensei. The Japanese word is composed of two characters—sen (before) and sei (birth)—that translate to a person born before another, who can serve as a guide for others following the same path.
“How can Movember make this the start of a habit? That’s super aligned to Asensei, right?” Webster said. “Because that’s what we want to do—we want to help you find a sport, then teach you that sport, and make that sport something you aspire to be good at not by sending you spreadsheets or workouts of the day but actually connecting you with ‘a coach.’ With a personal coach who will continually push you to the next goal.”
While Asensei remains in beta testing, the hope is for this first widely available program, Morowing, to resonate with anyone from novice rowers to CrossFit competitors to Olympic aspirants.
“This is just the short snippet to say, look, if you want to start this, here’s a quick introduction,” Murray said. “In those six weeks, you’ll change a lot. You’ll learn a lot about yourself. You’ll see your scores getting faster.”
