Commit Swimming Analytics Application Launches to Evolve Swimming For Coaches

Commit Swimming Analytics Application Launches to Evolve Swimming For Coaches

Commit Swimming launched a new analytics swim program web application that is a first of its kind platform for swim coaches to write and analyze swimmer training. The Sports Techie community blog chatted with co-founder, Dan Dingman, about their influential sports technology interactive tools for coaches being offered on a 30 day free trial basis with no credit card required for those interested in improved training. Consider Commit Swimming to be the Moneyball product for any level of swim coach with a user experience and design millennials are used to as opposed to outdated pen and pencil that offer little data performance analytics.

Commit Swimming
It is all hand on deck for this Philadelphia based startup that is planning to evolve the sport of swimming with tech that is tailored made for club, high school and collegiate programs to enter into a new era with well thought out designs and usable functionalities. Dingman is 24 years old and was a pleasure to get to know because of the company commitment to this vision, his business savvy and for asking me to share my personal thoughts about their online solution. “We have heard consistent feedback from the swimming community that a simple solution for writing and analyzing workouts is needed,” said Dingman.

Coaches want to better manage a team, group or individual training program by knowing more activity like the total time spent training in the gym, steps taken outside the pool and heart rate information then correlate it with data in the pool. So they came up with a wish list for physiology and performances that can cluster athletes into groups.

The personal Dashboard compiles insight and highlights training trends both major selling points of the impressive sports tech application. Users can slice and dice key targets and breakdown various strokes, volume and workout analytics via graph and percentage visualization data powered by mathematical formulas and models on a day-by-day, weekly or yearly need. “Beta users begged for a dashboard with infinite possibilities and we delivered”, said Dingman.

Their proprietary software enables team leaders to write digital practices for multiple teams and training groups rather than use traditional paper and pencil. The application can organize, filter and sort by a group, intensity levels and training types. It is easy to customize the practice page, distance and workout terminology to user specs. If SKPS or swim, kick, pull and swim is part of your swim vocabulary than you have found the right product.

If you already have data saved into other formats like Excel or Word, Commit Swimming uses mostly automated tools to import historical info into their platform with no loss of information at no extra charge. Pool software programs such as Hy-Tek owned by ACTIVE Network is used by swimming programs to enter swimmers into meets and manage organizational needs with a meet manager. Dingman says about 20 percent of coaches’ use it as an install on desktops. Commit is considered a compliment to Hy-Tek and is 99 percent compatible with it.

Their system is flexible but not completely open. For example swimmers, cyclists and runners key on energy zones in the human body. Software used by USA Swimming targets seven different energy zones so Commit plans to eventually define an athlete’s energy zones, determine how a coach thinks and tailor the personal intensity levels via dashboard navigation to allow users to add or change them as needed.

Their data analysis and machine learning software builds mathematical models from numbers to predict events, optimize workouts and offer advanced analytics to coaches and athletes. Endurance sports such as triathlon cycling and running hunger for quantifiable numbers. Dingman’s sister is a semi pro cyclist and wishes for training programs that focus on scientific levels, Dingman hints, “Our team’s expertise is in machine learning. There is a lot of room for the sport of swimming to leverage data analytics to optimize training for the team and individual”.

Biz Dev
The business concept for Commit Swimming transitioned from an idea to actual reality in ten weeks’ time. All three founders worked full-time 80 hour weeks, then decided to spend that time and energy on further developing the idea. By the end of January, the first line of code was written and today it is on the market. Dingman explained that startup money was raised from Dreamit accelerator in Philadelphia. They help 10-12 companies a year with seed money, office space and networking while acting as mentors.

The current subscription model has a 30 day free trail. There are two price points, the first is $20 per month and gives a user access to all features. A coach who pays for this option is considered a partner and agrees to allow a powered by Commit link at the bottom of pages. The other choice is to pay $30 per month for full access and no links.

Dingman and the two other cofounders are former swimmers; in fact two are high school All-Americans. They plan to market via their existing network of swimmers as well as use social media, word of mouth and current relationships with coaches and athletes to get the story out. Day one, two and three so far have been spent reaching out to coaches over the phone, through email and LinkedIn in order to increase users, sales and build relationships.

I asked how the Free Trial downloads is going and he said at this point the metrics are hard to track and analyze because of the amount of family and friends, non-swimmer and swim coach signups they already have in place but understanding exact download numbers should be accurate in a few weeks.

I wondered if they are targeting specific areas of the country. Dingman said although they are seeing major traction from California because it is historically a large huge swimming state, Illinois, Texas and Florida, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania are also significant swimming states. He feels that all states are seeing an increase in youth sign ups perhaps because parents are scared of contact sport.

There is also a noticeable swimming and running trend because of wearable tech, health conscious training and long term body training. Other verticals of interest are general health, consumer fitness market and rowing.

English is the only application language but if enough interest comes from other areas of the world they will be sure to offer Spanish, German, French or Japanese for international buyers.

The exit strategy they want is one that allows them to control the direction of the company. The founders are not currently looking to raise capital right now but after 6 to 9 months the plan is to reevaluate financial needs.

There are no competitors Dingman can think of in the swim analytics space although elite level swimmers and divers are using custom analytics to optimize performance. He believes most products for sale are light on math and perhaps too science based. USA Swimming would be a good partnership opportunity.

Look for an athlete specific mobile app later this spring or early summer mobile that will most likely be free as a pricing strategy. There are other products in development including data analytics pilots in Philadelphia as they work with a national ranked workout club.

Commit Analytics, Inc. is a Philadelphia based performance analytics company. Commit released its first product, Commit Swimming, in April 2015. The software is a web-based solution for coaches to record and analyze their team(s) training. Commit was founded in 2015 by Dan Crescimanno, Dan Dingman, and Nico Gimenez. The founding team has two ex-swimmers and all three have known each other for over 15 years.

Sports Techie, Dingman said about 60 to 70 percent of coaches they queried still use paper and pen. I wondered whether he was getting gender specific feedback because women tend to adopt software at a group quicker then men do in my career experiences He verified that there is indeed more robust feedback from female coaches that are more engaged. I asked if that meant down the road they would build a user interface specific for male or female swimmers and girls or boy rather than stay gender neutral. He liked the idea I offered.

My other thought was about cadence and music and if they had thought about synching up with musical beats as a training tool since many swimmer now use underwater headphones during training related to heart rates. They are not planning on making hardware but they could create software that interfaces with MP3 players or new sports technology products that operate on goggles showing lap swim updates and other metrics.

I had to ask what he thought Michael Phelps would say about Commit Swimming. Dingman answered that youth club, high school and college coaching staffs would love the insight at this point but the data analytics side of their product is something elite level Olympic gold medals might already use.

Finally, my last thought was in regards to 3D modeling and animation and if they planned to integrate this technology into their wares. Dingman was excited about this vision and the future of more advanced visualization, animated constructed models and how they can present data to coaches with these technologies.

More features are in the pipeline for later 2015 but Commit wants the swimming community to drive development.

Write Your Practices, Visualize Your Training With Commit Swimming.

See y’all later in Seattle and here in Atlanta.

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