PUSH

PUSH, founded in Toronto, Canada, in 2013, specialized in sports technology focused on quantifying athletic performance in strength training. The company's creation was personally motivated by founder Rami Alhamad, a Mechatronics Engineering graduate and rugby player, who sought a more objective way to measure training after sustaining an injury. He identified an unmet need for an affordable, user-friendly device to provide scientific feedback during workouts, leading to the development of PUSH alongside partners Mike Lovas and Suresh Joshi.

The core of the business was the PUSH system, a comprehensive platform for athletes and coaches. This system featured the PUSH Band, a wearable accelerometer and gyroscope that attaches to an athlete's body to track metrics like velocity, power, force, and acceleration during weightlifting. This data, collected at a high sample rate for accuracy, was rooted in the science of Velocity-Based Training (VBT), which aims to optimize strength gains and minimize fatigue. The hardware was complemented by a software ecosystem consisting of a mobile app for athletes and a web-based Portal for coaches. This allowed coaches to build and assign workout programs, monitor athlete performance in real-time, and provide immediate feedback, regardless of location.

PUSH targeted a specific segment of the fitness market, focusing on serious athletes, from amateur to professional and Olympic levels, as well as military personnel. Its client roster grew to include numerous professional sports teams like the San Francisco 49ers (who were also investors), Tottenham Hotspur, and the Cleveland Cavaliers, along with institutions like IMG Academy. In September 2021, PUSH was acquired by the human performance company WHOOP in a cash and stock transaction. The acquisition integrated PUSH's strength-tracking technology into the WHOOP platform, aiming to provide users with a more complete picture of their physiological response to training by combining PUSH's VBT metrics with WHOOP's continuous heart rate monitoring and insights on sleep and recovery. Keywords: Velocity-Based Training, VBT, athlete performance, strength training technology, wearable accelerometer, power and velocity tracking, sports science, coach portal, remote coaching, athletic monitoring, PUSH Band, Rami Alhamad, WHOOP acquisition, fitness technology, weightlifting analytics, force measurement, sports data, athletic benchmarking, high-performance training, real-time feedback