Any doctor will tell you that running is good for your health. But you still have to know how to run well. Because poor running technique can be the cause of pain or injury in athletes. To improve their stride or posture, professionals can rely on coaches or undergo a battery of tests in laboratories loaded with new technologies. But for the amateur jogger on the other hand, it is not easy to decipher and analyze his running technique without breaking the bank. To remedy this, a start-up from Rennes has just developed a mobile application which helps its users to correct their errors, thus enabling them to prevent pain and improve their sports performance.
We owe this tool to two former top athletes, Perrine Chapot and Khaldon Evans, co-founders from Ochy. The two met more than ten years ago on the athletics tracks of Central Missouri University in the United States. At the time, Khaldon, originally from Jamaica, was performing over 400 meters with a personal best of 46”8. But physical glitches came to slow down his career. A physiotherapy student, Perrine then sought to understand where the chronic pain that affected her colleague came from. “We thought at first that it came from the knee,” she says. But after a complete check-up, we realized that the problem came from his foot movement which was not the right one. »
The app will expand to other sports
In 2020, his career now behind him, Khaldon pulled out his outfit and shoes to prepare for a marathon. “I wanted to run efficiently so as not to injure myself, but I didn’t want to pay for a lab test,” he explains. From there will be born the idea of making accessible to the greatest number all the biomechanical data which make it possible to better understand its technique of race.
The application uses the magic of artificial intelligence for this. From a simple video of a few seconds showing the runner in action, the algorithms will then start to provide precise analyzes similar to those of a laboratory. “All the body points will be deciphered, both the position of the head and the bust as well as the attack of the foot from the ground”, specifies Perrine. Based on the results, the application, available in a free and paid version, will then offer the user a personalized exercise plan to self-correct their errors and thus gain speed.
A product at the crossroads of sport, health and new technologies that the two startuppers will defend this week in the spans of the prestigious CES show in Las Vegas. With the stated objective of finding investors on the spot for a future fundraising of 850,000 euros. A sum that should allow Ochy to make a success of his departure and to already anticipate the future. “The application targets running for now, but we want to expand it fairly quickly to other sports,” explains Perrine. Several professional football clubs such as AS Roma, AS Monaco or Stade de Reims have already shown interest.