Real-time performance data enhances rowers' training

There's plenty to concentrate on when you're in a shell, whether you're sweep rowing or sculling. But for all my focus on technique, there's always been too much left to chance. I've never really known how fast I've been going, for example. With SportsDo, I have a tonnes of accurate, live data on my speed, distance and pace right there on my phone.

Real-time statistics

SportsDo uses the global GPS satellite system to calculate a host of real-time stats, displaying them in easy-to-read formats. There's a stats summary screen as well as individual large-format readouts that I can easily switch between with one press. Even better, I can set SportsDo to announce my chosen stats at regular intervals through the phone's speaker or earphones. SportsDo never yells like our cox, and it's a lot lighter!

Certainty on the water

SportsDo saves all the information as it goes and then calculates cool graphs and charts. Like all rowers, we were never 100% sure of the distance we'd travelled, relying on traditional approximations and landmarks. But now we have accurate records of all our distances. SportsDo's route trace even shows us the different speeds we achieved on different stretches. It's a real club asset.

Coaching

Our coach uses the SportsDo portal to review our progress and stay in touch with team members' individual training goals. The portal contains all our saved activity information – it's a snap to upload it from the phone. I have my own personal log page that shows all my stats. I can add text to the log too, so my records are all always complete and up-to-date.

Sharing

With SportsDo Live I can transmit regular updates of my stats to the web so that friends and family can follow my training sessions or – more importantly – races. I usually set my SportsDo Live reports to be available to anyone who wants to see them, so our races literally have a worldwide audience! Dropping in on SportsDo Live to follow the real-time action of sports people around the world is truly eye-opening.

I won't ever give up chasing the perfect stroke. But while I work on the constant improvement of my rowing skills, SportsDo is there to add science – and fun – to my sport.