The Upside Newsletter

Today we have the honor of interviewing Waldi Hoon, CEO & Co-Founder of Yōjō, a nervous system wellness ecosystem.

Yōjō is a nervous system wellness company that has developed an integrated ecosystem designed to make daily autonomic rebalancing simple, measurable, and habit-forming. Its core offering combines a non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation wearable with real-time biofeedback, wearable data integration, face-scan health metrics, personalized coaching, and behavior-change technology within a single app. By showing users the physiological impact of nervous system stimulation in real time—such as improvements in stress, HRV, sleep, and recovery—yōjō moves beyond passive tracking to actively helping individuals rebalance their nervous system, supporting both preventative health and long-term performance in everyday life.

Picture: Yōjō device and app.

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

Here is a video explaining how the device works:

📝Show Notes: During the interview with Waldi Hoon, CEO and co-founder of yōjō, we discussed how his background in behavior-change technology and work with clinicians led to the creation of a nervous system wellness ecosystem designed to solve the challenge of long-term adherence in health and wellness. Waldi explained how yōjō combines non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation with real-time biofeedback, wearable data, face-scan health metrics, and human coaching to actively rebalance the autonomic nervous system rather than simply track it.

We explored the benefits yōjō is delivering for both individuals—such as improved sleep, reduced stress, higher HRV, better mood, and recovery—and practitioners, who gain greater visibility and consistency in user engagement. The conversation also covered yōjō’s competitive advantages as an ecosystem focused on habit formation and measurable efficacy, its subscription-based business model, and the company’s ambitions over the next 12 months, including launching a next-generation device, deepening data validation, and expanding into the US market.

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview with Waldi located at the top of this blog post.

Here are the quotes from the interview with Waldi:

Q1. Her background and what led her to yōjō

“I’ve spent my career building learning and behavior-change platforms, really focused on figuring out how to help people actually stick to new habits. In wellness especially, you see the same pattern over and over again—people buy tools, they feel inspired for a week, and then life takes over.”

“When we were working more closely with clinicians and helping people with chronic pain conditions, we kept running into this issue of adherence. People would start a treatment, feel a bit better, and then stop doing it. That gap between intention and consistency is really where yōjō was born.”

“Yōjō comes from a passion for helping people adopt new, healthy habits in a way that balances their lives—without adding more mental load or forcing them to figure everything out on their own.”

Q2. Overview of the product

“At yōjō, our vision is to unlock people’s potential through autonomic balance. We’re a nervous system wellness ecosystem that makes daily autonomic rebalancing simple and accessible.”

“We combine a non-invasive vagus nerve stimulator with real-time biofeedback in our app, integrating wearable data, face-scan health metrics, personalized coaching, and habit-building technology all in one place.”

“What’s important to us is that people can see the difference the stimulation is making in their body in the moment. We don’t just tell people it works—we show them through data and measurable change.”

Q3. Benefits for both individuals and practitioners

For Individuals

“For individuals, the benefits are quite clear—better sleep, less stress, improved focus, and more stable moods. We’re also starting to see really strong recovery outcomes, particularly with highly active people.”

“HRV is where we see the biggest change. Most users experience around a 40% increase within the first month, alongside reduced stress index, increased parasympathetic activity, and improvements in deep sleep and sleep latency.”

“What we’re seeing is that people feel better, but they also have the data to understand why they feel better, which makes a huge difference in long-term engagement.”

For Practitioners

“For practitioners, the biggest benefit is adherence. It’s a way to make a treatment protocol actually stick without constantly worrying about whether someone is following through.”

“You can prescribe or recommend something to a client, but knowing whether they’re actually doing it—and whether it’s working—is always the challenge. This gives practitioners real visibility and confidence.”

Q4. yōjō’s competitive advantages

“We’re not just a gadget—we’re an ecosystem. You can buy a treadmill, but it doesn’t make you a runner. Our focus is on making sure people actually use the technology consistently.”

“Most wearables are great at tracking data, but they don’t really tell you what to do about it. We’re positioned as the wearable that actually does something and actively helps rebalance the nervous system.”

“By integrating wearable data and health metrics, we can prove our efficacy and show people how the technology is working for them, which massively increases trust and long-term use.”

“We’re also very intentional about being shame-free. Instead of adding pressure, we give people something tangible they can do to support their nervous system every day.”

Q5. Their current business model

“Yōjō operates on a subscription model that bundles the device with access to the app, biofeedback insights, and ongoing human coaching.”

“The annual subscription is currently £399, and we’re serving the UK, Europe, and the Middle East, with plans to expand into the US as soon as possible.”

“While yōjō is a wellness product, it’s built on the same clinical technology used in medical settings—we’ve chosen a preventative and longevity-focused approach so we can support people earlier.”

Q6. Their plans and aspirations for the next 12 months

“Our first priority over the next year is to continue proving that what we’re doing works by leaning heavily into data and learning as much as possible from our users.”

“We’re also launching a new device, the yōjō Stone, which is smaller, more powerful, has longer battery life, and allows us to personalize stimulation protocols based on how each individual responds.”

“At a bigger-picture level, our goal is to make nervous system care a daily norm—something as simple and habitual as brushing your teeth, even though achieving that requires a lot of thoughtful behavior-change work.”

“Expanding into the US market is absolutely part of our plans for this year, and we’re actively working toward that.”

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This week we had the honor to interview a group of NCAA sports performance experts.

* Dr. John DeWitt, Director of applied sports science in the athletic department and a faculty member, Rice University (NCAA team).

* Paul Silvestri, Sr director of sports health and performance, University of Florida football (NCAA team).

* Drew Lukes, Senior PT at Duke University and the head of sports science, Duke university’s women soccer team (NCAA team).

* Tyler Friedrich, Associate Athletics Director, Applied Performance at Stanford University (NCAA team).

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on the following questions related to the NIL:

Q1. With the NIL, the transfer portal, are we actually developing NCAA athletes anymore, or are we mostly managing them—and how has that changed your daily job?

Q2. How has NIL changed the power dynamics around injury, rehab, and performance—and what boundaries are hardest to protect right now?

Q3. Have you changed how you document, communicate, or educate athletes because of NIL?

Q4. If the NCAA landscape keeps evolving the way it is, what does the ‘ideal performance staff’ look like in 5 years—and what skills will matter more than certifications?

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview located at the top of this blog post.

You can leave a comment by clicking on the button below:

Here are some of the best quotes of our conversation with them:

Q1: Development vs. Management with NIL/Transfer Portal

Dr. John DeWitt:

“The best source of data on an individual is their own data. And when people are leaving, we become more about managing than developing... The model of getting a guy when he is 17 years old and focusing on getting him to where he needs to be when he is 21 or 22—I think for a lot of places, that’s going out the window.”

“We’re looking at more of a professional model where you get someone and you’re trying to keep them for as long as you can until they walk out the door.”

Tyler Friedrich:

“There is a little bit of development if we’re getting kids after their freshman year, but even then, it’s all about where are they now... The kicker is they don’t get the benefit of those processes in place for four years where we can really get a good sense of who they are and train them up and develop them. They only get that benefit for one, two, three seasons at most.”

Paul Silvestri (University of Florida Football):

“We’re trying to get as much data as humanly possible prior to them even setting foot on campus for the visit... There’s a lot of money going out to these individuals, and if you don’t know what you’re paying for and what you’re going to get back in return—at least from an injury history and performance standpoint—you can make some huge misses.”

Q2: Power Dynamics Around Injury, Rehab, and Performance

Paul Silvestri:

“The biggest thing that’s changed drastically in the last couple years is that every one of these athletes I deal with at Florida now has an agent, and we’re going through that process of navigating second opinions. Our team doctors are fantastic—I’d put them up against anybody in the country—but we’re still navigating that process just like a lot of the pros do.”

Drew Lukes:

“I still try to keep the important thing at the forefront, and that is: do what’s best for the kid. I think it’s really easy to lose sight of what’s important when money starts flowing around. For me, I just have to continue to remind myself of that mantra: do what’s best for the kid.”

Tyler Friedrich:

“It’s really easy to get caught up trying to do the thing that makes the athlete happy or what they think they want, because you have an agent chirping or they’re a big money guy coming in. But we need to do what we think is best and utilize our skill sets and training to provide the best training, recovery, nutrition—whatever it is.”

“The draw of ‘we can develop you for professional or Olympic level’ isn’t quite as much as it was five or ten years ago. Now, you can have all those things and we’re still making those sales pitches when recruiting. But if someone’s going to offer a hundred thousand dollars more to a softball player, for example, it’s probably hard for that kid to turn that down.”

Question 3: Documentation, Communication, and Education Changes

Tyler Friedrich:

“We’re trying to centralize and standardize everything we’re doing—whether it be the tests we’re running, how we’re running them, how often we’re running them, how we’re programming... literally everything. We’re taking a more critical eye to all of our processes.”

“The last thing you want is to have an athlete sign an NIL agreement—a financial agreement with the university—and then claim negligence or improper training and documentation... We want to make sure we’re buttoned up and doing things at a professional level.”

Paul Silvestri:

“Before, if a kid transferred, people would call and you would just talk to them about their injury history, kind of off the cuff. Now it’s ‘give me a release from that kid,’ because there’s just too much money involved. If I say something about their medical information and they didn’t sign off on it, there’s the possibility of lawsuits... Everything just has to be dialed in now. There’s really little margin for error.”

Drew Lukes:

“We should already be documenting well, communicating well, and educating our athletes. Maybe what NIL has done more than anything is give us another kick in the butt to make sure our T’s are crossed and our I’s are dotted... It adds a magnifying glass to keep us on our toes and make sure we don’t lose sight of the importance of those things that aren’t as fun in our job.”

Q4: The Ideal Performance Staff in 5 Years

Dr. John DeWitt:

“Because the NCAA landscape is becoming more like a professional landscape, there has to be recognition from the university or leadership that people in these positions are fulfilling a major role... which means you have to rethink how you compensate these people.”

“The ideal performance staff may have to start branching out into specialists... maybe you have a sprinting specialist or a baseball technique specialist... The idea of a strength and conditioning coach doing five things—I think that’s got to stop.”

“I’m wondering how many of these athletes are coming in with their own trainers, just like in the pros. Now you’re going to have a situation where you have a team coach and then 17 guys with 17 different coaches. There has to be a way to integrate all these things.”

Paul Silvestri:

“This is still a personal business. It’s still a relationship business. At the end of the day, you have to be able to build trust with your athletes, and that takes communication and relationship building. That’s the core of it all. You can collect all the data you want, but if you don’t have trust from the athlete, it really doesn’t matter.”

Tyler Friedrich:

“Athletes, if they’re transferring year over year, will have several opportunities in front of them. They’re like free agents in professional sports. It’s about showing them our organization can help you reach your short and long-term goals... I don’t see NFL teams reducing staff. They’re adding staff because they want to become an attractive destination.”

“I would like it to go to the point where we see an increase of practitioners... Yes, work on the money and have the money for the athletes, but the flip side is: look, athlete, not only can we pay you, but we can also take care of you.”

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This week we had the honor to interview again Dr. Ron Dick, associate professor of sports marketing at Duquesne University in the school of business. Ron also worked for 20 years in sports, including 15 years in the NBA with the Sixers and the Nets, and then five years in the NCAA.

You can watch the video interview below or you can listen to the audio interview above:

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on:

* NFL playoff update,

* College football update,

* MLB FA signings,

* NBA update halfway through season,

* College basketball and G league and International players playing in college,

* NHL update,

* Potential WNBA lockout

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview with Ron located at the top of this blog post.

Here are some of the best quotes of our conversation with Ron:

1. NFL Playoff Update

“Here in Pittsburgh, they flexed the Ravens–Steelers game into the Sunday night slot at 8:25, and it turned out to be the right decision. The ratings were absolutely off the chart — there were an additional 17 to 18 million people watching that game. The league office really nailed it by putting that matchup in prime time, and it shows how powerful the NFL product still is.”

“It’s easy to just pick the top seeds like Seattle or Denver, but I don’t count the Eagles out at all. And honestly, could you imagine a Keystone Super Bowl — Steelers versus Eagles? That would be unbelievable. Seattle looks really good despite their quarterback situation, and while Denver is strong, I’m not convinced they’ll come out of the AFC.”

2. College Football Update

“What’s really interesting about college football this year is that only one of the four teams that earned a bye actually made it to the next round. That long four- or five-week layoff is not good for athletes. Players are very habitual — they like rhythm and consistency — and getting one of those top four seeds might actually be a disadvantage.”

“That Mississippi versus Georgia game was one of the greatest college football games I’ve ever seen. It was the final game on New Year’s Day, the eight o’clock kickoff, and it was absolutely worth staying up late for. The other games that day were blowouts, but that one had everything you want as a fan.”

“I’ll give you an early prediction right now — Archie Manning at the University of Texas is going to be your Heisman Trophy winner next year. He’s named after his grandfather, he’s got the pedigree, and more importantly, he’s peaking at the right time. He’s going to get every opportunity this fall, and I think he stays in college one more year and makes a huge jump.”

3. MLB Free Agent Signings

“The Japanese pipeline in Major League Baseball right now is absolutely smoking. These players aren’t drafted the way American players are — they’re already professionals in Japan. If an MLB team wants them, you not only negotiate a salary, but you also pay a posting fee to their Japanese club, very similar to international soccer.”

“To even be posted, you have to dominate the Japanese league. All three of the players who signed — with the White Sox, Astros, and Blue Jays — are expected to be high-impact guys right away. These aren’t projects. These are players who have proven themselves at a very high professional level.”

4. NBA Update (Halfway Through the Season)

“As we’re recording this, OKC is still number one in the Western Conference at 30–6, and they were off to an unbelievable start. They’re still playing very well, but their kryptonite might be the San Antonio Spurs — especially with Wembanyama. We saw that on Christmas Day, and that matchup could be trouble for them.”

“The Pistons at 26–9 are number one in the East, which is incredible. The Knicks are doing well, the Celtics, the Raptors — even the Sixers have really turned the corner. This is the time of year when the NBA starts to get really intense, and every single game carries more weight.”

“The big question, as always, is LeBron James. We don’t know if this is his last season or not. He already announced that he’s not playing in the 2028 Olympics, and like Aaron Rodgers, he’ll probably wait until the end of the year to decide what’s next.”

5. College Basketball, G League & International Pros Playing in College

“We are absolutely blurring the lines between amateur and professional sports. I honestly don’t think there’s anything left called amateur anymore. You can pay kids in seventh and eighth grade, you can pay high school players, and now you have former G League players coming back to college basketball.”

“No player who has actually played in the NBA has gone back to college, but we now have players who were drafted, played in the G League, and didn’t pan out — and they’re going back to college. Coaches like Scott Drew are saying, ‘These are the mechanisms that are in place, and I’m just playing by the rules.’”

“A lot of college basketball fans don’t realize that many international players who come to play Division I basketball were already professionals overseas. So when you ask why G League players coming back to college is controversial, my question is: how is that any different from Europe?”

6. NHL Update

“The NHL, like the NBA, is really in full bloom right now. Locally, the Penguins won five in a row, the Flyers are doing better, and both teams are in solid playoff position. But the outlier in the league is the Colorado Avalanche — they already have 69 points and are by far the best team in the NHL.”

“When you look at Ovechkin breaking Gretzky’s record with Gretzky in the building, and then Crosby passing Mario Lemieux in Penguins history, those are iconic moments that remind you how strong the league is right now.”

7. Potential WNBA Lockout

“The WNBA players are clearly underpaid when you look at the data. Revenue is up, TV ratings are up, attendance is up, ticket sales are up, merchandise is up, and global interest is up. So for players to be making $200,000 to $250,000 in this environment just doesn’t make sense anymore.”

“They’re not asking to make $40 million like LeBron James, and nobody thinks that’s realistic. But the gap between where they are and where they should be is still far too big. The players are very outspoken, they don’t believe their representation is strong enough, and that’s why this situation could get very ugly as early as March or April.”

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Today we have the honor of interviewing Manfredi San Germano, Founder of Beyond Blood Diagnostics, a spinout of Imperial College in the UK. Beyond Blood Diagnostics is a deep tech startup specialized in blood sensor diagnostics.

Beyond Blood Diagnostics is a deep-tech company that has developed a portable, lab-grade blood analysis device designed to bring routine blood testing out of centralized labs and into everyday environments such as homes, training facilities, and remote settings. Its core product miniaturizes a standard blood count test into a rugged, handheld system that uses a simple finger-prick sample and delivers results in minutes, without the need for clinical supervision or sample shipping.

Picture: HypoXcell, Beyond Blood Diagnostics’ solution

By measuring key biomarkers such as red blood cells, hemoglobin, mean cell volume, and related indicators of oxygen-carrying capacity and physiological adaptation, the platform enables more frequent, decentralized monitoring for athletes, teams, and individuals. The system is built for real-world use—portable, precise, and robust enough to travel—making it particularly valuable for elite sports, endurance training, and other performance or readiness use cases where fast, reliable blood insights can directly inform decisions.

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

Here is a video explaining how the technology works:

📝Show Notes: During this interview with Manfredi, we discussed his background in biomedical engineering and how his clinical experience led to the creation of Beyond Blood Diagnostics and its portable, finger-prick blood testing device. He explained how the product enables lab-grade blood analysis outside of traditional hospitals, allowing athletes and teams to monitor training adaptation, oxygen-carrying capacity, and potential overtraining more frequently. We also covered key trends and gaps in the blood analysis market, the main benefits teams see from faster and more decentralized decision-making, Beyond Blood’s competitive advantages in precision and portability, and the company’s near-term focus on regulatory approval, new biomarkers, and partnerships.

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview with Manfedi located at the top of this blog post.

Here are the quotes from the interview with Manfredi:

1. Your Background

“I started my work in the hospital at Hammersmith in London, one of the biggest hospitals for surgery, working at the National Heart and Lung Institute together with Imperial College on new cell detection technologies. While I was working there, I began to realize how dependent blood diagnostics were on centralized hospitals and labs, and how difficult it was for people to access frequent testing.”

“That’s when it became clear to me that there was a real need for a way of testing blood outside of the clinic and into people’s homes, without needing to be under constant clinical supervision.”

2. Your Company & Product

“What we’ve developed is essentially what happens every single day in the lab—a routine blood test called the blood count—but we’ve miniaturized it so that you can perform this test in your own home without supervision from a clinician.”

“You don’t have to send the blood sample to a lab like most companies do today. You place the sample into the device, and the results are right in front of you in a matter of minutes, directly on your desk.”

3. Main Use Cases

“The biggest use case for professional athletes is understanding whether their training is actually doing what it’s supposed to do. A lot of athletes are training hard, but they don’t always have direct insight into how their physiology is adapting.”

“Monitoring oxygen-carrying capacity is not easy to do routinely, especially when athletes are traveling or training at altitude. We provide a simple finger-prick blood test that measures hemoglobin mass, red blood cell count, mean cell volume, and reticulocytes, all of which are key markers for performance.”

4. Blood Analysis Market & Trends

“One of the biggest problems for teams today is the inability to do blood testing in a decentralized way and at scale. Many athletes train alone or are coached remotely, and it’s just not practical to send them to hospitals for intravenous blood draws on a regular basis.”

“There’s also a regulatory and logistical challenge. Having a needle in your arm before a race isn’t always easy to justify, whereas finger-prick testing removes a lot of that friction and paperwork.”

5. Benefits for Teams

“The biggest payoff is faster decision-making for the coach, the athlete, and the team doctor. You get clear proof of whether the athlete is adapting to altitude or training, rather than relying on assumptions or delayed lab results.”

“When you test more frequently—every few days instead of once every few weeks—you get a much clearer picture of what’s really happening inside the athlete and whether they’re adapting or potentially overtraining.”

6. Competitive Advantages

“Usability is a key differentiator for us. Being able to perform lab-grade diagnostics without a trained healthcare professional taking blood is extremely difficult, and that’s something we’ve focused on from the very beginning.”

“Another major advantage is ruggedness. Traditional blood analyzers rely on optics, lenses, and cameras, and if you drop them, they break. Our device is built to be carried in suitcases and used in the field, which is why it attracted interest and funding from NATO.”

7. What Teams Like About the Product

“Precision is always the most important thing. Teams will consistently choose precision over other factors if they have to make that trade-off.”

“Portability also matters a lot because teams travel constantly. The device doesn’t need to be ultra-small, but it needs to be easy to carry, reliable, and accurate when it’s used in different environments.”

“The finger-prick method is another thing teams really appreciate because it removes many of the barriers associated with traditional blood draws.”

8. Business Model

“We operate through several channels, including affiliate programs, distribution partners, and direct-to-consumer sales, but for teams we usually work on highly customized plans because each organization has different requirements.”

“We also provide an app and web platform where users can track their metrics over time, understand trends, and get insights based on factors like age, weight, and physiology.”

“Our tests cost around £30 per test, which is significantly cheaper and much faster than most hospital-based blood tests.”

9. Plans for the Next 12 Months

“Over the next 12 months, our main focus is completing our clinical trials in the UK and moving toward CE certification, as well as progressing with FDA approval in the United States.”

“We’re also working on adding additional biomarkers through partnerships, particularly around nutrition and supplements, to better understand how different interventions impact blood health and performance.”

“We’re still very early in our journey, but we’re actively looking to partner with teams across different sports and performance environments.”

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Today we have the honor of interviewing Nick Hool, CEO of Hoolest, a leading Nervus system recovery technology company.

Hoolest is a neurostimulation company focused on improving recovery, stress regulation, and overall performance by targeting the autonomic nervous system, with a particular emphasis on vagus nerve stimulation. Its flagship product, Hoolest Pro, is a wearable, non-invasive device designed for elite and professional athletes that delivers personalized neuromodulation protocols to support recovery, sleep quality, pain management, and mental readiness. By combining hardware, software, and physiological data, Hoolest enables teams and practitioners to integrate nervous system regulation into daily training, rehab, and return-to-play workflows. The company positions itself at the intersection of neuroscience, performance, and recovery, offering a scalable solution that complements existing physical training and recovery modalities used by high-performance organizations.

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

Here are some pictures of the Hoolest pro:

Here is a video featuring Nick Hool, CEO of Hoolest, explaining how the Hoolest pro works. This video also includes some video testimonials.

Here are the studies published by Hoolest:

Here is the current white paper Hoolest has put together that highlights the relevant foundational studies that led to the development of Hoolest, and the current studies that they completed on their own products.

📝Show Notes: During the interview with Nick, we discussed his personal journey as a former competitive golfer whose experience with performance-related stress and anxiety led him to pursue a PhD in biomedical engineering and ultimately build Hoolest Pro. Nick explained how the product was designed to address a major gap in modern performance and recovery programs: nervous system recovery, particularly the ability for athletes and high-stress professionals to downregulate quickly after intense competition or work demands.

We explored how Hoolest Pro uses targeted, high-potency vagus nerve stimulation to deliver fast, noticeable effects in real-world environments, with teams seeing benefits in sleep quality, stress reduction, mental focus, and pain management. Nick also shared his perspective on the rapidly growing vagus nerve stimulation market, highlighting how Hoolest Pro differentiates itself through precise anatomical targeting, higher energy delivery, and a wearable form factor built for elite use. Finally, we covered Hoolest’s business model, its alignment with professional teams, and Nick’s priorities for the next 12 months, which include increasing awareness, refining the user experience without adding complexity, and expanding adoption among athletes, practitioners, and other high-stress populations.

Here are the best quotes from the interview with Nick:

Q1. Background & What Led Him to Build Hoolest Pro

“I started the company entirely from my own personal experience dealing with stress and anxiety. When I was a teenager, I was a competitive golfer and, like most young athletes, I had dreams of going pro. I was practicing every day, traveling across the country, playing in the biggest tournaments I could, and doing well enough that I earned a verbal commitment to play golf at Arizona State when I was 16. For a kid from Arizona, that was the dream—Phil Mickelson, Jon Rahm, Paul Casey all went there.”

“A year later, the coach got fired, the new coach wiped the roster, and suddenly I lost that path. That’s when my anxiety really started, and what was confusing is that it wasn’t mental—it was physical. My heart rate would spike, my shoulders would lock up, my body would feel tense every time I stepped onto the course. Golf is a sport where you have to be calm and controlled, and my body just wouldn’t cooperate.”

“I tried everything—sports psychology, medication—but nothing truly solved the problem. The medication worked, but it sedated me, and that’s not acceptable in a performance environment. Eventually, I realized there had to be something physical happening inside the nervous system that wasn’t being addressed, and that’s what pushed me into biomedical engineering and eventually a PhD. I wanted to quantify the problem so I could actually solve it.”

Q2. What Hoolest Pro Does & Where It Fits in Performance and Recovery

“Recovery in professional sports has mostly been about the body—muscles, joints, soft tissue, inflammation. Those things matter, but the nervous system is what controls everything. If the nervous system is stuck in a stressed, overactivated state, you’re never going to fully recover physically, no matter how many recovery tools you use.”

“What we see with elite athletes is that it’s not always anxiety before games—it’s the inability to shut down afterward. They’re dealing with adrenaline, stimulants, lights, noise, pressure, and then the game ends and their nervous system stays elevated. That carries into sleep, travel, and the next day. Hoolest Pro is designed to actively bring the nervous system down in those real-world moments.”

“This isn’t something that requires 30 minutes in a quiet room. You put it on for about 10 minutes, whether you’re in the locker room, on the plane, or at home, and it helps the nervous system shift out of fight-or-flight and into a recovery state.”

Q3. Main Benefits & Highest-Impact Use Cases

“The first thing most athletes notice is sleep. When you calm the nervous system, they fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. That alone has a massive impact on recovery, consistency, and how they feel day to day during the season.”

“The long-term benefit is mental performance. At the professional level, everyone is physically gifted. What separates athletes is focus—the ability to lock into the moment, filter out distractions, and perform under pressure. That’s not a muscle issue; that’s a nervous system issue.”

“Pain is another important use case. Pain is just a signal traveling through the nervous system. By changing how that signal is processed, athletes often feel an immediate reduction in pain perception, especially when this is combined with physical rehab or other recovery modalities.”

Q4. Vagus Nerve Stimulation Market & Differentiation

“To my knowledge, I’m the only PhD in vagus nerve stimulation who is actually building a commercial product. But beyond that, I’m very outcomes-focused. Most companies are limited by what’s already published in the research, and that research points to long, low-intensity protocols—20 to 30 minutes a day for weeks before people feel anything.”

“That doesn’t work for high-performance environments. Athletes and high-stress professionals don’t want to wait weeks—they need to calm down now. So we built the most potent vagus nerve stimulator on the market, not to be aggressive for no reason, but to create fast, noticeable results when it actually matters.”

“A lot of products claim vagus nerve stimulation but don’t even reach the nerve. They might help people relax, but not through the mechanism they’re advertising. Our differentiation is precise targeting, higher energy delivery, and a wearable form factor that fits seamlessly into real performance settings.”

Q5. Business Model & Working With Elite Teams

“Our model is straightforward. You buy the device, and the recurring component is the gel electrodes. We had to create a new water-based material so we could deliver higher power comfortably. Permanent electrodes just weren’t tolerable at that intensity.”

“Because teams and athletes use it at different frequencies, we built flexible replacement options—from very light use to aggressive daily use. Even at the high end, it’s still far less expensive than many supplements that sedate the nervous system instead of training it.”

“The key difference is that electrical stimulation promotes neuroplasticity. Over time, the nervous sy…

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This week we had the honor to interview again Athanase Kollias, CEO of KINVENT, a company that helps sports and rehab professionals assess progress and build engagement and motivation. Athan is joined by Paul Silvestri, Sr director of sports health and performance at the University of Florida football (NCAA team). Paul, who has been using the Kinvent 3D Deltas force plates for some time, gave us his feedback on the product.

Founded in 2017, KINVENT is a leading player in the fields of physical rehabilitation and sports biomechanics producing innovative measuring and training devices for the facilitation of every day and athletic movements. Of note, Raphaël Varane, who is a defender on the French national soccer team, 2018 World Cup Champion, and current Manchester United player, is one of their investors.

Here is the video interview with Athan Kollias and Paul Silvestri. You can also listen to the audio interview located at the top of this page.

Here is a video showcasing KINVENT’s 3D Deltas Force plates, which are 3 Dimensional force plates combined with MOCAP bringing lab-level precision directly to the field. Unlike traditional force plates that only capture vertical force, 3D Deltas measure movement in all directions, providing a complete picture of an athlete’s or patient’s biomechanics. By combining 3D force plate technology with motion capture, it allows for real-time insights into (1) Change of direction efficiency, (2) Lateral movement & performance metrics (3) Injury risk assessment & rehab progress and (4) Sport-specific movement analysis.

Here is a picture of the KINVENT’s 3D Deltas used by Florida Football and customized using the team’s logo.

Best Quotes: Here’s some of the key discussion points and best quotes from our conversation with Athan and Paul:

Q1. What are the Kinvent 3D Delta force plates and how do they work?

Athan Kollias

“Kinvent is now eight years old, and we’ve been working with force plates for five to seven years. This year was really a turning point for us because we decided to move toward capturing the full picture of human movement. Until now, most force plates on the market focused almost exclusively on the vertical component of force. With the 3D Deltas, we now calculate forces across all three axes—X, Y, and Z—which allows us to assess vertical, horizontal, and lateral forces. That means we can analyze not just simple movements like vertical jumps, but also complex movements such as changes of direction, lateral jumps, and broad jumps, which are much closer to what athletes actually do in sport.”

Q2. Decision to Adopt: What led you to adopt the 3D Deltas system?

Paul Silvestri

“The biggest reason for adopting the 3D Deltas was exactly what Athan just described. It was the first force plate system I had seen that could capture vertical, horizontal, and lateral forces all together. Traditional force plates give you vertical data, and that’s valuable, but it’s incomplete. When you’re looking at return to play, preseason screenings, or real on-field demands, athletes aren’t just moving straight up and down. The 3D Deltas were a game changer because they gave us a much more realistic picture of how athletes produce and absorb force in the movements they actually perform.”

Q3. Primary Use Cases: How are you using the 3D Deltas?

Paul Silvestri

“Right now, we’re using it heavily in rehab and return-to-play, and it’s becoming part of our daily workflow. We adopted the technology over the summer, so starting in January we’re rolling it into preseason screenings to establish baselines. A good example was an athlete coming off a meniscectomy—we’re at the stage where he’s returning to running and cutting. Using the 3D Deltas, we were able to analyze his lateral movements and cutting mechanics, overlaying markerless video with force vectors. We could immediately show him how valgus collapse during landings was altering his force output and where he was losing power. That immediate visual and data-driven feedback created a coachable moment you simply can’t get with any other force plate system I’ve used.”

Q4. Standout Features: What stands out most in daily use?

Paul Silvestri

“The combination of markerless video and force data is incredibly valuable. Being able to show athletes exactly what they’re doing, how their movement patterns affect force production, and where power is being lost is huge for both rehab and performance. Another major feature is Smart Mode. I can run an athlete through an entire battery of tests without clicking between protocols—the force plates automatically recognize what test is being performed. That saves a significant amount of time. On top of that, if we want to create a custom test for a specific athlete, Kinvent is incredibly responsive. I can explain what I want, and within 10 to 15 minutes it’s built and uploaded into our system. That’s a new standard for me.”

Athan Kollias

“For me, what really stands out is the combination of 3D motion capture with force vectors. Motion capture alone shows joint positions, but when you combine that with force direction and magnitude, you can truly work on technique. You can see if the athlete is pushing at the right moment, placing their knee correctly, and applying force in the right direction. This combination allows practitioners to move beyond just measurement and actually coach movement quality.”

Q5. Value & Key Data Insights: What metrics matter most?

Paul Silvestri

“The force vectors are the biggest value for us. These are strong, powerful athletes, but strength alone doesn’t guarantee performance. If they’re not applying force at the right angles, they’re not maximizing their ability. With the 3D Deltas, we can immediately identify those issues, make coachable corrections, and then retest to see if performance actually improves. That applies not only to rehab, but also to healthy athletes who may not be using their strength and speed efficiently on the field.”

Athan Kollias

“A great example is lateral force application during jumps. Everyone naturally pushes slightly to the sides for stability, but if an athlete pushes too much laterally, they lose force that should be directed forward. This directly affects acceleration, especially the first step, which can represent nearly one-third of an athlete’s maximum speed. With three-axis force analysis, practitioners can identify these inefficiencies and help athletes use their muscular system in a much more effective way.”

Q6. Why should other college or pro teams consider using it?

Paul Silvestri

“I’ll be very direct—we have a competitive advantage because we have this system. You simply cannot capture this level of three-axis movement data with any other force plate. Athletes move in all three planes, and this technology reflects that reality. Whether you’re assessing return to play or optimizing healthy athletes, the value of this data is enormous. In my opinion, it should be in every program.”

Paul Silvestri

“There’s also a major mental component. Athletes don’t just see numbers—they see visuals, they see progress, and they feel improvement. That builds confidence, which is often the final barrier in return to play. The 3D Deltas help restore trust in movement while we’re rebuilding physical capacity, and that’s been eye-opening for me.”

Athan Kollias

“Lateral movements often reveal compensations athletes try to hide when they want to return quickly. Being able to see those compensations helps practitioners make better decisions. At the same time, from a performance standpoint, improving explosiveness, acceleration, and efficiency directly reduces injury risk. That’s why we believe the 3D Deltas have a strong role in both health and performance.”

Q7. Product Improvements: What would you enhance?

Paul Silvestri

“Honestly, it’s hard for me to say what I would improve. The system is flexible, progressive, and constantly evolving. The fact that Smart Mode exists alone changed our workflow. And when we want to explore a very specific m…

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Today we have the honor of interviewing David McHugh, the Director of mental performance at the Washington Spirit an NWSL team.

David McHugh is the Director of Mental Performance for the Washington Spirit (NWSL), where he supports players and staff through applied sports psychology, mental skills development, and performance planning. Originally an academy soccer player in Ireland, McHugh’s career in mental performance began after a significant injury sparked his interest in the psychology of recovery, resilience, and player development. He went on to earn advanced degrees in psychology, including a doctorate in sports psychology, and completed his UEFA coaching badge.

Before joining the Spirit, David held roles across Irish football as a coach, lecturer, and sports psychology practitioner, working with underage national teams, League of Ireland women’s programs, and academy environments. His blend of on-field coaching experience and psychological expertise allows him to integrate seamlessly with technical staff while supporting athletes across all phases of their development. At the Spirit, he plays a key role in shaping the club’s mental performance strategy, helping players build confidence, navigate pressure, and perform consistently at the highest level.

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on:

* His background & journey to the NWSL.

* His role at the Washington Spirit.

* His mental preparation philosophy

* The use of technology

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview with David located at the top of this blog post.

Here are the quotes from the interview with David:

1. Background & Journey to the NWSL

David McHugh

“Like a lot of people who end up working in sport, I started off as an athlete myself. I was playing academy soccer in Ireland, and when I was 16 I broke my leg and was out for about nine months — I didn’t get back on the pitch for a full year. That injury was a defining moment for me. It raised so many psychological questions: Why didn’t I fully recover? Why didn’t I reach my potential? Why wasn’t there support for the mental side of injury?

I went on to study psychology, and halfway through my degree I realized sports psychology was even a thing. Those early experiences — being injured, being sidelined, questioning everything — pushed me toward wanting to understand how to better support athletes. I did my master’s, then became a coach, did all of my UEFA coaching badges, worked in the League of Ireland, and coached both boys’ and women’s academy teams. Eventually, I went back and did my doctorate in sports psychology because I saw a gap — everyone focused on the physical, not the mental.

Over about 10 years those skill sets — coaching, psychology, understanding environments — all came together. When the role opened at Washington Spirit, I had experience in the women’s game, the coaching background to support the head coach, and the perspective to work with players individually. That combination is what ultimately led me to the Spirit, and now I’m finishing my third season with the club.”

2. Role in the Club

David McHugh

“Day-to-day, my role is a mix of being in the performance meetings, medical meetings, coaching meetings — really understanding what’s happening with every individual and every unit in the team. I’m looking at what players need this week, what the team needs, what messaging the head coach wants to set for the week, and then how we carry that into training.

I’m observing sessions, helping players debrief, meeting with them before or after training, and building mental-development plans. But I also zoom out and look at the entire performance system, because it’s not just individuals — it’s the international players, the rookies, the veterans, injured players, the staff, subgroups within staff, and even external influences like fans or media. Sometimes the issue for an athlete isn’t at the individual level — it’s at a higher layer of the system, so the solution might involve adjusting the coaching environment or shifting group messaging.

I also try to work two or three weeks ahead. Coaches focus on the immediate weekend — understandably — but I’m looking at what’s coming. For example, before playoffs, we might build penalty routines, or earlier in the season we plan for predictable moments like going ahead, going behind, or returning to level. So the job is part day-to-day support, part long-term planning, part environmental shaping. Everything is about helping the players and staff navigate the system in a way that supports performance and wellbeing.”

3. Mental Preparation Philosophy

David McHugh

“My philosophy is to keep things simple and tied directly to the demands of the game. A lot of sports psychology can get overly academic, but players need things that make sense on the field. So I always come back to three processes: the ability to be present, the ability to accept your emotions, and the ability to do what matters.

When players aren’t present, they usually can’t accept their emotions, and if they can’t accept their emotions, they struggle to act in line with their values. Those three pieces interact, and when a player explains what’s going on for them, I’ll put those three concepts on a whiteboard and ask which one will help them most right now. Then we build the session around that.

Confidence is a big one. Athletes often say, ‘I need to feel confident to perform,’ but the quickest way to feel confident is to go play at a lower level. You’ll be better technically, faster, more experienced — of course you’ll feel confident. But that’s not what they want. They want to be challenged. So instead of chasing a feeling, we redefine confidence around trust. The root of the word confidence is fidere, meaning to trust. So the real question becomes: What do you trust about yourself to cope with the challenge? What do you trust about the people around you?

It’s the same with pressure. Athletes say ‘I have to’ or ‘I need to,’ and that creates pressure. Those are closed goals — you either achieve them or you don’t. Instead, I help them shift toward open goals: How good can I be today? How many times can I get on the ball? How can I explore my potential in this moment? It moves players from pressure to exploration, which is usually why they fell in love with the game in the first place.”

4. Use of Technology

David McHugh

“The mental performance space is very education-heavy, so technology first helps us communicate and teach — Zoom, Google Meet, video tools. We can now educate athletes and even other mental-performance coaches at scale.

When it comes to specific tools, I’m a bit old-school. Relationships matter most. But one technology I rely on heavily is video. Analysts use tools like Sportscode to break down physical performance, but we can use the same tools to evaluate mental performance — comparing body language in different game states, examining behaviors when players are chasing closed goals versus open goals, and understanding emotional responses in context.

Right now that work is very manual, but AI will change everything. In sports like baseball, they’re already doing biomechanics analysis at a very high level. When that scales to soccer — tracking 22 players through video, capturing posture, movement, interactions — we’ll gain massive insight into team coordination, emotional regulation, and mental responses. People in tech tell me we’re heading there soon.

I’ve also seen vagus nerve techniques used — even simple ones like athletes putting their face in ice water to activate the diving reflex and regulate HRV and anxiety. I’ve shown athletes videos of divers using the technique, explained the theory, and helped them apply it at home. That’s where technology has power: when it educates, simplifies, and becomes something practical the athlete can use.”

You …

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This week we have the honor to interview a group of NHL sports performance executives to talk about the latest trends in the world of sports performance.

* Alexi Pianosi, Head S&C coach, Colorado avalanche (NHL Team).

* Adam Douglas, Hockey Product Manager, Sportslogiq. Adam is also the former S&C coach for the Pittsburgh Penguins (NHL Team).

* Chris Stackpole, VP Athlete Care, NJ Devils (NHL Team).

* Devan McConnell, High performance director, Utah Mammoth (NHL Team).

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on the best practices related to:

* Humans’ Intuition and technology: As technology rapidly accelerates, what performance or rehab decision today is still made largely by intuition or experience — and what would you want technology to solve or objectify in the next 3–5 years?

* Important metrics: In a data-rich environment, what metric do you wish you had that does not exist yet — but would change how teams monitor readiness or performance?

* Return to play: What part of the return-to-play process do you believe will look completely different 5–10 years from now?

* NHL player profile: What’s one profile of player you think the NHL will produce more of in the next decade (faster, stronger, smaller, smarter, better conditioned, etc.) and why?

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview located at the top of this blog post.

Here are some of the best quotes of our conversation with Alexi, Chris, Devan and Adam:

1. Humans’ Intuition & Technology

Devan McConnell

“The end stage of return to play still has quite a bit of intuition. As a player gets closer to fully returning, there’s still a layer of the coach’s eye involved — that blend of the performance staff, medical team, coaches, and even the player making sense of what’s going on. We have good data, and we use it, but that final stretch still really relies on practitioner experience and understanding the nuances that the numbers can’t always capture.”

Alexi Pianosi

“One area I’ve always leaned on heavily is subjective movement quality. You watch an athlete go through particular drills and you’re looking at the ankle angle, the knee, the hip — trying to figure out if they’re moving efficiently and absorbing force the right way. Technology can help, but once you start adding force plates, motion capture, and EMG, the complexity ramps up fast. Experienced coaches rely on a trained eye built over hundreds of thousands of reps. Bridging the gap between that coach’s eye and objective measures of movement quality is a major frontier for technology.”

Chris Stackpole

“On the technical side, it would be really interesting if we could tap into the same kind of biomechanical analysis that hockey product companies do behind the scenes. It’s similar to baseball, where pitching mechanics are broken down in incredible detail. We don’t have that level of access at the team level. If we could apply that type of analysis to skating or stick-and-puck skills — especially for younger players who are still developing — it could help unlock skill sets we’re not fully tapping into, even in-season.”

Adam Douglas

“We have all these measurement tools — Catapult gives us hundreds of metrics — and I still feel the biggest gap is technology that can tell me, ‘What am I missing?’ I want something that can run through all that data automatically, compare today against yesterday, and flag what’s different. Then I can bring that to the medical staff or coaches and say, ‘This popped — how do we feel about it?’ I think AI is going to move us in that direction. I want tech that fills in the blind spots.”

2. Important Metrics That Don’t Exist Yet

Devan McConnell

“I’d really like to be able to measure cognitive load or cognitive clarity. We have plenty of tools for CNS fatigue and metabolic readiness, but almost nothing objective on the mental side. For performance and readiness, understanding cognitive load — how sharp someone is, how clearly they’re processing — would be incredibly valuable. It’s the next big area I’d want access to.”

Alexi Pianosi

“We can measure CNS readiness in lots of different ways, but what we’re missing is how that interacts with motivation, emotional wellbeing, or the player’s mental state when they walk into the rink. Some players are exhausted on the second night of a back-to-back yet perform incredibly well — clearly something psychological is contributing. Understanding how the mental and physical side combine into a more holistic definition of readiness would be extremely valuable, even if I don’t know how we’d measure it yet.”

Chris Stackpole

“I’d love to see something that could measure team dynamics or chemistry. We all see teams that overperform relative to their roster talent — but we can’t quantify why. If we had a metric that helped us understand how team cohesion, emotional regulation, leadership characteristics, and interpersonal dynamics influence performance, it could completely change roster-building and player selection. It would help us understand the nuance beyond technical and tactical ability.”

Adam Douglas

“Everyone in high-performance sport is chasing the same thing: a true, holistic readiness score that combines physical, mental, cognitive, emotional — all of it. Right now we only have proxy measures that we interpret the best we can. If someone actually figured out a reliable, scientifically sound way to calculate that, they’d be sitting on an absolute goldmine. Every team in the world would want it.”

3. Return to Play in 5–10 Years

Alexi Pianosi

“I think biomechanics and 3D motion analysis will become a much bigger part of return to play. If you can watch a player skate, pivot, stop, or start and actually see — in real time — where force is going through the kinetic chain, then you can make immediate, actionable coaching adjustments. Most non-contact injuries come down to force exceeding tissue capacity. Real-time movement analysis would help us guide rehab much more precisely. It’s complex, especially in hockey’s environment, but it’s coming.”

Devan McConnell

“Live biomechanics is incredibly difficult in hockey — the environment is chaotic, the rink is big, the equipment interferes with tracking — and it hasn’t been done well yet. But if someone cracks that challenge, it could be enormously beneficial. Baseball can analyze arm action, spin rate, and mechanics because the environment is controlled. If we ever get even part of that capability in hockey, it could really move the needle for return to play.”

Chris Stackpole

“My hope is that in 5–10 years every team is consistently applying modern standards of sports medicine. Too many players still go through the rehab process without timely diagnoses or without access to the right specialists. Some organizations still operate in an old-school way. I’d like to see integrated, collaborative models across performance, medical, front office, and agents — fewer silos, fewer unnecessary surgeries, and better long-term outcomes for players.”

Adam Douglas

“The teams that figure out recovery will be the ones that succeed. Schedule density is only getting worse — 82 games now, 84 soon — and players are going to war every other night. Keeping your best players healthy and recovered is everything. Whoever solves that piece at scale will have a massive advantage.”

4. NHL Player Profile of the Future

Adam Douglas

“The future is already here. Younger players are pushing into the league sooner because they’re more prepared for the pro game than ever before. Five or six years ago, unless you were picked first overall, you weren’t making the NHL right away. Now these young guys are ready. In a salary-cap environment, if you can get elite contributions from entry-level players, you set your organization up for long-term success.”

Devan McConnell

“The differentiator today is cognitive ability. The game is unbelievably fast. The p…

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Today we have the honor of interviewing Sayawni Lassiter , CEO of Complete Sports, a Boston-based sports technology company founded in 2024 that offers an all-in-one platform for athletic departments and professional teams.

Sayawni Lassiter is a sports technology founder and entrepreneur whose career is defined by the resilience learned on the court and the operational precision honed in finance. A former Division I athlete, she played basketball for three powerhouse programs: Florida State University, Rutgers University, and the University of Rhode Island (URI). Her hoop dreams were ultimately curtailed after suffering three devastating ACL injuries and numerous broken bones, experiences that illuminated a profound, systemic lack of integrated support for athletes managing recovery and daily life.

Throughout her athletic career and navigating her numerous injuries, Sayawni knew early on that her hoop dreams would be long lived. So, she focused on finance, earning a BA in Finance with minors in Business Analytics and Economics, followed by an MS in Financial Analysis. Her educational track culminated in her sitting for the CFA (Charted Financial Analyst) exam, giving her a powerful foundation in data, efficiency, and financial rigor.

However, the systemic problems she endured in college called her back to sports. Her initial vision was a platform designed to help athletes find nearby parks and hills and outdoor exercise locations during COVID, while also helping them hone their mental and nutritional health. This initial focus quickly transitioned into realizing the larger market issue in collegiate and professional athletics: the lack of attention to overall athlete well-being and expensiveness of siloed legacy solutions.

Sayawni then founded Complete Sports to directly address this. Leveraging her financial background to ensure cost-efficiency and her athlete experience to guarantee holistic support, she sought to blend and morph the worlds of operational efficiency (communication, scheduling, forms) and athlete performance/well-being. Today, she leads Complete, providing the single operating system she wished she had—a platform that ensures every athlete and program has a more complete path to success.

Picture: Complete Sports platform and mobile app

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

📝Show Notes: During this interview we discussed Sayawni’s journey from being a top Division I basketball recruit who endured multiple ACL tears to becoming the founder and CEO of Complete Sports, an all-in-one athlete operations and wellbeing platform designed to fix the gaps she experienced firsthand. She explained how the product blends calendars, communication, nutrition, and mental-fitness tools into a single system that serves both staff and athletes, and she highlighted the fragmented nature of today’s AMS, nutrition, and mental-health markets—where teams often pay high prices for tools that only solve one problem.

We also explored the platform’s main use cases, the benefits of consolidating systems, what teams appreciate most about the product, the company’s competitive advantages in being holistic and cost-efficient, and her flexible subscription-based business model. Finally, she shared her plans for the next 12 months, including raising capital, expanding features such as strength and conditioning and AMS-style availability tracking, and increasing visibility among teams and athletic departments.

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview with Sayawni located at the top of this blog post.

Here are the quotes from the interview with Sayawni:

1. Background

“I was a top recruit out of high school for basketball and went to Florida State, but everything hit me at once. I tore my ACL as soon as we got back from our foreign trip to Spain and Italy. The next year my grandmother passed away, and the year after that I tore my ACL again—but on the other side, after already tearing it once in high school. That made three ACL tears. Through all that—the physical injuries, the weight gain from being immobile, the mental battles I went through with my knees and losing my grandmother—I started to realize how many inefficiencies existed for athletes who were struggling behind the scenes.”

“Even at high-level programs like ACC or Big Ten schools, the tools we had were glorified calendars and messaging systems. There wasn’t anything to help with easily accessible nutrition tools or mental health resources when things got really hard. That gap became extremely clear to me as I went from school to school and experienced different environments. That’s ultimately where the idea for Complete Sports was really born.”

2. Company & Product

“We’ve built a platform that blends day-to-day operations with athlete performance and wellbeing. On one side you have the tools organizations absolutely need—calendars, communication, forms, scheduling—the things athletic departments will always pay for. On the other side, we’ve integrated the things athletes actually need and want but are usually put on the back burner: nutrition, what we call mental fitness, journaling, meditations, and tools they can access anytime. Instead of everything being siloed and hard to find, we’ve put it all together in one system.”

3. Main Use Cases

“The number one use case teams rely on is the calendar—figuring out where players are, how to schedule meetings, workouts, practices, and everything else. That’s what the staff uses most. But for athletes, the biggest use case is the mental side. They use our guided meditation tools, journaling tools, and other features that help them understand where they are mentally, and how to get from where they are to where they want to be. They finally have something easily accessible on their phones that supports their performance and their wellbeing.”

4. The AMS / Communication Market Trends

“The market is still incredibly fragmented. Everything is getting so expensive, and schools—especially junior colleges, D3s, D2s—are paying $40,000, $50,000, even $100,000 for a platform that only does one thing. Even pro teams are feeling that. That’s why we decided to combine everything into one platform and make it cost-efficient. Technology has evolved to the point where trying to ‘boil the ocean’ isn’t as crazy as people think—it’s actually possible now if you build it intentionally from the start.”

“A lot of AMS platforms give you data but don’t tell you what to do with it. You can tell someone they’re 36% body fat and need to get to 27%, but that doesn’t explain what that number means or how to actually get there. Same with performance: if someone goes from shooting 90% at the free throw line to 75%, they didn’t forget how to shoot. It’s probably a mental spout. Our platform helps teams and athletes understand the ‘why’ behind the numbers and provides actionable steps to improve.”

5. Benefits for Teams

“The biggest benefit is having all your important information in one place so you can make sense of it. Instead of switching between Kitman, NoteMeal, Teamworks, Slack, GroupMe, email, text—it’s all in one dashboard where everyone is on the same system. That reduces friction, improves communication, and saves staff hours of time every week.”

“Another major benefit is consolidation. Even though teams don’t want to put all their eggs in one basket, the reality is they’re already using fragmented tools. We help them consolidate those tools, save money, and reallocate resources toward things that actually generate revenue or enhance the program. And because everything is connected, they can finally understand how their data fits together.”

6. Competitive Advantages

“Our biggest advantage is that we’re holistic and comprehensive. People often ask, ‘Why can’t the big companies just build what you’re building?’ The answer is simple—they haven’t, and they don’t wan…

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This week we have the honor to interview again a group of NBA sports performance executives to talk about the latest trends in the world of sports performance and rehabilitation.

* Dr Marco Nunez, the former head athletic trainer for the LA Lakers (NBA).

* Derek Millender, the head S&C coach for the Cleveland Cavaliers (NBA).

* Dr Bill Burgos, a former NBA S&C Coach for the Orlando Magic, NY Knicks and Timberwolves. Bill is now the CEO of LONU, a nutritional platform.

Here are the topics that we covered during the video interview:

* Q1. Use of wearables in the NBA:

Wearables are not currently allowed during live NBA games. There is only a list of approved wearables in the NBA during practice. Do you see the league’s stance on wearables evolving in the near future, especially as new technologies emerge?” How do you balance player privacy, data ownership, and competitive advantage when working with these systems?

* Q2. Biomechanics Programs: The NBA is launching a league-wide initiative to install standardized biomechanics labs in all 30 team facilities to collect consistent data on player movement, aiding in injury prevention and performance enhancement. How will your coaching staff and strength and conditioning staff utilize the biomechanical feedback to modify training regimens or on-court techniques without overwhelming the player with technical information? What are the biggest logistical or cultural challenges you anticipate in getting players to consistently engage with the new biomechanics testing, given the already demanding NBA schedule?

* Q3. “Micro-dosing” Training: Practitioners are using “micro-dosing” to provide consistent physical preparation during the season without over-draining players before competition. This approach seeks a balance between health, performance, and the demands of an 82-game schedule. What is your take on micro dosing training? Have you been using micro dosing training as part of your program? How are the benefits of micro dosing training in your opinion.

* Q4. Training the “Brakes”: In the NBA, there is an emphasis on training deceleration (braking) in S&C programs, as basketball involves frequent stop-and-go movements. Improving this capacity is seen as key to success and injury prevention. Have you used such method as part of your program? What is your opinion on it?

You can watch the video interview below by clicking on the Youtube link. You can also listen to the audio interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page:

Here are some of the best quotes of our conversation with Marco, Derek, and Bill:

✅ Q1 — Use of Wearables in the NBA

Dr. Bill Burgos

* “I think the league’s stance on wearables is absolutely going to evolve because the technology itself is evolving so fast. We’re seeing devices become smaller, more accurate, more predictive, and more relevant to real-time decision-making. Eventually the league won’t be able to ignore that. But at the same time, we have to be really thoughtful about the layers: where does the data go, who controls it, and how is it being used? Players want transparency. If they feel like the data is being used to support their health and longevity, they’re all in. If they feel like it could be used against them in negotiations or public perception, they’ll shut the whole thing down.”

* “For us, balancing privacy, data ownership, and competitive edge comes down to trust. If a guy is wearing something on his body, he wants to know exactly what’s being collected and why. He wants to know how long it stays in the system, who sees it, and what decisions are being made with it. You build buy-in by making the process collaborative — otherwise you lose the room.”

Dr Marco Núñez

* “Players are more educated than ever about data privacy. They want to know not just what we’re collecting but what the organization, the league, and the union are doing with it. If we can show them that the technology is there to help them extend their career, stay healthier, or reduce soreness, they engage with it. But the second they sense the data might be used for anything other than their immediate wellbeing, you lose trust. And trust is everything.”

* “I do think the league is moving toward more wearable integration, but it’s going to be deliberate and player-driven. The union will have a major say, and they should. Because at the end of the day, these systems collect biological, movement, and physiological data that belong to the athlete first — not the team, not the league.”

Derek Millender

* “We’re already getting a ton of value from wearables during practice and controlled environments — load tracking, movement trends, fatigue markers, asymmetry checks. But the minute you shift into games, it becomes a different conversation because you need to balance performance insights with privacy and competitive fairness. I think the league will eventually allow it because the upside is too big, but not until the players are fully protected and the rules are crystal clear.”

* “With wearables, the message to players has to be consistent: this is for your benefit, not to grade you or use against you. When players feel the data is a partnership — something that helps them stay available and at their best — the buy-in is fantastic.”

✅ Q2 — NBA Biomechanics Labs

Dr Marco Núñez

* “The biggest challenge isn’t collecting biomechanical data — we’ve been collecting data for years. The real challenge is communicating it in a way that makes sense to players. NBA guys don’t need twenty pages of analysis. They want one or two actionable changes: ‘Adjust this angle on your landing,’ or ‘Shift your foot here on your drive.’ If the feedback is simple and directly tied to helping them feel better or perform better, they’ll engage. If it’s too technical, you’ll lose them immediately.”

* “And culturally, we have to remind players that biomechanics testing is not a judgment of their ability. These guys already feel like they’re under a microscope: media scrutiny, fan expectations, contract pressure. So before every test, I tell them: this is just a snapshot of how your body is moving today — nothing more, nothing less.”

Dr. Bill Burgos

* “Biomechanics is going to help us identify the inefficiencies we can’t always see with the naked eye — things like uneven loading, compromised landing mechanics, or subtle asymmetries that creep in over a long season. But the key is translating those findings into coaching. If the data shows a player is overusing one side, the skill coaches might need to adjust how he attacks off the dribble or how he positions his feet on a cut. That integration between data and skill work is where the real value is.”

* “But the cultural and logistical challenges are real. These guys already have a packed daily schedule: film, practice, treatment, lifting, recovery, travel. Getting them to show up consistently for biomechanics testing means we have to make the process fast, smooth, and obviously useful. If they don’t see the benefit right away, it becomes another thing they skip.”

Derek Millender

* “The biomechanics labs will give us incredible insight — but you can’t throw every metric at a player. The approach has to be: here’s one cue, one drill, one adjustment that will make you more efficient. If you overwhelm them, you lose the opportunity. If you simplify the message, you get buy-in and you see results quickly.”

* “Routine is the biggest challenge. NBA players live on routine. If the testing isn’t easy, quick, and seamlessly integrated, it won’t stick. So we have to build it into their rhythm in a way that feels natural rather than like another appointment.”

✅ Q3 — Micro-Dosing Training in the NBA

Derek Millender

* “I’m a huge believer in micro-dosing because the traditional 60-minute lift just isn’t realistic during an NBA season. You’re traveling, practicing, playing, recovering — sometimes all in the same 36-hour window. Micro-dosing lets us keep players strong, explosive, and resilient without draining them before a game. Five minutes here, eight minutes there — y…

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