Friend of Kinetyx: Michael Woods
Written by Cory Paddock
It is with great excitement and humility that I welcome professional cyclist Michael Woods as ambassador, builder, and Friend of Kinetyx. The only athlete to run a sub-4-minute mile and complete the Tour de France, Woods is an ideal partner for collaboration as we pursue the upgrading of human movement.
Not to be deterred by a series of running injuries, Woods has been able to pivot his athletic talents to the bike, representing Canada on the world stage with pride and prowess. Fresh off a 5th place road race finish at the Olympics in Tokyo, the boundaries of his potential in the sport continue their steady expansion.
Riding professionally with Israel Startup Nation earlier in the summer, Michael ‘Rusty’ Woods put in a resilient performance at the Tour de France, overcoming a crash on the first day of the race to finish 3rd in Stage 8 and later wear the polka dot jersey after Stage 14.
Partnering with Michael on the road, trail and slopes, we will pursue a more fulsome understanding of cross-domain activity. Using our kinesomic sensory insoles, the measurement of force output at the foot ground intersection will drive new and exciting insights, as together we explore the elastic frontier of human performance.
Photo by Jody Wilson
Many of my most memorable and enjoyable memories are when I’m immersed in movement. My body feeling as strong and capable at age 41 as it was at age 31, quality of movement life extension has become my personal and professional mission for this decade and beyond. First in volleyball, and more recently in cycling, backcountry skiing, and running, I have continually found new ways to find joy in movement. But measuring movement quality across these sports has not previously been possible.
There are a lot of things that get me excited about Kinetyx. As a cyclist, I am well aware of the performance and training advantages that data from Kinetyx can bring to an athlete’s training regime. With the Kinetyx insole, this information can now be accessible not just to cyclists but many other forms of athletes. Despite being a pro cyclist I run 1-3 times per week and metrics like power and efficiency are something I am keen to incorporate off the bike. I know that as a former internationally ranked runner this could have helped me greatly in terms of not just performance but also injury prevention. Furthermore as a coach and founder of Mile2Marathon—Canada’s premier running coaching business—having a tool like this gives coaches incredible insight into an entirely new range of performance metrics previously unavailable to runners particularly.
Michael Woods
While intuitively we know that a long outdoor run on Sunday impacts our performance during an indoor bike ride on Monday, we are left unaware of how much. As the benefits of diversification of our movement and training continue to progress and evolve, both physically and mentally, so must our methods for quantification.
Photo by Jody Wilson
For too long, an open dialogue of output between a variety of terrestrial activities has been lost in translation. Metres and seconds tell us what happened. Knowledge of how it happened has been left a mystery.
What will a more full picture of our kinesomes change for us? We don't know yet, but working with an athlete of Mike’s calibre, expertise and breadth of knowledge will be a privilege on this journey.
Welcome to the Kinetyx family Rusty!
Mike is currently competing in the Tour of Britain until September 12th. Follow the race here.
