Strength By Numbers: Digital tools for wellness and fitness professionals to effectively evaluate strength and movement performance

Andrew Lemon and Jordan Thurgood, along with their cofounders, had a vision to utilise new technologies to provide accurate movement and strength data for almost any functional human movement – which is how Strength By Numbers (SBN) was born.

Lemon’s career was as an osteopath who had also spent many years running education courses training people in the importance of quantifying assessments they performed. Thurgood had spent several years in technology and research commercialisation. In 2016 the cofounders had a conversation around the development and benefits of strength and movement assessment technologies. It sparked the question as to why the innovations were so under-utilised for general populations.

“We saw an untapped opportunity for sport, wellness and fitness professionals to utilise the incredible benefits of performance measurement technology. We put our heads together and identified three main reasons people weren’t taking advantage of the information at their fingertips. They were unsure of how to use it, worried it would add more time to their sessions and concerned it would just be another financial cost on their business,” said Andrew Lemon, Cofounder of Strength By Numbers.

Accurate technology systems had previously only been available to elite sports organisations and bio-mechanic labs. They were often big, bulky and difficult to use. The SBN founders believed they could address a gap in the market and set out to make performance assessment technology simple to use and more intuitive for everybody.

Fast forward to today and Strength By Numbers now provides advanced assessment technology for health and fitness professionals. Over 60,000 Australians have been assessed by its user-friendly technology, and this number continues to grow rapidly.

A comprehensive suite of products that drive meaningful insights

Lemon and Thurgood pulled together a team with decades of experience in research, health and fitness, design, software development, engineering and education. And after years of development and countless iterations, Strength By Numbers now offers a suite of products known as the AxIT System.

The AxIT System provides powerful and intuitive assessment technology that is easy-to-use and comprehensive for the purposes of measuring performance and recovery. The three main products are Push-IT, Pull-IT and Stomp-IT.

• Push-IT is a smart dynamometer designed to be a go-to isolated strength assessment tool. It provides instant strength metrics and enables the user to track progress over time and measure the effectiveness of specific movement.
• Pull-IT is a versatile device that is smaller than your phone and can measure up to 150kg of tension force making it the go-to isometric testing tool, turning any environment into your own biomechanics setup.
• Stomp-IT are the world’s thinnest smart force plates that allow you to perform single and double-limb performance assessments across both the lower and upper body.

Democratising data for the everyday fitness and wellness professional

Lemon says that to give professionals and their clients actionable insights, the team has focussed on providing simple information that’s understandable and delivered in an easy-to-use, intuitive user-interface.

“Whether someone has goals of improving their strength or returning to sport after a break or injury, AxIT will give them the ability to accurately measure, monitor and analyse their muscular function. This tool is valuable to professionals as it enables them to make the best decisions to optimise their clients’ training and management plans. People routinely fail because if they can’t see improvements, they lose motivation. The AxIT System tracks their progress, which helps individuals stay accountable and motivated,” said Lemon.

Barriers to adoption are now coming down in the wellness sector

Lemon said with the rise of wearables and fitness apps, the wellness sector is changing quickly and harnessing rich data enables professionals to make better decisions.

“We are seeing an acceleration in the adoption of technology and digital tools in the wellness and fitness industries with digital-based products like smart watches and fitness bands becoming more mainstream, we’re seeing the barriers to adoption coming down,” said Lemon.

Strength By Numbers continues to broaden their brand with penetration of the Australian professional wellness and fitness markets and now looks to expand its global footprint to UK, EU, and US. Innovative product development will also enable new market opportunities in the coming period that will allow Strength By Numbers to tap into a new and larger customer base.

Levelling up with Australian Sports Technologies Network

Lemon and Thurgood initially undertook a ‘family and friends’ investment round in 2018, and then received an Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre Project Grant in 2021 for Australian Manufacturers who were seeking advancement, competitiveness and growth.

Strength By Numbers also reached out to ASTN in 2019, and in 2020 was selected as a startup in the eighth cohort of the ASTN Startup Accelerator Program. The ASTN Startup Accelerator Program is a four-month program designed for high-potential sportstech startups, to help accelerate their business, advance commercial growth and become investment-ready. Thurgood said the program helped to take Strength By Numbers to new heights and they have since closed venture funding from Skalata Ventures which has helped to grow the team and accelerate expansion plans.

“We saw the market opportunity that Strength By Numbers were addressing in that strength and movement assessment technologies were starting to move beyond the elite sports environment and into physio clinics and other allied health applications. We were also impressed by the SBN founder team that brought clinical, product design, software and commercialisation expertise to the business,” said Craig Hill, Sportstech Start-up Advisor and Industry Analyst, ASTN.

“It has been incredibly valuable to tap into ASTN’s expertise. The organisation has a deep knowledge of the sportstech industry as well as networks to connect with. Participating in the Accelerator Program helped us to stop, pull our heads up and evaluate where we were at. We’ve been asked all the right commercial questions to make us take a good look in the mirror and think differently, and think globally,” said Thurgood.

For more information on Strength By Numbers please visit www.strengthbynumbers.com