OpenBarbell V3 Update #8: Pre-orders are done! What next?
**Quick note: This will be our last V3 pre-order update! From now on we’ll post information about how to get your hands on OpenBarbell, applications of data-based training methods, and some exciting innovations coming down the pike. If you’re wondering where the previous 7 updates are, you can find them here.
But first…
Congrats to Squats & Science ladies for winning team gold at Raw Nationals in both Open and Junior categories! This is the second consecutive year our head coach Arian Khamesi led our female athletes to team trophies in both categories. Special congrats to Alyssa, Kirsty, and LeeAnn for their National Championships!
Also a shameless pic of one of our OpenBarbells in use in the back room at Raw Nationals. We had a couple people come up to us and tell us how they use theirs to precisely predict their 1RM strength before they get on the platform. For competitive powerlifters, knowing how fast your warm ups are compared to training is a huge advantage.
The $249 question: when will more OpenBarbells be available?
It was a long month of shipping but we got it done. Our last pre-orders were shipped around the end of September and all but our most stubborn international packages should be in our customers possession. If you inquired about OpenBarbell availability you’re not alone. We’re having trouble keeping up with the emails and will likely be forwarding all future inquiries to this post.
We have a small number of V3’s that we kept to the side during pre-order shipment and we will be completing them in the next 1–2 weeks. After that we’ll send an email out to this list. So here’s the order of operations:
Step 1 — We notify everybody on this email list that there will be availablility in X days (likely 3–7 days)
Step 2 — We’ll announce this information on our website, blog, and social media and add a countdown on our website.
Step 3 — We’ll send another email out about a day in advance of the sale.
Step 4 — The stock will be made available when the countdown reaches zero.
This batch will not be a pre-order, the units will ship the same week. If there are any changes to this schedule we’ll make sure we update you all.
At Squats & Science, this is what we call research
We’re hard at work on our next big thing and we need your help. If you’re a team in the New York tri-state area at any level (little league to pro) and utilize OpenBarbell in your strength program we want to come visit! During our observation sessions we sit back and take some notes so we can follow up with a few questions for the coaches after the athletes are done with their workout.
In return we’ll include your team in our short list of future beta users, who will get the newest hardware and software that come out of our lab before anybody else. We’re also looking for one team to work closely with to develop a new project we’re really excited about. More on that coming soon.
Special thanks to George Green from Stonybrook and James Prendergast from Hofstra (who outfitted all of their racks with OpenBarbell 😍, pictured above) for hosting us so far. Both were incredible resources for us and will undoubtedly make our next gen product much better!
New Feature Alert: Week View and Collapsed View
We think you’re really going to like this one. The above images, which are just early concept mockups and not functioning app screens, show two important features that we’ve been looking forward to building.
The first is week view. This is an initiative that started because one of our gym members was using OpenBarbell and logging manually in her notebook. We asked her why she didn’t just log using our app and she told us “I need to be able to quickly see how I’m doing compared to my previous weeks”. That got us thinking, the OpenBarbell app shouldn’t just be a database for your lifting metrics, but a genuine replacement for your training journal.
Week view will be a higher level card in the History tab that will contain your previous training week. It’ll offer new metrics like the ones above that work off of aggregate weekly data, not just set-specific data. This should allow athletes and coaches to get deeper insights into performance each week, as well as identify trends over time.
Collapsed view is our interpretation of a highly requested feature, the ability to set one big metric for each set. We thought about what our customers were asking for and from our standpoint, a coach or athlete doesn’t always want the lowest level view of their current or previous sets, but a condensed version with only what they care about. Collapsed view also gives us the opportunity to offer ‘set metrics’ like minimum average velocity, mean set velocity, and more. This will all be modifiable in settings.
We’ll dig into this a little more when we’re closer to releasing these features, but if you haven’t started using the app yet, we hope these awesome new features will make you reconsider!
As usual, feel free to send us an email with any questions. More information is coming, and keep an eye on our social media to see what we build next!
Thanks,
Jordan
Founder @ Squats & Science
