Swimmers Get Web Video Coaching & Instruction Through New Stroke Lab

FINIS is a company based in Northern California that provides swimming equipment, clothing, and accessories, and their latest venture in the life aquatic is web video instruction, whereby swim coaches can shoot video of their athletes, upload the video to the site, and add commentary and instruction.  Swimmers can locate the video on the web and get visual evidence of what their coaches want them to focus and work on for future swims, which is terribly convenient and shows yet another creative use of web video that can be fun and useful.  A couple of days ago, FINIS announced the availability of Stroke Lab.

Competitors Can Improve Their Swimming Stroke With Stroke Lab

Stroke Lab allows the opportunity for swimming instructors to "John Madden" the replays of their competitors, with the ability to stop the video, draw "chalk" lines for points of emphasis, provide annotations, and give constructive criticism and insight.  Here's Stroke Lab's demo video:

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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0BSw2ZorKo" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0BSw2ZorKo']);" rel="nofollow, external" target="_blank"><img class="nopin" src="http://i.ytimg.com/vi//0.jpg" alt="Swimmers Get Web Video Coaching & Instruction Through New Stroke Lab" title="0"/></a>

If swimmers can do it, you can bet all the other sports can do it.  I love the idea of this application, because it's easy to use and convenient.  Video has been used for scouting and instruction before, but with this kind of application the message can get through with less distraction, in the comfort of one's own home, and best of all, easily accessed at almost any time.  If someone is really serious about getting better, they don't have to go track down the video, or remember what their instructor said about it.  It's all right there on the website, a couple of clicks away.  And, coaches don't need access to editing software to give a dynamic presentation.  Give it a look.

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