This startup is bringing professional-grade sports science to your gym routine

The promise of innovation is this: Although when breakthroughs are made they are typically so expensive that only those with a lot of money get access to them, the technology will get cheaper over time and become available to the general populace. That holds for Bushwick’s Notch, which officially launched last week.
“After several years of R&D we are thrilled to announce the launch of Notch, [the] first and only smart motion capture system for mobile devices,” the company announced.
Notch created motion sensors that can be attached to the body and relay the range of movements to a mobile app. If you’re doing yoga or lifting weights or going through physical therapy, or whatever else you might be trying to perfect in getting your body to do, you’ll be able to replay your movements and analyze what you did.
We first encountered Notch at TechCrunch Disrupt New York in May. Their technology impressed us and we wrote them up in “The most interesting hardware we saw at TechCrunch Disrupt.”
“It’s a smartphone-compatible motion capture,” founder Stepan Boltain said at Disrupt. “You can reconstruct 3D movement on your smartphone and study it. It has an SDK [software development kit] for devs, as well. What it does is help you get better at any movement-based activity, whether that’s physical therapy, or muscular training.”

Notch is available for Preorder! Join now and get your kit in July-2016! https://t.co/ESgR31MOCF pic.twitter.com/ZtPfYlxH58

— Notch Interfaces (@wearnotch) June 22, 2016

Sports science is old hat for professional teams. In April, Tom Verducci wrote in Sports Illustrated, “Analytics have become so commonplace as to have lost some of their edge. Every team, for instance, has an analytics department.” The Pittsburgh Pirates have more than 70 people in their operations department, Verducci wrote, including a Sports Science Coordinator, a Sports Performance Coordinator and a Director of Baseball Informatics.
But the most interest in Notch may eventually come from physical therapy. According to investment bank Harris Williams & Co., physical therapy is a $26.6 billion industry and expected to grow at a rate of 7 percent per year as the population ages.
Notch is backed by the hardware accelerator Hax and is based in the old Pfizer building on Flushing Avenue, home to numerous startups, including very cool aquaponics outfit Verticulture. A six-sensor kit is now available from Notch for $328.