Algorithmic intelligence (AI) and machine learning are becoming ubiquitous in our daily lives. We don't go a day without asking Siri to play a song, punching our destination into Google Maps, or perusing Amazon's "recommended items." There are also spaces where AI integration has, at this moment, been less than successful, including self-driving vehicles, autonomous shopping, and healthcare solutions. In the world of endurance, an AI-driven training platform has demonstrated its effectiveness, and is building momentum in triathlon and beyond.

With TriDot, the world has a viable way to produce optimized endurance training programs using copious amounts of data and AI. The application has proven to be so accurate and efficient that coach for more than 25 years and ESPN's "Greatest Endurance Athlete of All Time," Mark Allen, is using it for his coaching business and signing on as a corporate partner. Other elite coaches such as Olympic Silver Medalist and IRONMAN World Champion, Michellie Jones, have also selected TriDot as their coaching platform.

Predictive Fitness's TriDot application empowers athletes with the ability to easily access training specifically tailored for their current fitness level, goals, environment, underlying conditions and genetics. The app is offered at various price points between $14.99/mo and $99/mo, with the option to employ the services of a TriDot coach - making high-quality endurance training accessible to everyone.   

The Technology

TriDot's AI-driven coaching platform began as a series of spreadsheets. The founder, CEO, and multi-time IRONMAN finisher himself, Jeff Booher, had been training endurance athletes at all levels. He began analyzing athlete data with Excel and uncovering trends, quickly realizing the powerful intelligence analyzing the data yielded. 

Over the next few years, he took his project several steps forward, building a database of millions of data points, and algorithms to deliver the most effective training for each athlete. He filed his first patent for training optimization in 2011, and he and his team have continued to develop and enhance the program leaving no stone unturned. The application is configured to take a wide-ranging set of factors into consideration, from the athlete's current fitness to their DNA to environmental conditions.

Today, the Predictive Fitness database is robust and growing quickly with the proliferation of wearables and every new athlete that signs up. TriDot isn't just another coaching app that merely tracks your training; it uses machine learning and other forms of AI to prescribe optimized training based on the past successes and failures of various training prescriptions. Since data is the fuel a machine learning engine needs to improve, every athlete is part of making TriDot even better than it is today. This rings so true and resonates so strongly with TriDot's athletes that they organically adopted the phrase "I AM TriDot!" 

Matthew Bach, VP of Marketing for Predictive Fitness, explained the endless amount of nuances TriDot is capable of accounting for, "you're not going to train a 25-year-old male the same way that you're going to train a 65-year-old female, and one athlete may be new to the sport while another has been swimming, biking, and running for 30 years. The algorithms use slices of the massive data set to configure a training program tailored specifically to you that produces better results than other training methods, including plans designed by a human since we lack the ability to consider all the data available."

In addition, the Physiogenomix (DNA) feature helps keep athletes injury-free and gives them an understanding of their physical abilities at a genetic level. "If your DNA shows you are an athlete that needs more recovery time, or if you're injury prone, TriDot takes that into account. On the other hand, for somebody who is the opposite, TriDot may be able to push them a little harder and faster," said Bach. 

Another novel aspect of TriDot's configuration is its Environment Normalization. "TriDot takes into account weather data and prescribes the right zones and intensities for you based on what's going on with the environment that you will be training in," shared Bach. "Let's say you planned to run at 6 am when it's 65 degrees out, and you decide to postpone the run until 2 in the afternoon. Well, at 2 pm, it might be blistering hot, so TriDot will prescribe slower paces to elicit the appropriate amount of training stress - not too much, not too little, which is close to impossible for a busy coach," said Bach.  

How TriDot is Revolutionizing Endurance Training

Where developers have found a way to integrate AI, as with navigation and product recommendations, it has completely disrupted entire industries. TriDot stands to do just that with athletes training for endurance events. No other platform incorporates and normalizes for such a broad array of factors, and no human being could possibly process what TriDot's technology is capable of. The results speak for themselves with TriDot athletes showing more improvement in up to 30% less time than non-TriDot athletes. Additionally, using the platform is simple - it's device agnostic and compatible with all common devices like Garmin and Polar watches, bike computers, smart trainers and Apple Watch. 

Coaches can benefit from TriDot, too, with Mark Allen as the prime example. Mark Allen said, "there's two aspects to coaching. One is putting together a training program for somebody. If you're doing that by hand, it's massively time consuming. If that piece is taken away and done for you in a way that's effective and really, truly works, then your mind is free. You don't have to worry about that. You can modify as needed and make small tweaks, but then you actually have the time to coach the athlete. Which is imparting that personal knowledge about racing, lifestyle, nutrition, or any other aspect that you wouldn't have had time to do with your athletes had you not had that big piece of putting together a training plan taken off your plate."

Last Thoughts

TriDot's platform is rapidly gaining momentum among coaches and athletes, punctuated by the onboarding of such legends as Mark Allen and Michellie Jones. As the trend continues for the world to embrace AI industry by industry and sector by sector, TriDot is fast becoming the go-to training solution for the triathlon masses, and not just the early adopters. When looking to the future, by conquering the complexity of triathlon, TriDot has proven it is more than capable of expanding effectively into other endurance sports like running and cycling. 

Score another one for AI.

To learn more about TriDot, go to TriDot.com.