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The club’s star soccer player swears his injured knee is fine. Says the brace is overkill. Promises he can start on Saturday. You run rehab for the club, and you can hear the lie before he finishes the sentence.

You bring him to the new state-of-the-art rowing machine. It lets him work hard without cheating. He rows clean for a few minutes and says pain is zero, but his form bobbles. The screen flags it, the machine trims the load, and it cues short, controlled strokes. He sees it, stops arguing, and keeps moving, but he can’t bulldoze past the plan.

Now you can report a return date that the coaches can bank on. Not this Saturday. Three Saturdays from now, after he holds clean form for the full session twice in a row.

That’s how a career lasts ten more seasons instead of ten more games. When teams are paying out multi-million dollar salaries, this tech maximizes pro-athlete’s playing time across a winning season.

Here’s the playbook behind the “no shortcuts” rehab. The patent behind this tech was filed by ROM Technologies, Inc., based in Brookfield, Connecticut. 

The tech is built for a rowing machine, but the patent covers systems, software, and methods you can point at many kinds of recovery programs. Athletes aren’t the only group that benefit from communicative rehab technology. We will explore applications to other groups prone to injury, such as the elderly who experience deteriorating mobility. 

The rowing machine tracks handle force, seat travel, stroke timing, and left–right balance. It can read heart rate and collect simple inputs like effort or pain reported by the athlete. Each stroke becomes data the system can judge against a plan.

On the app and server, a model scores plan options by two goals at once:
1) expected benefit for someone with this history, and
2) the likelihood they will stick with it.

You or a clinician pick from those options and the machine runs that plan.

During the session, the software compares live data to targets. If form drifts or effort trends too high, the machine reduces resistance and prompts shorter, controlled strokes. When the athlete recovers clean form, it lets the load build again.

A risk line is a trigger that says the session needs a change. For example, if left right force slips out of balance and stays there, the load steps down and the app asks for a status check. Triggers can fire on symmetry, heart rate, range of motion, or pain the athlete reports.

Every session writes clean summaries to the cloud. Clinicians review trends, adjust plans, and push short guidance videos or notes that appear between sets. The loop repeats with fresher data after each workout.

Two things stand out.

First, the plan engine optimizes for benefit and for adherence, not just intensity.

Second, the control loop changes resistance in real time based on both sensors and what the athlete reports. That combo makes the plan hard to fake and easier to finish.

For pro-sports, consider an MCL injury where mechanics matter and the stakes are high. The athlete rows at a set pace while the system watches balance and stroke quality. When late-drive wobble appears, the machine trims the load and cues tighter strokes. The return date is set by clean sessions, not locker room pressure.

In cardiac rehab, the same control idea anchors to heart rate. A patient rows at home while the system keeps effort inside a safe heart rate range. If rate spikes or perceived exertion runs high, resistance steps down and a note goes to the care team.

In elderly healthcare, their range, rhythm and endurance may deteriorate slowly and unnoticed, before a sudden decline. Regular sessions turn that into a simple graph. If stroke length shortens and effort climbs at the same load, the plan gets tuned or a review is scheduled. The goal is durable mobility, not just minutes logged.

Availability of players has a core impact on teams’ business models. A single missed month for a top player costs seven figures in salary and sunk marketing. European clubs ate roughly €732 million in injury costs last season across 4,123 recorded injuries, and about €2.3 billion over the last four seasons. (Howden Insurance)

Consider the monetary impact of having fewer rehab setbacks, with more played minutes, which is strongly supported by financial research. Controlled studies of the FIFA 11+ program report around a 30% injury reduction, and economic analyses link injury burden to lost points and real financial damage. If a rehab system enforces clean sessions and avoids risky spikes, it taps the value stream of ensuring fewer days lost, steadier lineups, and better results.

Labor shifts next. Athletic trainers and PTs become plan designers and data editors. Strength coaches learn control targets, drift thresholds, and adherence metrics. A new role emerges on staff: a rehab analyst who owns session quality, risk lines, and return timing. The room does not shrink. It upskills.

Contracts will chase transparency because players and agents are asking for it. When the NFLPA partnered to give athletes direct access to wearable data, its licensing chief Ahmad Nassar put it plainly: players want to walk in and say they do the work, then add, “Don’t just take my word for it. This data backs it up.” Expect return-to-play milestones to lean on auditable logs and for unions to push data rights so those logs travel with the player. (ESPN)

Early adopters will buy fewer setbacks and steadier rotations. As adoption spreads, the edge moves to teams that optimize for adherence, not just intensity. Doable work becomes done work, with fewer relapses and fewer surprises.

Catapult is the star example of commercial traction in this space and a useful proxy for where demand is headed. It makes GPS wearables, inertial sensors, and video analytics used to manage workload and readiness for elite teams. In its 2024 annual report, Catapult said it works with 4,200+ professional teams across 40+ sports in 100+ countries, including a majority of Major League Baseball and marquee clubs like the New York Yankees. (ASX Announcements)

In England’s Premier League soccer, force and symmetry testing is now routine, and VALD is a key supplier. VALD’s ForceDecks are dual force plates that measure ground-reaction forces for strength and asymmetry testing, while NordBord quantifies hamstring strength with the Nordic exercise. VALD’s 2024–25 league report says 89% of clubs use ForceDecks and 81% use NordBord, with nearly 600,000 tests run in the season. That level of daily testing shows strong appetite for objective mechanics data that looks a lot like what a sensor-rich rowing system would capture. (Scribd)

Employers and health plans are already buying large-scale musculoskeletal rehabilitation. Hinge Health, a digital musculoskeletal (MSK) platform, reported 2,560 employer clients as of Q3 2025. That signals broad U.S. enterprise demand for measured adherence and progression, not just coaching.

Public systems are purchasing remote, monitored exercise too. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs runs home-based cardiac rehab at more than 30 facilities with over 6,000 veterans enrolled. That proves supervised, data-driven sessions can run at national scale.

Investors and acquirers are active around these buyers. Catapult bought XOS Technologies, a video analytics firm, and Irish startup PlayerTek in a combined 2016 deal worth about US$84 million. Those acquisitions expanded its software footprint around return-to-play workflows.

Government support has helped build the testing stack that teams rely on. Queensland’s Advance Queensland program awarded VALD A$100,000 in 2017–18 to commercialise ForceFrame and earlier motion-capture work, part of a broader state push to grow sports-tech manufacturing. (Ministerial Media Statements)

Savings potential is real in football economics. A single missed month for a top player costs seven figures in salary and sunk marketing. Independent tallies put last season’s injury bill in Europe’s top five leagues at €732 million with 4,123 recorded injuries. Over four seasons, the total reached about €2.3 billion. Those are wages paid to unavailable players. (Reuters)

On the payer side, vendors are publishing ROI claims that illustrate what purchasers look for. Sword Health cites a top U.S. health plan projecting $30 million in 2024 savings from digital MSK care and a roughly 3 to 1 gross ROI. While vendor-reported, it shows insurers will fund monitored exercise when it reduces utilization.

This patent represents a broader trend in connected rehab, with a seismic shift from gut feel to verified progression.

It’s about redefining the rowing machine as a platform for measured recovery and monetization across teams, clinics, and payers. Companies that move first don’t just keep pace. They set the standard for trustworthy return to play.

Consider how this technology could be applied to your favorite sport, gym equipment, or rehab exercise.

Ready to claim your stake in this shift? Dive into the details: US 2024/0347166 A1.