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Recent Headlines

Nike & Hyperice launch new Hyperboot. Wearable recovery footwear designed to accelerate your warm-up and recovery through heat therapy and Normatec air compression. Unveiled last summer, but now officially available to the public.

I’m gonna hit ya with a take you haven’t heard yet. I could talk about wearables or recovery, but that’s boring and repetitive. Instead, let’s talk about “pre-covery” - the new subcategory that Nike & Hyperice just invented. This product reframes warm-up from something reactive to something proactive. Most people spend 5 minutes warming up, if even that. And then spend countless hours in massages and doing cold plunges for recovery. Well it’s time we think about performance in a whole new way. A way that is no longer about fixing soreness, and instead about priming performance.

Ares unveiled gamified fitness shoes. Footwear that connects to your phone for immersive, game based training. Including virtual challenges, real-time metrics, guided training, social competitions, and more. Transforming your workout into a dynamic and engaging experience.

Alright now, another big category signal. Two weeks ago we talked about the Avelo Supertrainer, a smart running shoe. And now, this gamified fitness and running shoe drops by Ares. Smart footwear is becoming an official category, and not a one-off gimmick. This feels like a natural evolution for gamified fitness. No longer just screen-based experiences, but instead hardware that responds to your movement in the real world. Excited to see where this space goes.

You remember playing on a seesaw as a kid right? Probably broke an arm or two in the process. Well, I’m gonna use that machinery as an analogy here. Festivals aren’t dead, but there is a cultural shift happening. Years ago society was all about drinking and partying at festivals. They owned the seesaw and weighed it down. More recently though, we’ve seen a rise in wellness focused festivals, and also wellness activations at music festivals. Flipping the weight and balance of the seesaw. It’s a generational identify shift playing out before us.

Coffee & Chill announces New York expansion. Adding to their list of cities that already include Venice, Miami, San Diego, and Austin. A social wellness club that fosters community through coffee and cold plunge events.

Love what Coffee & Chill is building and the NYC expansion makes perfect sense. We’ve talked about it before, but wellness is becoming a social activity, not just a personal habit. More and more people are seeking low pressure ways to connect IRL, and find community in wellness and fitness. This model is just gonna keep growing.

Strava to acquire Runna. The popular running app offering tailored running plans to users. Bringing together the powerful community and tracking of Strava, with the powerful training features of Runna.

Strava’s position as king of the running apps has been safe for years because nobody has really challenged them. But user patience has been wearing thin because they haven’t really done much over the years to make a better user experience. And with the rise of running culture, I think they finally felt the heat. I’m curious if this move is truly about expanding features and steering the ship in a new direction or if they just wanted to fend off a competitor by acquiring them. Only time will tell.

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Active Overwatch 048

Recent Headlines

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