StratFit founder Daniel McKee powered into 2023 with the launch of StratFit Digital MVP, advanced training design software for personal trainers and coaches.
Built in Google Workspace, StratFit Digital’s Strategy Design Drive integrates McKee’s “super-system” with advanced tools that make it easy to access and use.
“[With StratFit Digital], I have been working on separate functions for ten years. I put together a massive library of the functionality on my Google Drive,” said McKee.
StratFit Digital enables users to develop precise training programs for athletes/clients. Trainers and coaches can design a specific long-term program for an athlete. Users can intuitively devise and control the most important training variables with precision.
The software’s proprietary analytics system empowers users to optimize training for peak performance. Users may also view projected likely outcomes of training months in advance to predict performance.
McKee initially developed Stratfit as a “scientifically-designed fitness platform” where elite strength coaches could design training programs, post and monetize the content, and brand their services. He founded StratFit based on nearly two decades of personal trainer experience and extensive study of weightlifting, powerlifting, and bodybuilding literature.
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With StratFit Digital, trainers establish a StraftFit.net account and gain access to a training strategy design sheet, training implementation sheet, and several analytics sheets, said McKee.
Activity blocks on the design sheet are packed with functionality based on the StratFit Applied Science System. The blocks “empower the trainer to design training activities that bring about precise adaptations in the athlete/client.” Block variables include training intensity, repetitions, sets, adaptation for specific physiological goals, and other functions.
Trainers can stack activity blocks to create a training session that can be formatted into training weeks. The weeks are stacked to create mesocycles, a group of training weeks with a particular purpose.
Data from a design sheet populates a training implementation sheet which feeds an analytics sheet. The analytics sheet features graphs and charts for specific exercises, average intensity, heaviest weight lifted per day and week, and other factors.
A trainer can begin training by “entering the athlete/client’s training maximums for each event. If they don’t know the lifter’s maximums, StratFit Digital features a tool to estimate them based on the lifter’s biometric data,” said McKee.
Exercise in expansion
StratFit plans to release a beta version of StratFit Digital in 2024 that includes a native user app and Strategy Store.
“Users worldwide can search and purchase a trainer’s strategy. This is the scalable version of StratFit Digital. Right now we want to engage with serious coaches and trainers,” said McKee.
McKee is planning meetings with the Kansas City Comets, Turner Boxing, and William Woods College in Fulton, Missouri. He plans to demonstrate StratFit Digital and his Power Training Arsenal equipment to the Comets and Turner Boxing.
We want to show what our whole system can do to peak elite athletes for competition. We want to train them to dominate,” said McKee. “With William Woods, we want to work with their exercise science department, get the ideas of the StratFit system of Applied Science into the academic world, and help their athletes excel as well. I am looking to do a doctoral thesis on the system this year. I’l be working with established exercise science professors moving forward.”
Powerful patent
StratFit’s Power Training Arsenal includes the Explosive Strength Training Device. A device is loaded onto each end of a barbell. The trainer adjusts the height of the device according to the exercise and the lifter’s height. Weight plates are loaded onto the devices based on the lifter’s strength. The device automatically adjusts and lessens the weight load during the bottom position of a squat, enabling the lifter to maximize the explosion of upward power.
“There is simply no other way to train for explosiveness with this level of potency. This is huge for athletes whose sports require explosiveness, such as football, soccer, basketball, baseball, boxing, and track and field,” said McKee.
McKee secured a patent on a key feature of the Explosive Strength Training Device. The mounting head, the part that mounts the device to the bar, features electromagnetic functionality. A stainless steel finger holds the devices on the barbell.
“When the bottom of the device kisses the floor, this causes a switch to kill the magnetic force, releasing the device from the barbell. The two devices communicate with each other so they unload simultaneously. A kill switch can force the devices to stay on the barbell if the trainer engages it,” explained McKee.
The electromagnetic mounting head improves on basic mechanical weight releasers that are commonly used.
Those releasers are “clunky mechanically. The two sides are independent and cause unbalancing. Our electromagnetic functionality makes the weight on both sides effectively ‘disappear’ from the barbell. This instantaneous and simultaneous unloading is what makes the movement ‘explosive,’” said McKee.
The Acceleration Strength Device is the other tool in the Power Training Arsenal. The chains on these devices “layer an accelerating force pattern on top of the explosive pattern that the Explosive Strength Devices causes.”
As the lifter raises the barbell, links of the chain unpile and increase the weight of the barbell. The lifter’s muscles recognize that the weight is increasing. To maintain speed, the muscles are compelled to accelerate force production.
“The devices in the Power Training Arsenal help develop power through building explosiveness and acceleration. Power is the key ability for most major sports,” said McKee.
StratFit’s devices were co-designed and engineered by McKee’s friend Scott Johnson. Alpha-Omega Industries, based in Harrisonville, manufactures the devices.
Looking ahead, McKee aims to develop StratFit Digital and his devices into a global product.
“StratFit Digital will affect the academic world of exercise science,” said McKee. “We believe we can make Kansas City known as a hub for training science and fitness tech.”