Utah Coachs McGyver Clark, John Hedengren Harnessing The Possibilities Of  Artificial Intelligence As A Coaching Tool

By Oliver Hinson for DyeStat

Photos courtesy of McGyver Clark and John Hedengren

McGyver Clark was doing just fine in his coaching career at Timpview High in Utah. The former standout at nearby Davis High had a great rapport with his athletes and his girls team won its first state championship in the spring of 2023.

But Clark wanted more. A former economics student at Brigham Young University, Clark calls himself a “numbers guy,” someone who looks for every opportunity to optimize performance.  

There was a lot he could do with his own knowledge of training and the basic data he could get from his athletes’ races or workout splits, but when it came to running form and biomechanics, the optimization he sought was mostly out of reach.

The most effective way to give individualized running form analysis was with complicated tests at state-of-the-art running labs, and that just wasn’t a feasible option for his high school team. Aside from that, there were a few apps that could attempt similar tasks, like Dartfish or Ochy, but none of them could really do what Clark was looking for.

That’s where John Hedengren came in. The father of star runner Jane Hedengren, who also happens to be an Engineering professor at BYU, has long been passionate about Artificial Intelligence.

So when Clark asked him about the possibility of an app that could give him biomechanical data about his runners, Hedengren had one thought: what a great way to use AI.

Hedengren started coding and he came back to Clark with a prototype that got both of them excited. The idea was simple: you take a video of an athlete running, and several key physiological markers are recorded, such as stride length and trunk angle at touchdown.

Given that report, an AI program diagnoses any problems with the athlete’s form and prescribes exercises to help them stay injury-free and make enhancements.

To test it, they collaborated with BYU exercise science professor Iain Hunter, who specializes in the biomechanics of distance running. Hunter does a lot of testing of elite athletes in his running lab, where he equips them with reflective balls and records them at 240 frames per second.

Clark and Hedengren decided to put their app and a high-speed iPhone camera up against Hunter’s technology over a series of tests, and Hunter was surprised by the results.

“I was not really sure what to expect in the beginning,” Hunter says, “but after talking to John and playing around in the lab with different camera views, I realized it did a good job. With a lot of data, it could do really well.”

In the spring of 2024, Clark started using AlphaPeak with his athletes at Timpview. He took four to six measurements of each of his athletes over the course of several months, and he was able to give each of them detailed reports of their biomechanics. According to Clark, having access to this data was a key factor in the girls team repeating as 5A state champions.

“A big part in [our success] is that we’ve been utilizing this technology,” Clark says. “That’s something that the vast majority of high schools don’t even have access to, but also haven’t been prioritizing as much as us.”

Clark doesn’t want the app’s success to be confined to Timpview, though. He is a strong believer in the democratization of information and tools, and he believes that if he can make Alphapeak a popular training tool, cross country and track will wholly improve.

“Ninety percent of the sport is still on a clipboard,” he says. “Creating a tool that can generate real-time data consistently… it has the potential, if coaches utilize it, to really change the game.”

However, that will be an uphill battle. While Hunter says the app is “an exciting thing” that “has a lot of capabilities,” he believes it still has room to grow. He says the data could be slightly more accurate, and it needs to be more easily interpreted.

Additionally, making the app wildly popular will be easier said than done. For one, in order to be able to pour time and money into the development process, he has to make AlphaPeak a money-making venture, and vice versa. Most AI-powered tools make money through steep subscription prices and/or advertising, but Clark wants to avoid both of those.

Instead, he wants to monetize through scale, charging as little as he can but spreading the app as far and wide as he can. 

“We’ll probably have to start out with minimal features and get some market penetration,” Clark says, “and maybe the premium features will cost a little more to begin with, but I’d like to drive the price down as aggressively as possible. I want to get this out so as many people can use it as possible.”

His passion for democratization comes from the time he spent living in Bulgaria during college. He says he loved the people and the culture of the country, but he witnessed a lot of poverty and suffering, which made him starkly aware of the differences in opportunity that people around the world face.

“I think that there are so many people in the world that could be amazing athletes,” Clark says, “but just don’t have access to the same resources I did growing up in Utah.”

Hedengren is just as excited about what AlphaPeak could become, especially with the additions they’re looking to make. He says they’re working on an AI model for expert training plans, which would take them one step closer to having an all-in-one coaching app.

“I think that is the most exciting part of this,” Hedengren says, “is can we put a physical therapist… (and) a world-class coach in your back pocket?”

Ironically, though, this possibility is where Clark and Hedengren encounter another hurdle. With their tools, they can absolutely put an expert in your back pocket – but should they?

Ever since the first artificial intelligence models were popularized, there has been widespread societal concern about their power, and both of AlphaPeak’s founders acknowledge that the idea of replacing a coach with a computer is not exactly a welcome one.

However, they maintain that replacing a coach is not the intention of the app; it is merely a supplement that gives coaches more information to work with.

“I think the reason why coaches are always going to exist,” Hedengren says, “is that it really takes a personal connection to an individual that you trust… the coaches that do really well, they take a personal interest in the athletes and develop the whole person.”

Another thing to consider, Hedengren says, is that coaching is often not a full-time job, but rather a passion project, so the threat of AI programs like AlphaPeak taking jobs is not as serious as it is in other industries. Rather, AI-powered tools will allow coaches to be more efficient with their limited time and resources.

For example, Hedengren himself coaches a running club in Utah with around 75 young athletes. Without the use of AlphaPeak, he couldn’t devote much attention to each athlete’s progress, but now, he can get accurate workout splits and biomechanical data for everyone.

“It makes me a more effective coach,” Hedengren says. “I can have a bigger team. I can get a one-on-one connection with athletes to really help their development versus just saying, ‘Everyone is doing this workout,’ and not being really aware of splits or anything else.”

This focus on providing individualization was also a driving force behind another one of Clark and Hedengren’s projects – AlphaCast, another AI-powered software that aims to revolutionize running broadcasts.

The software can track individual athletes and provide real-time data about splits, current speed, and details about how their form changes throughout the race. Even in a race with thousands of athletes, the software can pick out an individual and focus solely on them, graying out everyone else and leaving them in color.

Hedengren believes these kinds of features will be beneficial for the consumer aspect of the sport.

“I think this is what running needs,” he says. “People want to be engaged.”

So far, Hedengren and Clark have tested AlphaCast at high school meets in Utah, and they even used a prototype at the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon in Orlando.

But that’s not enough for either of them. Just as Clark wants to make AlphaPeak a ubiquitous training tool, Hedengren wants to see AlphaCast being used at meets all over the country.

As of now, the software is not commercially available, but Hedengren says that it will be in the future. Coupled with AlphaPeak, the two founders hope that their software package will be “the tide that raises all boats” – a development that completely changes the sport of running.