Get back to your workout quicker with new recovery tool
If you’re like most fitness junkies, you strive for that after-workout burn: the kind of rawness that makes putting on your shoes in the morning, a full minutes task. The odds that someone will work out again in the next 48 hours after an intense pain-inducing work out are slim. What if there was a tool that beat out those pangs in an instant, so you focus more on getting back to your regimen the next day?
Chiropractor and gym coach turned entrepreneur, Joey Fair, designed Ripple with that idea in mind. Ripple is a pulsating hand-held tool that uses gyrating movement to warm up and buff out muscles both before and after exercises. Feel the benefits of a one hour massage in a five minute high-intensity full-body session with Ripple. Forget the foam roller and get a better recovery in half the time.
rhubarb’s Kelsey Coppetti sits down with Joey Fair, therapeutic professional by day, entrepreneur by night, to discuss Ripple.
K: Tell us about Ripple and what it does:
J: Ripple is a high-intensity recovery tool that uses vibration, oscillation and rotation to help athletes — or anyone who works out — target points of soreness or stress. The movement increases circulation, and breaks up scar tissue and adhesions in muscle so that you can knock out pressure points and knots faster than any other method. Ripple is used on target areas or full-body in two to five minutes and is quicker than the time it takes to stretch or going to a therapist. One of Ripple’s biggest benefits is that it saves you money. Physical therapist and chiropractors can cost you about $80 a visit — imagine doing that daily. Ripple is there when you need it, at a one time cost. I wanted to create something that did everything that I, as a chiropractor, can do for their muscles, but when they’re out of my office. That’s when the idea for Ripple turned a corner, and I could focus on building the product.
K: How did you discover the market for Ripple?
J: Talking with clients, either at the gym or chiropractic office, who worked out and complained about soreness the next day. It often made them uncomfortable just sitting at their desk or performing simple tasks without knowing how to alleviate pain from those specific points. Or, when talking with a busy mother, she found it difficult finding the time to target a specific muscle. When starting a new workout regimen, Ripple makes day 2 (recovery day) not as terrible as it would be.
K: How did you come up with the idea for Ripple?
J: When I was in chiropractic college, I went to a seminar and that mentioned the effectiveness of vibration during and after a workout. More and more studies are coming out on proving how vibration can speed recovery times. I kept seeing tools coming out that use such movement [think Shake Weight or the vibration belt]. Someone I follow on YouTube was using a car buffer at a gym to work out sore muscles and I thought, what other products are like this? There were few but none under $300. The field was wide open. Business model-wise, I decided to create the same thing as the $300 model, with an 80/20 principle: I found out what features all the best products out there have, and focused on the 20% of products / features that generate income. Then, I’ll make it 20% of the price, which rounded us around $150. Once I started using it on patients, I got the feedback to turn it into something bigger.
K: How are you validating your product?
J: We’re user testing our product at Crossfit gyms and to athletes around the area and getting their feedback. One of the things I’ve learned as an entrepreneur in this process is that you can never do too much customer development, and we’ve done too much product development. It’s less about whether it works or not in the beginning; users want to know if the product is worth what they’re paying. We’ve also found that you have to user test the product with the right market. For weeks we tested inside rhubarb studios, where not everyone is an athlete or had come from an intense work out, and our responses were for something completely different from what we built. Once we took it to a gym, users loved it and wanted something more from it, or were pushing for a higher intensity.
K: From a physical therapist perspective, why would an athlete choose to ‘buff’ out their muscle instead of stretching?
J: It comes down to how much recovery time you can save — that’s our biggest selling point. Most people simply don’t have the time or don’t want to allot the time it takes to appropriately stretch each muscle before and after a workout.
K: Do you have any unusual recovery methods for post-workout?
J: I’d say discovering the beginning stages of our product. That is, essentially taking a car buffer apart and making it not only more user-friendly, but giving it better functionality as well.
K: How is Ripple bridging the gap between fitness therapy and tech?
J: We are becoming stronger, faster and more athletic as humans so it’s important to have a tool that adapts and grows with us. More importantly, the realm of physical therapy must be adapted and redesigned in order to conform to a busier society that is more reliant on tech. It’s a product built for the future that not only changes with us as people but with industry standards of athletic recovery. There are currently a multitude of tools that exist and we are streamlining the process for fast recovery time. We must change with user needs.
K: What kind of technologies are you using to create Ripple?
J: We’re using 3D printers to create prototypes — I almost feel bad for how much we run those printers! We’re working with the engineers at rhubarb to build the best product and because there are so many printer options, we’re able to quickly render something by knowing which printer can do it better. We’ve made about nine prototypes so far in the past month. The great thing about 3D printing is that I can come up with a handle design in the morning, by lunch it’s been printed and by the evening we can product test it. Handle design is probably the biggest thing that has changed from each prototype, whether users want something more ergonomic or more functional, we’re able to adapt to all those needs more quickly.
K: What’s your vision for Ripple?
J: I remember waking up one night and thinking: I only get to impact someone’s life when they’re in my office, on my table at that given time. In this very moment, as a chiropractor, I’m not doing anything for you. I had too many friends, family, or patients complaining about the same pains — pains that had a lot to do with proper recovery. Someone who complains their shoulders are too tight: that’s a recovery issue, just not on the same level that athletes associate with recovery. So, we’re bridging the gap and impacting millions of people by building a product that can improve their life whether you’re at a desk all day or a stay-at-home mom. The long term vision is targeting those who simply don’t have enough time to pay attention to recovery.
Working out for many people is a release — to not have to think about anything for however long you’re in that workout. If you don’t have the opportunity to recover, you can’t have that therapy. Allowing people to continue to have that outlet is a big deal.
K: Do you have any further plans or product add-ons for Ripple?
J: More handles and more plug-ins. The potential is not limited to what you see in the first product. What we’re really developing is the capability of the product to do a lot of different things: the motor and the accessibility and versatility of what we’re going to plug and play on this thing. So, Ripple is kind of like a base camp. Perhaps we’ll develop it to put it in a pillow, so that you have a vibrating pillow for your neck. It’ll be a hub you can attach to other products. So that vibration therapy will integrate into your lifestyle more and more.
We also want to track some metrics through an app eventually, even if it’s simply how long it takes for a user to feel back to recovery again. By collecting data regarding how long it takes Person A to use our product on their quads, then we could recommend a specific time variable to Person B. We also plan to sync with Bluetooth and be able to connect it to iHealth or a fitness app so that Ripple can suggest recovery times for however many steps walked, etc.
Ripple is part of rhubarb’s STEAMd Lab, focused on rapid prototyping physical solutions for [build] projects with the latest 3D technologies. Stay informed on Ripple’s progress and keep up to date with their Kickstarter campaign, launching January 2016.
