6 Tech-Savvy Ways to Boost Your Sports Game

If you already shoot hoops with a wristband or Allen Iverson-inspired sleeve above your dominant hand, then your transition to using ShotTracker will be especially easy. This $149.99 packaged product employs a sensor hidden on your wrist and another tied to the hoop’s net to send the resulting data to an accompanying mobile app. There, you can glean much more than how many shots you made or missed: The app can also pump out your very own shot chart, telling you where on the court you have the most room for improvement; guide you through a shooting drill or workout; and pit you against your teammates and friends, whether or not you’re in the same location.

“We live by the idea that you can’t improve what you don’t measure,” Davyeon Ross, the co-founder of the ShotTracker app for basketball, tells Yahoo Health, “and basketball is just another vehicle for that mantra.”

Geared toward 7- to 17-year-olds — though it’s also useful for people of all ages — ShotTracker may be coming to a gym near you. Imagine a leaderboard on the wall, creating in-practice competition among teammates. “We built this thing so that the high school down the street could afford it and have some of the technology that the NBA teams have as it relates to data and analytics,” says Ross, a former college hooper himself. Like other sports-improvement apps, ShotTracker is no panacea. Ross acknowledged that nothing replaces one-on-one, in-person instruction from a shooting coach. But while that option isn’t available to most people, ShotTracker is.

(Photo: ShotTracker)