NFL running back Adrian Peterson has teamed with Driven Apps to release a new fitness and sports training app for aspiring athletes. This is the third time that Driven has paired with a professional athlete to release a branded app; earlier this year, the company produced apps with NBA star Dwayne Wade and pro golfer Ernie Els.
Eight years ago, Don and Joe Saladino opened a personal training gym called Drive 495 in Manhattan, and quickly attracted A-list celebrities, including Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Gosling. These busy clients started asking the brothers for a way to take their workouts with them when they were traveling, so they created an app to upload individual workout programs.
A year and a half ago, they realized the app could have a much broader appeal, and created Driven Apps. The company works with top-tier athletes to produce a branded sport-specific training app for the masses. The apps offer users daily workout routines, content from the professional athletes, and a way to track your progress; the workouts update with the user’s progress, so the Adrian Peterson workouts would get harder as you get stronger and faster.
Peterson tells me he wanted to make the app to “show people the kind of work that I put in to come back stronger from the ACL injury.” He said making the app was “intense” and noted that he hopes to inspire people with it.
On December 24, 2011, Peterson tore his ACL in a game. Eight months later, he started in the Minnesota Vikings season opener, and won the 2012 most valuable player award after he came just nine yards shy of breaking the single-season NFL rushing record and powered the Vikings to a playoff berth.
Peterson says having faith was the biggest factor that helped him recover from the ACL injury so quickly and effectively. He said he hopes to show people, especially students hoping to improve their football games, the right “direction into how to approach each exercise and the mindset you should have.”
I’m not usually one for celebrity-endorsed apps, but Driven’s method makes sense to me. If I’m trying to improve my golf game, which currently consists of whacking the ball from one sandtrap to the next, spending a few dollars on the Ernie Els-branded app is well worth it.
Driven Apps CEO Jake Edwards says the company aims to release apps across all major sports, and wants to integrate the apps with wearable devices so that users can track their progress more accurately. The Els, Peterson, and Wade apps are available in the app store for $5, $3, and $4, respectively.