Solution to the
jump mat problem.

It started with a broken mat. For years, the only switch-mat jump tester a field coach could actually buy was the old "Just Jump" mat, and it kept failing. Worse, its design hadn't meaningfully changed since 1991. Rich Burnett, a strength coach who'd spent years testing athletes, was tired of replacing equipment that couldn't survive hundreds of jumps a week. He wanted more: more functionality, and durability built for the way coaches really work.

Then came May 2020. The pandemic had shut everything down, and the problem that wouldn't leave him alone finally had room to breathe. The tech wasn't rocket science, and he knew it. Switch-mat jump testing had existed for roughly thirty years, the original Just Jump mat was built by Paul Mackovjak back in 1991. Rich texted a few engineer buddies from college, one of them working at Exxon, and they walked him through Raspberry Pis and how to wire hardware together. He ordered a random switch mat from a vendor and started tinkering at the kitchen table.

But he quickly hit a wall: he needed a real electrical engineer. So he did something a little desperate. He opened Nextdoor, the neighborhood app, and posted, in his own quarantined corner of Knoxville, a note titled "electrical engineer needed." A complete shot in the dark.

Larry answered. An electrical engineer who lived nearby, Larry was exactly the missing piece. Rich hauled all his parts over to Larry's house and basically said: turn this into magic. It took the better part of a year to get a decent first prototype working.

Then came the testing. Rich ran early versions at his own house, his kids jumped on it in the garage, and eventually brought it to his athletes at GAC, the high school where he coached. That's where it had to prove itself for real.

And here's the part that matters most. The old Just Jump mat was purposefully inflated, roughly five to seven inches, so its numbers would line up with a Vertec. Rich wanted the truth instead. He verified Plyomat against high-speed cameras and put an oscilloscope on the controllers to compare them directly, getting the readings accurate to force-plate-comparable. Plyomat officially launched as a product in March 2021.

Today Rich serves as Director of Athletic Development at Triple F Elite Sports Training in Knoxville, TN, and as CEO of Athletic Assessment Technology, LLC, the company behind Plyomat.

2020 · the garage

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Today · Plyomat 3.0

Andrew and Ashleigh Walters first encountered Plyomat as parents, watching their kids train and compete in Knoxville. They saw what it looks like when athletes have objective performance data and coaches have a practical way to measure it, and how that changes the conversation between coaches, athletes, and families.

But they are not only parents. Andrew was an Owner and Vice President at Onex from 2014 to 2023, and brings an entrepreneur's instinct for partnerships, product innovation, and scaling a business. Ashleigh served as President of Onex from 2003 to 2022, and is a published author and speaker on leadership and culture. Together they bring the executive horsepower to grow Plyomat well beyond the garage, without losing the parent's-eye view of who it is all for.

They didn't come to the table chasing a business opportunity. They came because they understood the problem Plyomat was built to solve, and wanted to help solve it at a larger scale. That alignment is rare, and it's exactly what this kind of partnership needs to work.