Giving the industry a Good Boost

In this episode of Aquatics Only, Luke sits down with Ben Wilkins, founder of Good Boost and one of the global leaders pushing the boundaries of aquatic rehabilitation. From Atlantic City to the UK to Australia, Ben has been championing a simple but powerful idea. Water works. And with the right technology behind it, it can change lives at scale.

Luke and Ben unpack how AI-driven aquatic rehab is reshaping what’s possible in public pools. They explore how personalised programs, group-based delivery, and smart wearables are giving facilities a viable pathway to deliver genuine health outcomes without relying on clinical staffing. They also dig into Pool Horizons, the movement redefining the role of pools in modern communities.

If you’re curious about the future of health in the water, or you’ve wondered how pools can become community health engines without blowing the budget, this one is well worth your time.

Transcript

Luke Daly (00:00)
Well, hello there, Aquatics Only listeners. Thank you for joining us. As seems to be the case, we've got a fair few guests in from the UK. Once again, I'm here in the morning with my coffee and my guest from the UK is drinking Ribena this time. So it's always interesting to see what our counterparts across the world are drinking at night time. So it's my pleasure to introduce Ben from Good Boost. Ben, you're drinking Ribena, not champagne, not wine or anything tonight. Tell us about your...

of choice.

Ben (00:28)
⁓ always enjoyed Ribena, but I'm from Bristol in the UK and actually Ribena was created just outside Bristol. So I feel like I'm just representing my hometown.

Luke Daly (00:37)
So it would be the same like if you were from Dublin, you would just drink Guinness. Is that what you're trying to tell me? So Ribena's from Bristol. Not that this podcast is gonna be all about Ribena, but it's out of its heritage, ⁓

Ben (00:41)
So yeah, that's what I'm doing.

Yeah, just as just as like Bristol. And yeah, it's been my my go to drink a choice since I was probably a five year old.

Luke Daly (00:56)
Five, you're not much older than five now just with a bit more facial hair perhaps Ben. So, listen, the reason that we've got Ben on the podcast today is I met Ben, what would we say, 10 months ago, start of the year, ⁓ Atlantic City, so where neither of us are from.

Ben (01:08)
Yeah, it have been January. Yeah.

Luke Daly (01:13)
as far away as possible from me and yet it bewildered me Ben that you came in for the day itself. You flew in and flew out within a matter of hours, is that correct?

Ben (01:23)
That's correct, yeah.

Luke Daly (01:25)
That seems crazy

for the little Aussies down under, but the reality is your travel was a bit like going, for us going from Brisbane to Perth, I think, wasn't it? It wasn't that much longer than that trip.

Ben (01:37)
Yeah, it's like a seven hour flight UK to New York, so it's not too bad. But I don't think anyone really desires to go on a January trip to Atlantic City. Like it's just not on the big bucket list, but you know, in and out one day is try to make sure it was as minimized as possible.

Luke Daly (01:51)
Look, I can relate. learned a few things myself about Atlantic City in the winter time for them. So in January, you're right. It's not a place that you would naturally go on holidays at, but we made the most of it because we were both there for a little thing that's not a little thing called Pool Horizons. That's where you and I met. We were both on stage presenting different projects for best in class worldwide. Tell us a little bit about you, Ben, if you don't mind.

Ben (02:14)
Yeah, sure. I was ⁓ originally trained as an osteopath and then decided I wanted to go into research of public health at graduation. I went to work for a couple of organizations, some charities, ended up doing a post-grad in research at Oxford University looking at musculoskeletal science. I'm just getting ready to start my PhD looking at ⁓ aquatic rehabilitation and technology. And just as it was starting, an offer for some funding.

to take this idea and concept I have about using AI and aquatic rehab. And this is about a decade ago. AI is ubiquitous now. It was kind of still fringe area about a decade ago, but got funded for the idea. Set up the company about eight years ago was good boost. Had to weather through the pandemic, but now we're in about 260 swimming So yeah, we've grown really well.

My interest was mostly around the academics behind it, the research, how could swimming pools deliver more? How could swimming pools deliver health and wellbeing without needing to have a clinician poolside? Where could technology potentially bridge that gap so that any swimming pool can deliver a health and wellbeing program and benefit?

Luke Daly (03:22)
I see it a lot when I go to round two, a lot of our different aquatic facilities here in Australia. And there are lots of clinicians there at this point. And I think that's what your products start. I start to envision your product in some of these pools now here in Australia after meeting you and chatting with you at Pool Horizons. We'll come back to Pool Horizons in a little while.

But the concept for me, I sat back just listening to you talk from that stage in Pulgaris and sitting there going, well, this is pretty cool. I don't really understand how it works. And then my operational brain starts to throw out blockages like, what if the tablets get dropped in? what if this is like, what does this look like? And I want you to tell us a bit about that. But first, take us on a bit of an AI story, not too far because you're right, it is ubiquitous now with everything and everyone seems to have chat GPT open, but we shouldn't reduce AI.

to chat GPT or in Australia we've got a lot of the AI safety cameras as well so whether it's Poseidon up and looking over the top of us Angel Eye is another new one that we've seen starting to come through.

Ben (04:13)
Mm-hmm.

Luke Daly (04:19)
What did it mean 10 years ago in a practical sense? Lynxight is another one that we've got here in Australia in a big way. But for you, AI in your context 10 years ago. Give me a couple of minutes on that.

Ben (04:32)
It was how do you automate an intelligent decision making process that had to work within rules and boundaries. Originally, it didn't have machine learning or automated kind of learning. It was very much a supervised environment. The logic was trained by clinicians to make a decision based on the information that was fed by the user. And that may be the health condition of living room, the mobility they have, the confidence in water.

So AI 10 years ago was how do you create an intelligent pathway to come out to an output based on the different factors that you may have as a piece of information about the participants using good boost as a product. And that output would be for us, it would be aquatic exercises or aqua rehab exercises. What we then do is how do you feed in more information back into the system? Because the more information it has, the better decision it can come to and be.

kind of more honed and focused and tailored. So after every single session, we would ask a participant on the tablet computers, how was today's session? Were there any exercises you particularly enjoyed or found that were beneficial? And importantly, were there any exercises that you found challenging or painful? If it was painful, where was the pain? From zero to 10, how bad was that pain? This information is enabled to go back into the system.

and then make better decisions because there's more information to make those decisions. So the next time you show up to a swimming pool to take part in Goodboost, your program's adapted and evolved around you. And so it's like having a one-to-one clinician designing your program. Now, it's never going to replace a clinician, it's never going to replace a PT. But the benefit we have is we deliver group classes, 10, 20 or more, all at the same time, each with a tablet, each following a unique program for them.

And so without the AI that was developed a decade ago, that's been progressed and involved and adapted over the past years, but without that original concept, we couldn't deliver those group classes. that was, the focus wasn't just about how do you deliver health and wellbeing and tailored programs, but how do you make it work financially? If it was just one person in the pool, if they took up a whole lane, it would never work. Would not have the financial thing. Exactly.

Luke Daly (06:21)
Yeah.

It's just another added cost at that point, right?

Ben (06:43)
But if you get 10, 20 or more people in the pool all at the same time, all paying to be there or new membership suddenly as a viable program. So the technology was how do we one create benefit health improvement to how do you make it feasible for this type of program to be possible in a pool and still cover its cost and generate a profit.

Luke Daly (07:03)
And that's really cool. So these, I suppose, personalized rehab sessions in a group setting, utilizing technology.

Sorry, I don't know why I'm just fascinated by this whole thing as the clinician that's kind of aiding that is it all those little, I suppose, portals or processes or programs from those people coming back like they can click into some, they can click in one of those clients and go, Hey, you know, they're moving really well today or they're struggling a bit here. It's like live feedback or it's more of a summary kind of at the end.

Ben (07:30)
So exactly that.

So because we're able to capture that feedback, we're able to present that back to the venues and give them information about the population they're supporting. What change are they impacting? Are they seeing that improvement in pain, that improvement in function, overall quality of life? We're able to report back what is the economic or monetary value of the health impact they're having as a swimming pool on the population coming through. having that, the beauty of using a tablet computer is that

Luke Daly (07:55)
Amazing.

Ben (07:59)
In order to take part, you have to use the tablet and we need your information to design your program. But part of the information we capture is around what is the health improvement we're likely having on you as an individual. And because we get such rich data, we're able to report huge amounts to the swimming pools we work with, but also publish really big research studies. that's

enabled us to publish some of the biggest research studies in any aquatic program ever published in human history.

Luke Daly (08:25)
Amazing.

That's really cool and that is something that...

Ben (08:30)
Thank

Luke Daly (08:31)
we can all do better

at all the time, which is demonstrating the value that our facilities have on the greater community because you and I both know, and you probably know better than me, your studies, but the benefits of swimming or being in the water and general aquatic environments. We often joke on this podcast, Ben, around the aqua ladies, the Karens who know the local MPs and the local members, and they just seem to live forever because they're in this environment that's social. They're in this environment where they're with their friends.

friends

doing something active and fun and they just never seem to disappear. So while they are sometimes the most difficult customers in our facilities, they're also there forever and really great clientele. Your product itself, the good boost side of things, it's used for rehab. It can also just be used for general...

kind of health and wellbeing, right? So if I'm turning up as a user, whether I'm with a clinician or I'm part of a program that the clinician has sent me down to, tell me a bit about the hardware. So the hardware we've talked about is the tablets that they might go out to the pool with. Is there any wearables that they sync up to that kind of thing? Is it like Cartoon? Is it Gamified What does that experience look like for them on a day-to-day basis, both as a user, but also for our facilities?

Ben (09:34)
you

Yeah. So for the majority of the venues that are living in Good Booth, there's no clinician involved. And that's a big kind of selling point for us is that because we are a medic class or medical device, because we've gone for our clinical kitemarks through the research we've had to publish, we are having swim teachers, we're having lifeguards, we're having group fitness instructors delivering these group classes. So one is there needs to be a clinician.

For the user journey, they'll often meet the group facilitator for the GoodBooze class when they show up at the venue for the first time. They'll often show up half an hour before the first session, and then they're kind of given that guidance to show up a bit earlier. And the reason for that is they need to grab a tablet, and they need to register and add their information. Do you have a diagnosis? What is the problem they're living with? If it's not diagnosed, can they tell us about the symptoms they're experiencing? All that kind of stuff.

five to 15 minutes on average for a participant, depending on how many health conditions or how many challenges they're living with. That will be the first experience for the individual. They'll then go and get changed. But generally the great thing is, is before they go and do all of that, once there's an established program, they'll meet other people that look like them, using walking aids, not the kind of picture of health and fitness that a lot of gyms and pools have as their marketing posters, just real people living real life, living with a real health condition.

Luke Daly (10:37)
Yeah.

Ben (11:00)
and finding benefit from being in water. And so that experience is really important to feel normalized because often it's the anxiety that people experience. They walk in through the doors and they go, is this a place for me? And they see they have a participants and they go, ⁓ no, this is, I'm meant to be here. These are people like me. These are just normal people here to manage their health condition. So that's the really important part of the journey. They then go get changed. They go into the pool, they have their tablet.

Luke Daly (11:07)
Yeah.

Do I belong?

Ben (11:28)
And they'll just go for their exercises one by one, give the feedback. as well as that, so that's the, technology is a waterproof tablet with our AI technology pre-installed on it. And we deliver that what we've been working with the last couple of years, our wearables of with sensors in them So these are not any public pools yet. We've only been focusing on therapy pools, looking very much at rehab centres or sports rehabilitation. We are working to get to public pools. That's the journey, but you know, step by step, but the whole point of this is that.

The holy grail for aqua rehab is measuring movement. So a big part of progress in rehab on land is that you can have your one kilo to 10 kilos to 20 kilos on whichever exercise machine to look at progress over time. Or you'll have your theraband. You'll go up the colors of your theraband because each one's a greater level of resistance. Great. You're making progress. It's challenging in the pool. When we move our arm and more legs, we don't know what speed that is, what

power we're exerting, what range of movement we're having at which specific joint. So we've been working really hard as a team to quantify that movement in a way that's never been done before. So we've developed the paddles of sensors embedded, so we're now able to measure that movement, give people feedback, so they're then able to know where their imbalances are. If they've had an injury, what power are they producing now compared to where they were pre-injury, so they know what their recovery trajectory is in the pool.

Luke Daly (12:38)
Wow.

Ben (12:50)
So yeah, we've gone from very much tablet computers poolside to now completely pioneering sensor-based signal processing AI technology.

Luke Daly (12:58)
That's really cool. The tablets, are they your hardware or is it a software, like an app-style thing that you can use on other people's tablets? Like how does that work from a practicality sense?

Ben (13:08)
Yeah, so I mean, I'll

grab one now. This one doesn't have a case on it, but we buy the tablets in bulk. We make sure they're pre-installed of our tablets. And it's simple things that we make sure there's no other applications on the tablet so the tablets can be used for our purposes and stuff like that. But they'll sit poolside and then they'll have a stand so that people can then see them when they're in the water. It's the software and the AI that we've developed is the key.

Luke Daly (13:22)
Yeah.

Ben (13:32)
technology that we deliver. And then when it comes to paddles, this is an example one that goes on the ankle. this one straps around the ankle. We have upper body ones as well. And it's the sensors in here. And the hard way is cool. Like we put a lot of work into the design of this, even kind of the shell-like structure, because we've identified we can create greater aquatic resistance with a smaller surface area. Nature has evolved to know this.

Luke Daly (13:33)
Yeah, of course.

Ben (13:57)
but we've designed around it to make sure we can do this. The hardware is really cool, but the real technology is actually in the signal processing. It's able to take the information that's captured in the sensor and reproduce it accurately into speed of movement, power produced, range of movement of the joint.

Luke Daly (14:14)
And so that's fascinating for me, right? So don't know if I shared this with you back when we met in January in Atlantic city, but I had double knee surgery last year. I dislocated both my knees and had surgery done and rehab. I'm still rehabbing even 18 months later. Now I'm a pool guy. always been around pools and I love pools, but none of my rehab apart from that initial stage. So none of my strength building, I suppose to get my quads back strong again to prevent another injury. None of that's been able to done in a pool because it's fairly or relatively

low resistance. So we've done all the measurements of how much power I can take, how much force I can take through my knee, what my range of motion is, but none of it's been done in the pool. So I think when I heard you talk about this back in January, I was like, whoa, that's super fascinating because we all know anecdotally perhaps, I know, and from a data perspective, you would know, but the outcomes from aquatic rehab are...

amazing based on the weight that it takes off us, the movement that we can do in it, which is why we can do it for so much longer. Feel free to get a bit more scientific on me on that one. But for me, when you held this product, I couldn't wait to learn more about it because being able to apply that, put more resistance in, control a little bit of it, measure that force in that range of motion. There's all kinds of things that still throw up in my head around, you know, what if the hardness of water is different? That it can be a bit harder to put your leg through and push the

resistance through, but at a really practical level, I think it's an amazing product. scientifically, have you done any research into that element of, the outcomes from a rehab sense in water versus out of water.

Ben (15:45)
So we haven't done in water versus out of water. We completed the research and published the research on the technology, on its accuracy, in order to provide the information on power, speed, range of movement. There are many publications that have compared aquatic interventions to land-based interventions. Generally, aquatic interventions perform the same, if not better, than land-based interventions. What's often noted is...

⁓ for certain populations, they struggle to tolerate land-based rehab or land-based exercises and that's the value of the pool. But as you rightly talk about is one of the biggest challenges with aquatic-based activity is that the resistance isn't great enough for strength building. And so having things like fins that create additional resistance is how you can develop genuine strength. And with the ability of having sensors on them to track that over time, you can then look at

how hard you are pushing with the resistance equipment on and therefore building strength as well. The water has many properties around the buoyancies and that's why we draw lighter but the problem with feeding lighter is that we can't do body weight training in the same way. You are never gonna build your quads doing squats in the pool as you will do in squats on land. But is that.

Luke Daly (17:03)
I'm a big fan of doing squats

in the pool compared to squats on there and they're far easier. Like a wall sit.

Ben (17:07)
Yeah, but you don't

build strength in the same way. But for some people who are going through rehab, who actually don't need full body weight training, the pool's perfect. What doesn't happen is some of the training and education to go, well, okay, start your squats in the deep end and then just move as shallow as you can because the more of your body's out of the water, the greater the weight of the squats.

There's a bit of education around that and we do that within the tablets. We give guidance sometimes on what depth of water to go in. So we do give that information, but there is a there is a limitation to what can be done in the water without adding resistance equipment.

Luke Daly (17:43)
Mate, it's a phenomenal product. So we met at Pool Horizons. I've been to two. Unfortunately, I'm not going to make it to the next one, but you will be at the next one. Tell me a bit about why you're involved with Pool Horizons and what makes you like the concept of what the movement is there.

Ben (17:58)
Yeah, Pool Horizons is overall an initiative to guide the swimming pool industry and the wider ecosystem around it, around the needs of the 21st century. It's around the role of pools in the community, the importance of sustainability and for me, the health and wellbeing impact of swimming pools. So that's why I got involved with Pool Horizons. I sat on the health and wellbeing group.

If you go on the Pool Horizon website, you'll see four different publications for four different key areas, the health more being one I contributed to as well, or the research I've done over the years, I submitted to it. And the reason why it's so important to me is there are hundreds of thousands of publicly accessible swimming pools around the planet. Water really works. It can really deliver health and being outcomes.

Often, just like being on land, people don't have the confidence in their knowledge or what's right or the risk they may injure themselves more and make a condition work. And so they don't use the pool to manage their health and well-being. But where we can bridge that with a little bit of technology to mean that people do have the confidence in the movements they're doing, we know that what people are getting is appropriate for their condition and needs. And we've got the research to prove they're going to improve.

we can deliver health outcomes through swimming pools. And over the last decade, been leading and publishing some of the largest and pioneering research on the role of swimming pools to live health more being. And it's just that water really works and it works incredibly well for so many health conditions from physical to mental and emotional health. Given the size and the challenge that's facing the U S Europe globally.

We need to transform more swimming pools into therapeutic spaces. ⁓ in the last few years, my focus has definitely been how to harness the power of technology to create highly effective, replicable and scalable solutions because there are kind of small cases of best practice in many places. Scaling best practices tough. And this has been a real focus of mine. How do you not do it in one pool? Well, how'd you do it in a thousand?

well. That's what I'm driving through Goodboost. As well as what I mentioned earlier, the economically viable solutions to make it so that it can cover its own cost and embed it into any pool as a core service, as opposed to something which is a flash in the pan one year because it's funded by a grant and it then disappears again. What I've been proving through Goodboost is can be done. And so the reason why I joined

pool horizons or became part of it is my mission is to transform pools around the world to deliver for people and communities in need. Public pools, private pools, hotel pools, retirement community pools, hospital pools, residential pools. If you look at the total number of pools around the world with the right programming and the right products, they could deliver over

trillion of health benefit every year. And that's a huge number of trillion. It would need every single pool to be able to deliver health and well-being. That is a hugely ambitious target. But pools have the power to transform health and well-being. And we need to aim for the stars if we're going to land on the moon with this one. So yeah, this is what I love. I really believe in the power of aquatics and the power of pools. Pool Horizons is here to

broadened that message and the societal role and benefit of So yeah, when I was given the opportunity to come and support and join up, I was definitely on board.

Luke Daly (21:28)
Awesome. And I certainly got a lot out of meeting you and we've continued to talk across the last nine months and we'll continue to talk a bit more. You're coming down under soon, right? To down to Aussie.

Ben (21:39)
Yeah, I'm heading to New Zealand for a week then heading to Australia for a week Yeah, looking forward to it.

Luke Daly (21:44)
Fantastic. Well, how do our listeners get in touch with you if they want to find out more? Because I think you'll have hit a lot of nails on the head through these conversations, whether it's talking about the community health benefits, but also being seriously conscious of the economic viability of it as well. I think everyone will be sitting there nodding going, yep, this is all good, but it sounds expensive. And, you know, we might get that grant that's that flash in the pan style, but it sounds like you put a really good business case modeling around it.

for both the communities but also the leisure facilities as well. So if people want to know more or get in touch with you, what's the best way to find you?

Ben (22:20)
Yeah, the best way to reach out is probably just find me on LinkedIn. If you put Ben Wilkins, good boost, I'll be the first, I think I'll be the only thing that comes up if you put that in. yeah, LinkedIn is probably the best way to reach out for me. Connect with me on there and always open to conversation.

Luke Daly (22:35)
Fantastic. Well, Mr. Ben Wilkins, thank you for joining us today on the Aquatics Only podcast. It's been a pleasure to talk to you again. We talk every few months, but it's been nice to talk to you in this format. I've learned a lot. I'm sure our listeners will have learned a lot as well. And we'll see you down under very soon.

Ben (22:50)
Thanks, Luke. It's been great to be on.

Luke Daly (22:51)
See you then.