Professional athletics demands relentless pursuit of improvement, where milliseconds separate champions from competitors. For swimmers, this pursuit has historically meant countless hours of training with limited real-time feedback, relying on coaches shouting from pool decks and post-workout data analysis. The gap between performance and immediate insight has long frustrated athletes seeking that competitive edge.

Scott Dickens understood this challenge intimately. As a two-time Olympian representing Canada, he experienced firsthand the limitations of traditional swim training. His journey from elite athlete to Director of Global Sales Channels & Partnerships at FORM has helped bridge the gap between athletic excellence and technological innovation, creating solutions that transform how swimmers train and compete.

Scott Dickens: From Pool Deck to Business Leadership

Scott Dickens’ athletic career peaked with appearances at two Olympic Games, where he represented Canada on the world’s biggest stage. His competitive swimming background provided insight into the sport’s training methodologies and the persistent challenge of accessing real-time performance data in the water. Unlike runners who can glance at their watches or cyclists who can check their bike computers, swimmers have traditionally been disconnected from their metrics during training.

Following his competitive career, Dickens transitioned into the business world, bringing his athletic discipline and performance mindset to various roles across different industries. His experience at Budweiser Canada taught him the fundamentals of relationship-building and solution-focused selling. Later, his roles in financial services at Royal Bank of Canada helped him understand business operations and revenue optimization. Each position built upon his natural ability to communicate and connect with people, skills honed through years of public speaking engagements during his athletic career.

This diverse professional background eventually led Dickens to FORM, where his unique combination of elite swimming experience and business acumen made him an ideal fit. His six years with the company have spanned multiple roles, including partnerships, field sales, event management, and business development. Through the challenges of launching just months before COVID-19, Dickens helped pivot the company’s strategy and contributed to developing key features for their SaaS model.

FORM: Pioneering Augmented Reality in Swimming

FORM has created a category-defining approach to swim training technology. The company’s Smart Swim goggles integrate augmented reality displays directly into swimmers’ field of vision, providing real-time metrics without interrupting their stroke or training flow. This heads-up display technology solves a problem since competitive swimming began: how to access performance data while actively swimming.

The triathlon market represents a particularly compelling opportunity for FORM’s technology. Triathletes already understand data and actively seek performance metrics, yet they may lack swimming experience compared to their running and cycling expertise. While they rely on watches for land-based training, these devices become invisible underwater, leaving a critical gap in their data collection. 

FORM solves this disconnect by providing the same real-time feedback triathletes expect from their other disciplines. As Scott shared, swimming offers unique benefits as a natural recovery method that boosts cognitive function, trains the heart and muscles through resistance, improves VO2 max, and enhances blood flow circulation in a horizontal position. 

As one of the best complementary exercises to running, cycling, and weight training, swimming fits perfectly into the current fitness and wellness trends. FORM transforms the traditional monotony of staring at lane lines into an engaging, motivating experience driven by real-time data.

The Smart Swim 1 introduced swimmers to augmented reality training with real-time metrics displayed directly in the goggles. Advanced machine learning algorithms process swimming data instantly, giving athletes immediate feedback on their performance. The recently launched Smart Swim 2 builds upon this foundation with an integrated heart rate monitor, a 15 percent reduction in tech pack size, extended strap mounts for stability, and upgraded eye seals for enhanced comfort.

The system connects seamlessly with Strava, TrainingPeaks, and other connected fitness platforms, creating a complete training ecosystem. Machine learning capabilities analyze swimming patterns and provide actionable insights to help athletes improve their technique and meet their goals. This combination of immediate feedback and long-term analysis creates a new and distinguishable way for swimmers to approach their training.

Final Thoughts

Scott Dickens’ journey from Olympic competition to business leadership at FORM demonstrates how deeply understanding a problem can lead to meaningful solutions. His unique perspective as a former elite swimmer and business professional has contributed to developing technology that addresses fundamental gaps in athletic training.

By placing critical performance data directly in swimmers’ line of sight, FORM has eliminated barriers that have existed for decades. This type of targeted technological advancement, guided by those who have lived the challenges firsthand, points toward a future where athletes can train smarter and more efficiently than ever before.

About Elisa Edelstein
Elisa is a curious and versatile writer, carving her niche in the health and wellness industry since 2015. Her lens is rooted in real world experience as a personal trainer and competitive bodybuilder and extended out of the gym and on to the page as a writer where she is able to combine her passions for empowering others, promoting wellness, and the power of the written word.