By: Shawn Mars
DES MOINES, Iowa — Former Iowa State University football player and longtime strength and conditioning coach Ben Durbin is debuting True Force. This patented system fuses precision engineering with artificial intelligence to redefine how strength is measured and training is prescribed.
From Guesswork to Precision
Durbin’s concept for True Force emerged after years of working closely with elite athletes, during which he witnessed firsthand the gaps in training methods and the data available to coaches. Despite the wealth of experience some of the best coaches possessed, they often had to rely on off-season testing and make educated guesses throughout the year about how to adjust their athletes’ training loads. This system of relying on historical data and approximations never sat well with Durbin, as he understood the importance of precision in optimizing an athlete’s performance.
“Even with all the experience in the world, there’s still an element of guesswork in coaching,” Durbin explains. “I wanted something that could tell me, with certainty, exactly how hard an athlete should train on any given day.”
True Force addresses this challenge by measuring an athlete’s force output in real time. Unlike traditional methods that depend on risky and often inaccurate one-rep max tests to determine an athlete’s capacity, True Force continuously assesses the athlete’s actual force output. The system can instantly calculate the maximum force an athlete can exert at any given moment and adjust their training loads accordingly.
For coaches and physical therapists, this revolutionary technology eliminates the need for guesswork. Accurate, real-time data now support every decision made regarding an athlete’s training plan. With True Force, coaches no longer have to rely on outdated testing cycles or approximations, ensuring that every prescription is tailored to the athlete’s current capacity, maximizing safety and performance.
The Technology Behind the Barbell
At the heart of the system is a specially designed barbell embedded with high-precision force sensors. These feed into proprietary algorithms that process data instantly. What coaches and therapists see is a personalized training profile that evolves day by day, rep by rep.
“The hardest part was translating raw measurements into something coaches could trust and act on,” Durbin recalls. That translation is what sets True Force apart—it’s not just data collection, but data interpretation coaches can immediately use.
For the Iowa State Fair, the system has been reimagined as lifting hay bales—an interactive, approachable demonstration that brings cutting-edge technology into an everyday fitness context.
Bridging Elite Sports and Everyday Fitness
While True Force was born in the world of Division I and professional athletics, its applications extend far beyond. Already in use across 27 facilities in 10 states and two countries, the system is attracting attention from personal trainers, rehabilitation specialists, and recreational athletes.
“There’s nothing else on the market that does exactly what this does,” Durbin says. “We’ve built something accurate, repeatable, and easy to implement.”
For strength coaches and physical therapists, this is a turning point: the ability to individualize training at scale. Instead of observation and instinct alone, programming can now be guided by evidence-based, real-time insights—bridging the gap between elite performance labs and smaller gyms or clinics.
Looking Ahead
Durbin envisions the current version of True Force as just the beginning. His team is already working on expanding the analytics, layering in advanced monitoring to track recovery and long-term development.
“My vision is for every coach to have the ability to make truly individualized training decisions,” Durbin says. “When you base those choices on actual data, you take the guesswork out of the equation.”
At the fair, visitors may walk away with a fun story about lifting hay bales. But for coaches and therapists, True Force represents something much more: a new era where technology equips them to deliver precision, personalization, and performance like never before.
