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Fitness Tech Innovators Deliver Next-Level Personalisation
Tech firms are incorporating one-to-one personal training and feedback into remote fitness concepts, using biometrics and artificial intelligence (AI) to tailor users’ workouts. With the digital fitness market projected to reach nearly $60bn by 2027 (Valuates, 2020), Stylus spotlights the key developments.
- Analytics-Aided Training: Apple’s Fitness+ subscription service launched in December 2020, offering home workouts that sync with the Apple Watch. Real-time personal activity stats are displayed on the main video screen, while a motivational ‘burn bar’ compares effort levels to the average user’s in each session. Through monitoring users’ weekly activity, the app then recommends sessions designed to maximise progress and aid recovery.
- Micro-Adjustments for Maximum Results: High-end exercise equipment is increasingly adaptable to an individual’s shape, build and strength. Last September, US-based fitness specialist Technogym released its latest Biocircuit apparatus, which builds a biometric profile for each user, automatically adjusts the seat height and other dimensions to fit their frame, and devises personalised exercise programmes.
- The following month, Silicon Valley start-up Tonal launched Smart Flex, a digital weights system that targets peak efficiency. The kit continually measures user effort levels and dynamically adjusts the resistance, ensuring the muscles are maximally engaged throughout each rep. The company reported a 700% year-on-year increase in sales in 2020.
- Programmatic Posture-Correction: A downside of home exercise is lack of direct feedback – lessening the effectiveness of workouts and causing a spike in injuries. There’s serious market interest in technological solutions, evidenced by Californian smart-gym brand Tempo’s $60m funding round – the largest Series B of any smart fitness company to date (Bloomberg, 2020). Its home studio uses 3D sensors and AI to monitor body movements and coach users on their form.
- Last month, India’s largest health and fitness company, Cure.fit, acquired San Franciscan fit-tech start-up Onyx, which offers a similar service by capturing users’ motions through their smartphones.
- See also Fuelling Future Fitness for more on consumers’ Covid-era exercise habits and demands.
