AI isn’t always the answer, and a “human” needs to apply their skills and experience in a particular field to streamline the outcome. However, there is no denying that AI can deliver enhanced experiences in most cases, some of which are outlined below.
Personalized training plans and workouts
While AI and computers may never replace a personal trainer in terms of value and support system, AI is providing some pretty significant benefits with personalized training, plans, and workouts.
You input certain criteria about yourself and your desired goals, and the AI will create personalized training plans and workouts based on the information you provide. This is effective and extremely helpful as you work towards your goals, especially if you want to train on your own terms without a personal trainer.
Wearable Technology and Reporting
AI is being used in wearable technology as part of reporting and predictive processing, and is also part of broader data processing, allowing the technology to predict and drive specific behaviors.
For example, the use of AI and volumetric data allows apps like Strava and the Garmin Connect app to ingest vast amounts of analytical data based on a user’s age, height, weight and number of runs to provide tightly aligned calorie counts and other important insights into their fitness and achievements.
It’s important to make sure all the information you enter into any fitness app, wearable technology, or training plan is accurate — it’s best not to lie, as this could impact your health.
Equipment design
AI has been used in design environments for many years, particularly in renderings, but the latest software solutions incorporate AI to automatically interpret data placed on a 2D plane into a 3D output, allowing product designers to more easily visualize their products from their 2D form into a 3D rendering.
This allows us to significantly reduce development time and effort and speed up the process of designing and creating new fitness equipment. It also allows us to take aspects of a previously designed product to meet a specific goal and add enhancements based on new criteria. This means a proactive approach towards continuous improvement.
Gym layout visualization
Gym visualization and layout is a great place to use AI technology because you input a specific item in your gym and it will visualize it right in front of you. This allows you to optimize the use of space and zones in your gym where space is usually scarce. It is now common for a human to input instructions with the machine and instruct the AI software to take into account all the key criteria before rendering the visualization for approval or planning.
Mirafit is a world-famous fitness brand. Comment: We use 3D renderings in developing our commercial gym equipment, which allows us to inspect our products before creating and testing the actual items.
Fitness Apps
Fitness apps have a unique role to play, and AI can also help improve your app experience. Apps like Strava encourage you to earn badges and often notify you about badges for specific activities logged in the app. A great example of this is the Garmin Connect app, which suggests badges you should earn to encourage you to continue on your fitness mission.
Other apps, such as the free fitness app Fitain, are free to download and encourage you to achieve specific goals, while also giving you access to fitness videos and classes.
What are the benefits of AI in fitness?
- Increased engagement and retention
- Enhanced Customer Insights
- Revenue Generation
- Scalability
- Differentiation
AI has a very strong position in the fitness industry, and designing products with AI to improve fitness usually yields some pretty significant benefits. There are countless benefits to using AI as a predictive engine in a variety of situations. However, it is important to remember that AI is not infallible and is only as good as the engine used and the input from the user, and the extent of the graphical interface or application being used. AI can also fail, but this can be due to user input.
What does the future hold?
AI is expected to continue to develop at an incredible rate, and with improvements in apps, machine technology, products, design and gym layout design, the future of AI in the fitness sector is quite promising.
We can start to personalize the experience. There are examples of gyms allowing the use of a key fob or card and the machine adapts to a prescribed output. This means the experience becomes personalized beyond what a typical gym-goer would experience outside of someone working out with a personal trainer. Imagine a luxury car seat adjusting based on the driver’s details. This is what we’re talking about with modern gym machines – a way for the machine to adapt to a pre-determined weight or configuration as you follow a plan.
The next 5 years will be interesting, especially considering how far AI has come in such a short time, how most people have embraced the industry, and what AI will bring to the table. As we know from the news, this could include enhancing the processing of scans, images, or results in hospitals. Gyms can use AI to forecast staffing requirements based on 12 months of data. This will reduce expenses and help them stay competitive in an industry that is seeing businesses fail due to declining growth and margins.
