Artificial intelligence is being used to create shorter, more personalized workouts that may be more effective.
The Exercise Coach, a fitness company, is utilizing these AI features at the company’s 180 studios in the U.S. and Japan, 18 of which are in Texas.
Texas locations include Flower Mound, Fort Worth, Highland Park, McKinney, North Dallas, Plano, Preston Hollow, and Southlake.
The company uses what CEO Brian Cygan described as “a line of smart strength training machines that super-powers our coaching efforts,” reported Fox News. The machines come from a company called Exerbotics.
The equipment aids trainers to assess the strength and then coming up with workouts suited to a client’s capabilities.
Cygan elaborated on how the machines work, telling Fox, “Exerbotics smart resistance and bio-feedback change resistance levels in real-time to accommodate where an exerciser’s muscles are stronger or weaker.”
Cygan said that, in some ways, the AI machines perform better than human trainers due to their capacity to measure “force output and calculating strength, tracking performance in real-time, instant calculations related to progress analysis and conversion of performance data into a recommended effort for next time.”
Cygan did acknowledge that the machines do not have the capacity to support, empathize, or care about a gym member’s goals and obstacles like a trainer can.
The AI machinery is meant “to do the things that are impossible for human coaches to do.” It is not meant to replace human coaches but to make “our human coaches even better,” Cygan said.
A hallmark of The Exercise Coach is that workouts only last for 20 minutes, something that appeals to those who have hectic schedules.
“A plethora of research and our internal data indicate that people can experience maximal strength training results from just two 20-minute workouts per week,” Cygan told Fox.
“It could be the population health fountain of youth if properly leveraged,” Cygan said about the technological advances. “This is why we created technology that maximizes effectiveness, motivation, and data-driven guidance.”