[ibimage==30914==Original==https://www.focustrainr.com/==self==ibimage_align-center]
There are more and more devices on the market today that are supposed to measure your daily movement. The Fitbit, Nike Fuel Band and Jawbone Up, for example, use 3-axis accelerometers and sophisticated algorithms to create a broad profile of your daily activity level and calorie burn. But because these device’s measurements are still general, like their pedometer forbearers, they have a limited ability to prescribe exercise.
“If you’ve watched the pedometer space, it hasn’t really evolved,” said Cavan Canavan, CEO and founder of Focus.
These types of wearables are unable to measure specific movements, and prescribe specific exercises. That is what makes Focus’ latest app interesting.
TRAINR, Focus’ first app, is software designed and built for the Samsung Galaxy Gear smart watch. By leveraging the 3-axis accelerometer in the watch, Focus’ hopes their TRAINR app will be a great first step into creating a wearable that prescribes specific workouts.
“Sometimes we think of ourselves as the Shazam of physical activity,” said Grant Hughes, vice president of business development at Focus.
“When you talk about training people you think about gym activity,” said Hughes. So, instead of general movement, TRAINR is all about measuring specific gym-type activities.
The app tracks a total of 20 gym-related exercises like sit-ups, pushups and lunges.
And more then tracking movement, it also creates workouts customized to each user’s fitness level. The quantified-self movement is all-about tracking data, but Hughes said, “we are trying to push beyond that to the understood-self.”
“Things really have done a really good job of counting things in the past, but it’s about recommending,” said Canavan.
To get to know each user, the TRAINR app prescribes doing a number of exercises to exhaustion. It monitors how long it takes a user to fatigue and with this information the app creates a fitness profile of that individual. Via the fitness profile it creates workouts specific to that user’s abilities, much like a flesh and blood personal trainer might do.
The app “understands a person’s fatigue and fitness level,” said Hughes, allowing for custom workout routines to be created.
[ibimage==30915==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]
What’s more, during workouts TRAINR is able to adjust routines ad-hoc based on your performance. If you are fatiguing early, the app will ease-up the workout, so that you don’t overstrain or overtrain. Being able to make on-the-fly adjustments to workout routines should help users gain greater fitness, without the pitfalls of overtraining.
“We want to make sure we’re challenging people, but we don’t want to set goals they can’t reach,” said Hughes.
Though the app is focused on gym-like exercises, really it can be used in anyplace. “We’ve built the tech to be available anywhere,” said Hughes. It can be used perhaps in a hotel room, for a day in the gym when you’re personal trainer is not available, or for foregoing the expensive personal trainer all together.
And the more and more specific measurements wearables can take, in theory the better the devices can understand and make recommendations- like a personal trainer. In the future, the Focus team envisions all-sorts of new inputs for the app. “We really are a platform,” said Hughes.
Most immediately they are looking to incorporate heart rate monitoring into the app. Heart rate monitoring has long been associated with GPS sport watches, and is one of the best measures of physical exertion.
“Taking that biometric and tracking it while you’re training is huge,” said Hughes.
Beyond, the Focus team sees the TRAINR app as a first step into a soon to be exploding wearables space.
And there is good reason to believe them. Apple has a patent on file for what appear to be smart earbuds. These earbuds claim to be able to measure temperature, perspiration, heart rate, and of course movement. The future of wearables is moving fast.
