With sensors, smart devices, intelligent equipment and data-driven analytics, next generation technologies and virtual training programs are bringing personalized fitness into the lounge, offering elite athletes and home users the same access to exceptional quality training, regardless of location.
Intelligent clothing and accessories, smart dumbbells, interactive interfaces, artificial intelligence (AI) customized training programs and smart sensors are changing the shape of the sports market – and that of their users.
According to Data Bridge Market Research, the Middle East and Africa fitness equipment market is expected to reach $514.87 million by 2031 at a compound annual growth rate (cagr) of 4.60% with South Africa expected to take the lead with innovations around fit- ness equipment that uses next-generation technologies. Joining South Africa in leveraging AI to enhance fitness training and wellbeing, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya are also paying attention to the value of AI with interest- ing innovations in virtual trainers, online training plat- forms, and real-time physical monitoring tools.
AI has the potential to fix the problems that people create when they are left to do workouts on their own. It can also be used to enhance the training programs used by coaches to train elite athletes thanks to in- depth data and real-time analytics.
“There are two elements that are important to a coach – measuring and monitoring – as these allow you to prescribe the ideal overload and get the timing of the overload,” explains Ian Martin, Endurance Sports Coach at Coach One. “Technology has played a huge role taking this to another level. Instead of spreadsheets and the limited intelligence of the initial heartrate monitors, i can now fine-tune training cycles.”
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Metrics such as sleep, nutrition and recovery can benefit from AI which provides coaches with an exten- sive source of data that can even include environmen- tal factors that play a significant role when preparing an athlete. “The technology is providing athletes and coaches with access to exceptional data that allows them to keep their finger on the pulse – pun intended,” says Martin. “Technology has allowed us to deliver the right information in the right format to anyone, regardless of their level of education or accessibility.”
It is also not exclusively the domain of the elite ath- lete. Anyone can benefit from AI-powered accessories and virtual solutions. iGym in Kenya, for example, uses AI to customize workouts and provide nutrition plans for users, the data built on the expertise provided by trained fitness consultants. It enhances this with ac- cess to guides, articles, videos and calculators designed to make fitness easy and accessible. As Joseph Muongi Kamau, Founder of iGym, explains: “We use AI to cre- ate custom workout plans, training content and provide real-time fitness advice. We opted into using AI as it al- lows us to serve more individuals at scale and generate more accurate workouts and wellness plans that meet their needs. We have seen a significant improvement in fitness results, retention and motivation among clients who use the platform.”
This increased engagement is exactly what was found in a recent paper in Ghana. The researchers established that the use of emerging technologies could be used to improve the health and fitness of sedentary groups. The study focused on Ghanian students and it found that the more aware students were of the technologies and how they could be used to improve their physical wellbeing, the more likely they were to use them.
And AI has the potential to reduce injury and im- prove the quality of workouts. Another paper by Mi- chael Deyzel, Computer Vision Engineer at Stellen- bosch-based startup Hawktivity, in collaboration with Dr Rensu Theart, Senior Lecturer at Stellenbosch Uni- versity in South Africa, wanted to find how AI could be used to enhance workouts, virtual coaching and fitness. “Our project started in collaboration with the Sports Science department to find a way if people did their strength and conditioning exercises correctly,” explains Theart. “Athletes would be given instructions but then lose the correct posture over time which could cause injury and it wasn’t feasible for everyone to have a personal trainer. So, we asked what if there was a system that could automatically tell someone if their posture was correct?”
It turns out that yes, AI can be used to develop a system capable of learning how someone moves and provide intelligent feedback and coaching. “The big disadvantage of AI is that it needs a lot of training data and for fitness, a lot of the datasets needed to train the AI don’t exist yet. The idea of this paper was to find out if AI could learn how to do an exercise perfectly with only one example of that exercise,” says Deyzel. Turns out – this is entirely possible and it is also, believes Dey- zel, something that can democratize sports training in Africa. Just not quite yet.
“The system could potentially be used by anyone indefinitely as a way of supporting elite athlete train- ing – it can provide metrics, insights and guidance when there is limited access to a personal trainer,” says Deyzel. “It does democratize access just a bit, but there needs to be funding behind it because these sys- tems cost money to train, run and set up.”
These systems are also evolving at a radical rate on the global stage. Many of the technologies aren’t avail- able on the continent and, if they are, they’re selling at an exorbitant price. The MAGIC mirror uses AI to provide users with live feedback and real-time pos- ture corrections while they workout at home. Boxing, strength training, dancing and soccer training are some of the workouts included in the futuristic, touch-screen mirror that retails for £400 ($531). Then, there’s the ex- plosion of solutions using sensors, AI and the Internet of Things (IoT) to enhance sporting performance in clothing. According to GlobalData’s Technology Fore- sights, more than 76,000 patents have been filed in the past three years. These are aimed at detecting metrics such as environment, speed, acceleration, impact, force and more and the data they generate? This has multiple applications across performance, design, and function- ality.
“AI allows us to coach based on the individual and to personalize the experience for people,” concludes Karen Loader, master franchisor for F45 Training. The company uses a fitness programming algorithm that leverages a content database of several thousand unique training movements to offer new workouts ev- ery day that are accessible globally. “We can provide the same workouts to people anywhere – be they in Cape Town or Nairobi – and use real data to transform their performance or their recovery.”
Is AI going to change the shape of sports? Yes.
Intelligent clothing and accessories may be out of pocket for most people on the continent right now but virtual training programs and platforms are eas- ily available and perfectly attuned to what the African market needs and wants.
This combination of AI and digital brings person- alized fitness into the lounge, offering elite athletes and home users the same access to exceptional quality training, regardless of their location. It is perhaps the era of athletic democratization as local gets the same training flavor as global.
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