Technology has certainly advanced all areas of life, but its reach and impact on the fitness and wellness industry are still in the early stages. It’s an area where leading brands are poised to transform the member experience.

Fit:match may have set out to serve the fashion sector, but the company’s advanced 3D body scanning technology now sees a massive opportunity in fitness. Sensing the increased demand and interest in hyper-personalized health and fitness data, Fit:match and its patented platform are ready to change the gym game.

Using the ultimate trifecta — augmented reality, artificial intelligence and 3D technology — Fit:match allows fitness trainers to quickly obtain and analyze comparative data and insights on the 3D shape of clients, providing them with a visual representation.

“Fit:match creates a digital twin of a person’s size and shape – their physique – which has not been available to the masses until now,” explains marketing director Hillary Littleton. “This opens the door for fitness enthusiasts and athletes to literally look at their body composition, fat and muscle mass, asymmetries and more, which in turn unveils limitless opportunities for trainers and gyms. Imagine being able to show a client who is on a weight loss journey their progress in this way.”

Not only does Fit:match drive engagement with the ultimate personalized experience, but gyms can also use the data to track trends, member needs, upsell or offer merchandise discounts to clients meeting their goals.

“Providing hyper-personalized data that’s different from the gym next door will win,” Littleton points out. “Further, you’ll be the gym that facilitates the best results for members because trainers can be more precise in delivering personalized plans.”

How Tech is Enhancing, Not Replacing, Personal Trainers

As fitness and wellness consumers see emerging technology offering groundbreaking ways to put them on the path to better health, the fitness industry and its dedicated personal trainers need not worry about being replaced. After all, the fitness business has been (and will always be) a people-driven industry, and making personal connections with club members and clients will always be a differentiating factor.

Look no further than Future, a digital personal training platform that has released an AI-driven tool, Assistant Coach, to empower fitness coaches to take their business to the next level. This new function allows coaches to create workout plans and send voice or text messages to clients.

“Future’s AI actually promotes more thoughtful and meaningful human interactions,” Future’s co-founder and CEO Rishi Mandal says. “It allows the coaches to focus on the human relationship and also scaffolds for it, suggesting workouts and insights to the trainer based on what workouts users have liked, personal interests, work and travel plans, times of the day/week you’re most receptive, etc.”

Future’s Assistant Coach trained on tens of millions of text conversations between personal trainers and their clients, along with roughly one million custom workout programs, thereby exceeding general-purpose AI models, such as OpenAI.  

“Large, general-purpose models are great at some things, but are rarely used for high-value use cases,” Mandal explains. “For instance, you wouldn’t let ChatGPT drive your car for you. Instead, we tend to rely on models that are trained on real-world driving data to power-assisted cruise control or self-driving functions. Similarly, Assistant Coach includes specialized AI agents that are built to help interpret a member’s needs, bank a memory about a member, design custom training plans, and so on.” 

While Future’s technology gives personal trainers the ability to not miss a beat, Mandal says the most profound aspect is that it brings coaching, one-on-one expertise and accountability to more consumers than ever before.

Halotherapy Solutions: Pioneering Wellness & Redefining Recovery  

Although the “Gym of the Future” may bring personalized, cutting-edge technology to mind, it should not be overlooked that fitness consumers are also looking for holistic wellness solutions.

Enter Halotherapy Solutions, a wellness brand designed to give fitness and wellness operators a unique therapy and recovery offering. The company has tripled its business since 2021, with CEO Steven Spiro noting that Halotherapy has relished the post-pandemic demand for wellness, ready to serve with its innovative products, such as the HaloSauna.

“With the demand for wellness growing, ‘typical’ wellness facilities began to add more modalities like we offer,” Spiro explains. “Plus, and maybe more significantly, ‘non-traditional’ facilities are evolving to become more ‘wellness centers.’ We’ve seen huge growth in a variety of verticals like spas, gyms, tanning salons, yoga studios, wellness real estate communities, senior living, and more.”

The brand recently launched HaloRestore & Recovery — the first and only series of programs that blend salt therapy with its Restore and Recovery equipment, including popular therapies such as red light, cryotherapy and cold plunge.

Keeping a pulse on the wellness sector, HaloRestore & Recovery was born not just out of necessity, but at the urging of the health and wellness industry. 

“I have been in the Halotherapy space for about a decade and have seen a shift throughout the years,” Halotherapy CRO and program creator Lisa Semerly explains. “The industry has moved into ‘next generation’ salt therapy, stacking or layering multiple modalities together in one unit to customize the guest’s experience while at the same time maximizing the return on investment per square foot for the facility owner. Taking that one step further and keeping pace with the current environment, HaloRestore & Recovery was conceived last year.”

Halotherapy has given operators the ability to offer advanced recovery options while being mindful of space requirements. Perhaps more importantly, it gives fitness operators the chance to truly serve the majority of their members. As Semerly points out, one in every three athletes experiences some form of exercise-induced asthma, making it difficult for members to hit their personal fitness goals.

“If your respiratory system is run down or under attack and you can’t breathe, your workouts are going to be less effective,” Semerly explains. “Salt therapy alone expands the airway for increased lung function and increased oxygen saturation. It helps with muscle endurance and strengthens the abdominal wall for increased lung capacity and oxygenation.”

And, as consumers become increasingly intrigued by holistic wellness therapies, Halotherapy’s newly patented Vitality Booth Plus serves as the ultimate engagement tool for operators. The Vitality Booth Plus is a multi-function chamber that blends salt and red light therapy — a winning wellness combination.

“What makes the Vitality Booth Plus so effective and unique is the science,” Semerly says. “The inspiration behind it came from one of our partners and salt therapy enthusiasts who owned a World Gym. He was looking for a game changer in the fitness space to include red light and salt therapy and understood that red light in the presence of salt crystals creates a far more effective experience for both.”

In addition to aiding recovery and respiration, the Vitality Booth Plus addresses skin health with anti-aging, wrinkle reduction and even weight loss and mood enhancement.

The future looks bright for Halotherapy, especially as consumers become more health-conscious and seek ways to support longevity.

“We learned a lot in a post-COVID world,” Semerly adds. “More and more folks are taking self-care much more seriously. Those who take health and fitness seriously have realized that without a true recovery component, burnout, injury, and less effective workouts are inevitable. Halotherapy will continue to be part of the conversation in the fitness community well into the future.”

This article originally appeared in ATN’s Gym of the Future Report, which explores the technology, equipment and sustainable practices driving a new era of personalized fitness and wellness experiences. Download the free report.

The post 3D Body Scanning & AI Are Shaping the Future of Personalized Training appeared first on Athletech News.

As the demand for personal health and fitness data increases, gyms, trainers and studios need to keep their tech offerings sharp.

Consumers are becoming more and more discerning – craving a hyper-personalized and comprehensive understanding of their bodies. For many, no longer is the Apple Watch, Garmin or other such wearable enough.

The stage is set and the time is right for advanced technology to fill this widening gap, and Fit:match is offering a solution – 3D Body Scanning.

Having launched in the fashion and retail space in 2018, Fit:match is democratizing access to 3D technology, and bringing it to the fitness industry. The company, which has raised $15 million since its founding, offers a patented platform solution that uses augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI) and 3D technology to allow fitness pros and trainers to obtain and analyze comparative data and insights on the 3D shape of users.

This paradigm shift unlocks a whole new way for us to gain insights into our bodies, allowing for visualization versus simply data and numbers.

Creating a ‘Digital Twin’

“Fit:match creates a digital twin of a person’s size and shape – their physique – which has not been available to the masses until now,” according to the company’s marketing director Hillary Littleton. “This opens the door for fitness enthusiasts and athletes to literally look at their body composition, fat and muscle mass, asymmetries and more, which in turn unveils limitless opportunities for trainers and gyms. Imagine being able to show a client who is on a weight loss journey their progress in this way.”

The impetus behind the tech makes for an interesting backstory. In working with clothing retailers to scale their businesses, Fit:match founder and CEO Haniff Brown realized the operational and financial issues the industry faces due to returns – which largely stem from consumer confusion around their own size and shape.

“A 3D problem can only be solved by a 3D solution,” said Brown. “It is proven that two people with similar measurements can have a different body shape that results in different recommendations. By understanding a consumer’s specific body shape, we can accurately determine recommendations and personalize the experience.”

Fit:match says this approach is translating well to the fitness industry.

“We ventured into the fitness space originally through a partnership with (running brand) Brooks,” explained Littleton. “We held an in-person event in LA offering consumers the 3D Body Scanning in correlation with Brooks apparel. The consumers ate it up and wanted more of this type of data and visualization to help with their fitness tracking.”

“We also took the technology to IHRSA this year where it was very well received,” she added. “Gyms are excited to bring this innovation to their members, and we have several pop-ups planned this summer to give gyms an exclusive chance to look under the hood and try it out.”

When asked how Fit:match is different than other body scanning solutions on the market today, Littleton points to two things.

“First, it offers a 3D visual while the others offer data and numbers,” she said. “Second, the scan can be done on an iPhone Pro or Pro Max in the comfort of one’s home, versus going into a gym or studio and standing on the platform – potentially in front of others – for the scan.”

Consumer Interest Is High

Fit:match recently released a new survey of fitness enthusiasts and athletes regarding their interest level in 3D Body Scanning and how they might use this type of data.

The survey revealed that 58.1 percent of those polled said they want to learn how varying a training routine can impact body shape, while 45.3 percent were looking to optimize performance and understand strengths and weaknesses to tailor training plans, identify limiting factors, and maximize workout efficiency and see how it affects body shape.

“It is exactly this sort of data that Fit:match provides,” said Littleton, “What also stood out is that 41.9% of users want actionable recommendations on what to do with these insights, which leads us to believe that integrations with gyms, trainers, and nutritional platforms represent huge opportunity.”

Fit:match has a competitive edge in the market as it uses LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology, which uses lasers to capture 3D shapes with precision and accuracy, providing a more detailed representation of the human body than traditional 2D methods can offer. LiDAR tech is available on the iPhone Pro and the iPhone Pro Max.

“We want to get Fit:match in the hands of iPhone users around the world, said Littleton.

There is also a scanner activation that can be built out in gyms that scans the body in one second, compared to the twenty seconds it takes on the iPhone.

Shaping Training Plans Around Physique

How exactly does Fit:match expect consumers to use Body Scanning data to impact their training and their lives?

From the survey, Fit:match heard several things.

First, says Littleton, people who are on a body transformation journey want to visually see progress.

“The mirror is not always the best place for this,” she said. “When a trainer can point to a true-to-life scan and heat maps, that visually show changes, that’s a very powerful thing.”

Further, the technology can also show how the body would appear x pounds lighter, or with x pounds more muscle.

Survey responses also indicate a desire for posture analysis to identify and correct imbalances through 3D skeletal tracking.

Rehab from injury is another area of interest.

“Scans immediately identify asymmetries in the body, and those rehabbing from injury can benefit greatly from adjusting PT and training regimens accordingly,” said Littleton.

How might this technology impact gyms and trainers?

“Providing hyper-personalized data that’s different from the gym next door will win,” said Littleton. “Further, you’ll be the gym that facilitates the best results for members because trainers can be more precise in delivering personalized plans.”

Having this kind of data will serve gyms well by offering deeper member insights to better serve their clientele. On a macro level, gyms can use the information to track trends and member needs and wants to inform decisions, Littleton notes.

“If a member is working out daily and scanning on Fit:match and you see they are meeting their goals, you can provide praise, upsell them, offer discounts on merchandise and more,” she said.

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