Meet Your New Coach: Big Data
Being motivated to workout is half the battle. The other half? Having a game plan for your training. While there’s an abundance of options available, generic programming doesn’t consider your individual needs on a day-to-day basis. Fortunately, there’s a new option on the market for athletes — and the best part? It’s already in your pocket.
“For ten years we have gone down the generic training plan path and what we have found is that no matter how tailor made the plans, they are never good enough at catering to the individual.” said Relentless Founder and CEO Marcus Herou.
The next generation of personal training is smart enough to identify when you’re not pushing hard enough to make progress, or when you’ve had a rough night of sleep. Your program continuously adjusts based on your performance, and the protocol is tailored to the equipment and time you have available. Relentless Method is the platform taking the functional fitness industry by storm, notably bringing CrossFit Games athletes Thuri Helgadottir and Emma Tall, as well as two Olympian weightlifters, on board earlier this month.
The app also integrates with common wearables like Google Fit, Apple Health and WHOOP, that feed data such as your HRV, sleep duration and resting heart rate into their algorithms. Utilizing the responses you input in the app, along with these other sources of information, your training protocol will continue to change and adapt as you do as an athlete, working on a rolling baseline. This functionality is also critically helpful for major seasons of life; for example, if you just had a baby and aren’t sleeping well for more than a night or two in a row, that will be considered in your training plan.
And speaking of championing women’s health, Behrmann says “There’s also one feature that we don’t have, but we are working on it — and that’s (tracking) your cycle for women.”
There’s several additional features on deck that the Swedish-based company plans to roll out in the near future, including having more beginner-focused instructions available (gym newbies need a trainer too!), in-app incentives and games to encourage consistency and competition, being able to work intelligently alongside another program (as in, being a protocol you can do after an affiliate-class), and expanding their training modalities to include bodybuilding and more Globo gym machine implements.
To make better use of your time spent working out, reach your goals faster and in a way that feels good to you, leaning into technology may be the answer you’re looking for.
“We went into this project with the sense that we want to fix the fitness industry…the fitness industry is kind of broken because everybody is selling programming that if it fits everyone, it fits no one. And we want to fix that,” Behrmann said. “So we want to create some sustainable training that’s going to adapt to you as a person for life and make you happy.”
And in the same way you need to have trust with your coach in person, Relentless Method takes your privacy seriously. The app doesn’t share your data with any third-party systems and uses top-class servers to keep your personal info secure. So, the more honest and detailed you can be in what you tell your smart trainer, the more tailored it’ll be to you. The more specific you are in your responses and feedback, the more effective your program will be for you as an individual.
“Be true to yourself. I mean, be honest. This is not what your coach thinks it should be. It’s not what your buddy is doing, it’s what you’re feeling. No one’s going to care. Only you. You’re the only one who’s going to care about it. And if you’re not true to yourself, you’re the one who’s going to suffer.”
Click here to download a free trial of Relentless Method, and lock-in 50% off for life for getting on board early (until November 24th).