I’m sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat in my lounge, surrounded by dumbbells, it’s my first session with my very own personal trainer and he’s getting down to business by asking me what I want to achieve. We’ve already established that at 5ft 2 and weighing 48kg (7.5st), I’m a few pounds underweight. ‘Anna, I know building muscle is your main goal,’ says my PT. ‘But are you more interested in getting stronger and lifting heavier, or do you want to focus on aesthetics and gaining size?’
I want to gain strength but I’d like to stay lean looking, I explain (oh, the joy of talking about oneself!). ‘Understood, Anna,’ he replies. He overuses my name – but that’s OK – it shows he’s paying attention. ‘We’ll aim for a balanced approach to enhance your strength without adding bulk, focusing on lean muscle development and definition.’
Consequently, our first workout lasts 32 minutes and works my core, quadriceps (thighs) and hamstrings. I warm up with curtsy squats (moving from kneeling to standing-up) then do two supersets of kneeling dumbbell wood chops (imagine chopping wood, raising and lowering your arms across your body while holding a 5kg dumbbell), plus bear crawls, lateral squats and static lunges.
It’s enjoyable, and not too hardcore for me, but my PT goes overboard on the praise. ‘Awesome effort on burning 107kcal, Anna. Now remember to eat right to support your weight loss progress!’
Pardon, what? I thought we’d established that I needed to put weight on. As I recall, your exact words were, ‘Anna, you could benefit from gaining more fat…’
Now I’m annoyed. If I wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t fully listening, my darling husband is in the study next door. Though, I suspect I know why my PT might be phoning it in. He’s not actually human. He’s AI – artificial intelligence. I’m being coached into better shape – in theory – by an algorithm on a fitness app called Zing AI: Personal Trainer.
Anna Maxted put the latest trend, ‘AI fitness’, to the test to see if it could be better than your local gym’s PT
Zing AI: Personal Trainer’s website shows a body scan and claims to ‘provide real-time form monitoring and feedback’
Anna asked the app to focus on the workouts she enjoys, such as yoga, resistance and HIIT, as well as the equipment and location she prefers
Fitness AI is a trend which, it would seem, is still in its primitive stages. Disappointing, because the concept is alluring – a compromise between throwing money at a real-life high-end PT (AKA the miracle-worker until you’re bankrupt but look fabulous) and having to explain your menopausal body to the barely-out-of-school instructor at your local gym.
But surely even the most inexperienced flesh-and-blood fitness trainer wouldn’t blurt about losing weight, having just established that I needed to gain it. And while in midlife my focus is on being healthy and robust, not skin and bone, in my teens I had an eating disorder. If it had been still an issue, that triggering comment would have stung hard. I’m sure it’s a one-off mistake, but it makes me realise that I’d think twice about trusting any fitness app with my mental health if it were at all fragile.
Nonetheless, my relationship with Zing starts well. (I should add, it began nine months ago, so one would hope any glitches will have been rectified.) Reading its blurb on the App Store, I learn it is ‘revolutionising’ fitness, with ‘AI-powered, personalised workouts designed by top health and fitness experts.’ Also that ‘Zing’s AI Coach adapts to your needs, offering real-time insights and support for a transformative fitness journey.’
My freestyle deadlifts and lunges always make my back ache, so I’m excited to learn that Zing’s advanced AI Coach ‘engages proactively… providing real-time form monitoring and feedback.’ I also read that ‘Zing Vision’ technology ‘uses your smartphone’s camera to track movements in real-time, providing detailed insights to improve your technique.’
On the app’s website there’s a moving image of someone doing squats, with green lines drawn on their moving body to show their muscles’ alignment (or misalignment). I assume therefore that all I need to do is prop up my phone or laptop so I’m working out in view of the camera and receive feedback on my form for every workout.
Take my £29.99 for three months, Zing, take it! (Only later do I realise that the person doing squats relates to ‘a three minute fitness test.’)
The Zing app provides a three-minute fitness test but also ‘body composition scans’… at an extra £19.99
I prop my phone on the floor, and the app does indeed use my camera to ‘track’ my body to show how I perform squats, press-ups and running on the spot. As soon as it ends, I’m treated to sped-up horror-footage on repeat of me doing these exercises. The green lines ‘tracking’ my movement tell me nothing at all. In fact, it reminds me of the builder who once turned up on my doorstep with a laminated picture book of dilapidated roofs, to ‘show’ me that mine needed urgent repair.
But for now, I’m sold.
My AI PT asks many questions – my fitness goals, what exercise I like, what accessories I have and where I’d prefer to exercise (answers: tone up and gain muscle; HIIT, strength resistance and yoga; dumbbells and resistance bands; and at home). Reassuringly, it asks if I’m injured anywhere. I type in, ‘lower back’ and am told, ‘Your plan will improve your fitness while protecting these areas.’ I’m also informed that ‘Zing doesn’t guess. It relies on data and complex algorithms to personalise your perfect plan.’
I’m further enticed by the advertising which boasts ‘body composition scans’, so I can track how my body fat and lean mass change over time. It’s only when I’m halfway through sharing unflattering photos of myself in skin-tight activewear to the app that I realise there’s an extra charge for this – £19.99.
I grudgingly pay and receive reams of juicy analysis. I’m 13 per cent essential fat, 7.8 per cent beneficial fat and 79.2 per cent lean mass.
Essential fat is ‘stored fat essential for a well-functioning body. It’s found in your brain, bone marrow, nerves… it plays a major role in hormone regulation, vitamin absorption, and immune function.’ My total fat mass index is 4.1kg/m2. The healthy bracket is 5-9kg/m2, it tells me. I need to gain brawn and blubber.
My body scan – its data stored in the app’s ‘analytics’ option – is impressively exact, calculating that 50.7 kg is a healthy weight for me, which I know is correct. With the app’s help, I’m told, I can hit this weight-gain target sensibly over a year (a nice subscription fee, then.)
More wise advice from Zing: don’t do intermittent fasting, eat three meals a day. It jovially tells me that gaining 2.7kg of muscle mass equates to 146 strength workouts. And 9,229 eggs. Inspired, I make myself two scrambled eggs. Only 9227 to go!
Zing also calculates that my fuel intake (my basal metabolic rate multiplied by my activity level, plus healthy surplus) should total 2,030 calories daily. Fine, until I see that it’s recommending 177 grams of proteins daily – an absurdly high amount. Happily, I can address any queries to my AI PT. I click on ‘Coach’ for a chat.
He, she or it – he’s obviously a bot – thinks there’s been ‘a mix-up’, possibly ‘an error.’ The figure ‘seems unusually high.’ Zing Coach reckons that for muscle building, given my weight, I need about ‘58 to 96g’ of protein daily.
But such basic errors mean that my trust in the app wanes. I can look up half of this on Google. And here’s my biggest gripe. I perform brief exercises on camera to get an initial ‘Flexibility Score’ and ‘Fitness Score’ during which, as I say, my movements are indeed tracked. (Though unless one can argue that ‘87 per cent ’ flexibility for ‘shoulders’ means something, both endeavours are pointless.) Apart from this, there’s no ‘Live tracking’ training. None!
The app uses your smartphone camera to ‘track’ your body, showing how you perform squats, press-ups and running on the spot
Anna is told by the AI coach to ‘eat right to support weight loss progress’, shortly after being told she could benefit from gaining fat
My disappointment leads me to quit Zing for six months, before coming back to it this year to see if they’ve made improvements. Given all the crowing about ‘live viewing with Zing Vision technology’ I find it hard to believe that it still isn’t available and repeatedly check with my AI PT. It replies, ‘Zing Coach currently does not offer live-tracking of your movements or provide real-time feedback using computer vision technology.’
Meanwhile, I use the non-interactive workouts. Are they customised? Yes, in that I’ve asked for home-suitable weights-based workouts and that’s what’s provided. I can choose length and training type. If I complete a workout, it will ‘track’ my ‘muscle recovery’ – great, although giving exact percentages for my glutes’ and triceps’ recovery feels strangely random.
To call this ‘one-on-one coaching’ is a stretch. As for instant feedback, the AI ‘coach’ instantly replies to my questions like a good little soulless bot.
The exercise sessions I try are professional and challenging. The instructors silently perform the moves, with a voice-over. It feels robotic and I realise that I prefer my online instruction to feel fully human – think Yoga with Adriene, precise coaching plus friendly chat.
Zing’s guidance is decent but lacks granular detail – should I be tensing my core, feeling it in my abs, what? It would make more sense if the coach instructed you as you did your workout, rather than you having to request information from Zing Coach (now apparently called ‘Jennifer’) after it.
I’m not even charmed when Zing Coach asks ‘How is your back this morning?’ I sulkily reply ‘It hurts.’ Coach types. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Anna. It’s crucial to address this discomfort. Let’s focus on some gentle stretches and recovery exercises today… how about.. some cat-camel stretches and gentle yoga poses….’. Nice idea. I close the app, and book an appointment at that lovely-looking Pilates studio near me. Their expert tuition isn’t one-to-one but, thrillingly, it is from real people.
