Statistically speaking, most people will abandon their new year resolutions by this Thursday.¹ And when it comes to fitness, the reasons vary from budget to personal preference to time. 

Today, many are turning to at-home workouts, but report drawbacks such as lack of instructor feedback, accountability and a motivating environment.²

As engineers of human progress, these are the challenges we love to tackle with our collaboration partners. With the excitement of the new year and fitness on our mind, I sat down for a fireside chat with Qualcomm Technologies’ Senior Engineer, Rogue Fong and Garrett Marshall, President of Xponential+ at Xponential Fitness to talk about the future of fitness and how XR technologies can help us keep our fitness resolutions. 

What is immersive fitness? How does XR fitness work? And do the latest augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and virtual reality (VR) fitness offerings in 2024 really improve your experience? Let’s see what our experts have to say.

Hugo Swart (HS): First, happy new year, Rogue and Garrett. You would not be surprised that Americans’ top number one resolution is to exercise more. But by mid-January, most of us ditch our resolution. On that note: Garrett, what macro fitness trends have you been observing lately at Xponential?

Garrett Marshall (GM): Our mission is to make boutique fitness more accessible to consumers everywhere.  

Historically, time, cost and proximity have been significant constraints to growth. 

And one obvious antidote to those constraints is digital fitness, because it can be done on demand, any time, at a lower cost, anytime you want.

HS: So, efficiency is a need from businesses and fitness studios. What about consumer demands?

GM: Today in a post-COVID era, consumers care about their wellness more than ever before, but it's also a very different environment.  

Consumers are eating from many plates for their fitness needs, and the paradigm of what wellness means has broadened for many consumers. 

One statistic^3,4 that many people find interesting is that there are more frequent exercisers… people who exercise three times or more per week for 30 minutes or more… that do not belong to any gym or studio, than the number of frequent exercisers that do belong to gyms and studios.

That is not due to an erosion of market share for gyms and studios, but just an increase in total participation in fitness.

HS: The demand for digital, on-the-go fitness experiences is clearly there. Why is immersive fitness appealing to consumers? 

GM: Our digital fitness experiences and products allow us to reach further and wider to engage with new consumers who haven't had the opportunity to experience our brands. 

However, for all the efficiencies that are provided with digital fitness, what the consumer gives up in return is experience. 

Immersive fitness experiences are extremely appealing because they provide these efficiencies of digital fitness, while also allowing us to recapture some of the experience that's lost by not being in a physical studio. 

HS: Rogue, I know you love spending time at the gym, and you are passionate about immersive technology. Can you tell us more about how you make both of these worlds meet? 

Rogue Fong (RF): Of course. Immersive technology, alongside on-device artificial intelligence (AI), has the potential to add so many new and exciting dimensions to the fitness experience, especially in the realm of on-the-go or home workouts.

First, immersive technology has the power of making digital fitness “spatial.” This means, when you cannot or do not want to attend an in-person class, you can view your instructor in your space instead of following instructions on your smartphone.

Coupled with AI, immersive fitness experiences can provide more personalized experiences. For example, I could get tailored feedback on my form while doing say, a squat, from my body’s pose data.

This is exactly what we were trying to explore in elevating how we think about smart fitness as we know it today when we worked with the XR fitness app developer Litesport who, along with ASENSEI AI, delivered this concept.

HS: Can you tell me more about this demo developed by Litesport, ASENSEI using Snapdragon Spaces technology?  

RF: Sure! Litesport — a leader in VR and MR fitness experiences — collaborated with Qualcomm Technologies to create an AI-based fitness routine built on the Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform and with the newly announced Snapdragon Seamless experience to showcase a cross-device experience at Snapdragon Summit.

HS: Looks like there are many devices involved here: a smartphone, glasses, a smartwatch. How does this all work together?  

RF: For sure, there’s a lot going on. Here's how it works: the augmented reality elements of the experience were built using Snapdragon Spaces. There’s AI-generated body pose data using the camera from our reference smartphone, which is part of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile platform. Then there’s biometric data from the smartwatch, which is powered by the Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 Wearable Platform. And Snapdragon Seamless seamlessly ties together all these elements, resulting in the participants engaging in this real-time, immersive fitness experience in AR, which is also completely untethered because of the wireless smart glasses powered by Snapdragon AR2.

At the end of the day, all the tech comes together to provide you with this experience where you get customized feedback that can really help motivate you to achieve your fitness goals.

HS: This is amazing. Now, this is only an example of what AR fitness can look like. There are many experiences that exist in MR and VR, on Quest 2 and Quest 3 thanks to Xponential Fitness and Litesport.

GM: We're really, really excited about this.  

The upgraded capabilities of the new Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 — in particular, the full-color pass-through, spatial anchoring and natural depth perception, are critical technologies for supporting any of our fitness modalities.

Mixed reality enables users to experience an immersive fitness experience while still being able to interact with physical fitness equipment like a bike or a treadmill or a rower to smaller accessories like a dumbbell or a yoga block or bands.

These new technologies are absolutely critical to not only being safe but having an optimal user experience. 

I think it's very likely in the future that as these technologies evolve, we're going to exceed what's possible in a purely physical environment.

The AI, MR and AR technologies being developed by Qualcomm Technologies have an unprecedented ability to enable our customers accelerate fitness outcomes for consumers.

In the future, I believe we'll look back at these purely physical, let's say analog experiences, and we'll consider them extremely archaic. 

HS: Well, thank you Rogue and Garrett, for showing us how immersive technology revolutionizes the VR fitness experience. We’re passionate about engineering human progress and this does that by surpassing the traditional physical experience. The future of fitness is here, and it's immersive.

References

1. Poon, L. (January 16, 2019). The Rise and Fall of New Year’s Fitness Resolutions, in 5 Charts. Bloomberg. Retrieved on November 29, 2023 from: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-16/here-s-how-quickly-people-ditch-weight-loss-resolutions.

2. Lee, J. (August 3, 2021). The Best New Ways to Work Out at Home. Consumer Reports. Retrieved on November 29, 2023 from: https://www.consumerreports.org/exercise-fitness/best-new-ways-to-work-out-at-home/.

3. IHRSA Staff. (June 20, 2022) U.S. Health Club Membership Reaches Over 66 Million Americans. IHRSA The Global Health & Fitness Association. Retrieved on November 29, 203 from: https://www.ihrsa.org/about/media-center/press-releases/u-s-health-club-membership-reaches-over-66-million-americans/

4. Poll. GALLUP DAILY: FREQUENT EXERCISE. Gallup. Retrieved on November 29, 2023 from: https://news.gallup.com/poll/182252/gallup-daily-frequent-exercise.aspx