The AI fitness coach detects muscle movements while you work out and helps prevent beginner injuries.

      During the pandemic, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission noted a 48% increase in injuries related to at-home exercise. One might assume that poor equipment was at fault, but the real issue lay in improper technique, as many lacked a coach to correct them.

      Researchers from Drexel University and Michigan State University have developed a prototype that directly addresses this issue using your phone's camera in real-time, showing significant potential to evolve into a viable fitness app in the future (according to Tech Xplore).

      What is the system called and how does it function?

      The system, named BioCoach, was introduced at the Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition in June 2026. It leverages AI and live video (via a camera) to monitor your workouts, assess your body mechanics, and provide specific corrections based on biomechanics.

      To accomplish this, the system analyzes video through two parallel processes: the first employs a 3D convolutional neural network to capture your visual appearance and movement patterns, while the second reconstructs your skeleton in three dimensions, examining your joint angles, range of motion, and the current phase of your movement.

      Before delivering feedback, BioCoach pinpoints which joints are most engaged in the exercise you're doing. For example, if you are doing push-ups, it specifically tracks your shoulders, elbows, and wrists, offering tailored corrections.

      And unlike the generic advice of “keep your back straight” offered by most fitness apps, this prototype provides anatomically precise guidance such as “increase elbow flexion to 90 degrees at the bottom.”

      How does it compare to competitors?

      The research team trained BioCoach on Qualcomm’s Exercise Video Dataset, which includes over 200 re-annotated videos and more than 2,400 new notes, teaching BioCoach to explain not just what needs fixing but the reasons behind it.

      BioCoach has been tested against similar applications from Nvidia, ByteDance, Alibaba, Salesforce, OpenAI, and MIT, among others. It surpassed Stream-VLM, a program from MIT and Nvidia, in terms of text quality and correctness. It also displayed enhancements in anatomy-specific feedback accuracy.

      For the time being, the system remains a prototype, but the team is working on incorporating the ability to estimate joint reaction forces and muscle activation patterns based solely on a video feed.

      Supported by the National Science Foundation, I firmly believe that BioCoach could evolve into a groundbreaking smartphone app that provides personalized corrective measures, promotes proper form and posture, and helps prevent injuries while supporting sustainable workout routines, suitable for both indoor and outdoor environments.

      BioCoach is more sophisticated than most AI-driven fitness coaches currently on the market.

      For context, both Apple Fitness+ and Mirror offer video-based workout programs, but their feedback is pre-recorded, lacking the dynamic interaction that BioCoach provides.

      Peloton’s equipment features a Movement-Tracking Camera that counts repetitions and identifies issues but necessitates specific equipment like Bike+, Tread+, or Row+, and does not clarify the rationale behind its form corrections or their benefits.

      In a similar vein, Google’s Health Coach and Samsung Health assess biometric signals like heart rate and activity cadence for improvement suggestions, but they cannot observe your movements, thus failing to offer form guidance.

      In contrast, BioCoach stands out as the first system to integrate 3D skeletal reconstruction with a language model that elucidates the mechanical implications of each correction. If it eventually becomes available as a consumer app, which I genuinely hope for, it could deliver expert coaching to anyone equipped with a camera.