Cult.fit case study | Rishita Mukherjee

Cult.fit smart workout plan - case study

Cult fit is a fitness company launched in 2016 and aims to bring fitness as an easy resource. It currently has a count of more than 1 lakh active members. It's a great initiative for the Indian market as the price point they have works well for most of their target group which ranges from 16 - 50 years. It has different formats of workouts such as yoga, dance fitness, gym, strength and conditioning, etc.

This case study outlines my journey on their gym feature 'smart workout plan' and I will talk through what works and can be improved for this feature based on my experience.

What does smart workout plan really do?

Smart workout plan as the name suggests is a gym exercise planner that also acts as a virtual personal trainer. You can customise the plan based on how many days a week you want to work out or even the kind of exercises and level you want to set. Here are the main steps that is involved to get through the feature.

Collects basic information about your age, weight, height and what is your fitness goal.
Starts recommending exercises divided into a warm-up, core exercises, and cool-down.
Has a calendar where this gets split into - you can choose whether you want to focus each muscle/day or even into the upper body/lower body or even push/pull.
You can view how to do the exercise (video tutorial) and the number of reps one needs to do. It also runs a timer to keep the user involved.
Once all the exercise is completed, you can log the summary of the exercise and rate your workout.

A wonderful first impression

Even before going to the gym on the first day, I had mentally made notes on what kind of exercises to do, what each machine does, and the names of them only to reach and get super confused and intimidated as everyone seemed to know what they are doing and looks at ease.

I somehow managed to do the bare minimum for Day 1 and then came back home and started browsing the Cult app to book the slot for the next day. It was then that I discovered this feature 'smart workout plan'. I answered a few questions and was hoping that it would be helpful for my Day 2 and closed the app.

On Day 2, I was determined to do some good workouts. I had not explored the app yet. After checking in to the gym, I opened the app and it suggested I train my legs that day. On day 3 - chest, day 4 - shoulders, day 5 - back, and so on. As a beginner, I almost knew nothing, I continued exploring the app's suggested workouts, and here are a few things that I loved from my first few weeks.

Reducing anxiety and creating awareness as a beginner

As a beginner when you head to the gym, that one feeling that constantly revolves around you is that everyone is watching, and you look clueless.

The smart workout plan solves the second issue here by giving sequence exercises. One can blindly follow every exercise and know what to do in case they are hesitant to go to the trainer for information. Not only this, the sequence helps bring mobility to the muscles before you start working on them which otherwise would need a lot of YouTube sessions.

It also goes further and educates you on the benefits of the exercise and what muscle it is targeting. This is immensely helpful as you can focus on the movement. With its video tutorials playing alongside, referring to the posture becomes easier to follow.

Tracking and customising exercises for daily check-ins

One thing about working out in the gym and seeing results is consistency.

The logs of this feature make sure you know what have you been doing in the previous days. They also constantly remind you to work out (the notification messaging is quite impressive).

Within this feature, before or while doing the exercise, you can also replace an exercise with an easier or a harder one. This is helpful when your energy levels differ within days.

Once the workout is done, you are asked to enter the number of sets and weights that you used for the exercise - this as such is not used anywhere else other than logging.

Does the AI personal trainer help?

I observed patterns of my behavior over 3 months including the updates that the app's feature was giving me and here are my observations.

Things that worked well

Upgrading exercises

With the AI model, the feature is able to suggest upgrades to the exercises after every 4 weeks. The suggestions made aren't very drastic and comes with labels hence easier to follow through.

Summarising workouts

Even if you are not logging details and still submitting the feedback that you have completed the exercise. It still gives an advantage as when you are trying to see what you focused on throughout the week, it becomes a trigger to workout further and concentrate on the areas that were left out.

Session personalisation

You can always go back and change the days you want to workout within the week or if your goal has changed, you can also update your fitness level and the plan adapts to these preferences without creating drastic changes.

Identifying opportunities

With the above observations, here are some of my learnings and opportunities that could elevate the current issues.

Offline mode for day-wise workout

With offline mode, people do not have to wait for the app to open and can access the content easily. This would also be helpful when the battery levels are lower.

Challenge associated - Downloading videos locally on a device might be a technical challenge which is also a key area.

AI enabled posture corrections

With technological advancements, it is now easier to identify body movements through a camera. One could select the workout they wish to do and keep the phone away to capture the body movements. The camera can record and playback with suggested corrections.

Challenge associated - This is an expensive operation and hence can be available on a pro-level basis.

Step wise feedback/inputs than overall one

With observation, it was seen that most of the people don't follow the schedule. They take references from the plan and continue to go ahead with it by themselves. An intervention here could be helpful by asking what weight they had used or how they felt about the workout without distracting them. This could be later used to have more retention on the feature than just a reference point.

In conclusion

As more and more generations are moving towards a health-conscious society, it's great to see technology involved in such everyday use cases. AI and different machine learning models can shift how the tech-fitness apps currently work.

With my experience with the cult.fit's 'smart workout plan' my workouts have certainly become better. I also have learned the names of the exercises which I previously was unaware of, I understand how the muscles get targeted which is quite valuable as it makes you appreciate your workouts better.

It's not that I didn't ask the floor trainer to assist me in a few exercises or watch my form. But the frequency of me doing that with the absence of this feature would have been much more. The awareness of health and fitness is certainly addressed well with this feature which I feel is one of their KPIs and is strongly brought out.