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Show HN: Weight Lifting Algorithm Based on 5M Workouts
- jakemor 7y agoFellow hackers, After collecting an insane amount of data with my app Lift Log, I decided to design an algorithm that optimizes for accelerated muscle growth over a short period of time. It currently outperform human trainers by 1-2x in the first 60 days of training, using a very simple algorithm. The opportunity to change how people, athletes, and soldiers train is huge. We're cashflow positive, raised a small seed, and are hiring data scientists & engineers in NYC to hack the human body for efficiency. Hope to answer any questions you may have!
- _Schizotypy 7y agoWhat's your evidence for this "outperforms human trainers" claim? I only see one single blog post and not much else on the website.
- jakemor 7y agoSorry for the confusion — website is still new. In analyzing people's percent change in total volume lifted over 60 days on FitnessAI vs users on Lift Log (a basic weightlifting journal app)
- tracer4201 7y agoIs the claim based on beating Lift Log alone or were there others as well. Assuming this was a scientific study, was there a paper published? I’m on mobile but didn’t see a link on your website. App looks pretty cool either way - will check it out.
- jdotjdot 7y agoThis looks exciting, but as other commenters noted, you need to provide more detail about the underlying data and ML strategy. There are many companies peddling both questionable "AI" and questionable "sure-to-work" training and fitness practices, and you sit in the intersection of both. Even if what you offer is real and truly works (and I hope it does!), you'll need to show a bit more to get people to trust you and invest their time in following FitnessAI's instructions.
- jakemor 7y agoNoted! Thanks so much for your input — I'll work on a post
- dyeje 7y agoWhat exactly does the algorithm optimize for? I see you mention muscle growth, but does this come at the expense of other factors such as preventing injuries?
- jakemor 7y ago% change in total volume lifted over time
- davidclark22 7y ago>> % change in total volume lifted over time How do you define volume? Total reps per workout? Total reps x total weight per workout?
- jakemor 7y agoreps x weight per exercise, as its directly correlated to the amount of work being done (since distance is constant).
- superpermutat0r 7y agoI can easily outperform your app on any client by assigning more sets per during the week, more tonnage, than the app. It's the fine line of not getting adapted to bunch of work in the beginning to enable long term gains. People should be doing the minimal necessary dosage of stimulus.
- eranation 7y agoIf a user has some constraints such as lack of some equipments or some movements they can’t do due to health reasons, do you guys handle it? It would be amazing if your algorithms can work around those constraints (if there are some exercises the user can’t do, offer an alternative based on what the user can do and what equipment they have access to). I didn’t see it in the app. Also I know that everyone does it, but the “free trial but we’ll charge you even if you don’t use the app and just forgot to cancel” is something that I really dislike. Maybe it’s an AppStore limitation but I rather do a trial and only pay if I actually use it, not if I forgot to cancel. Lastly, maybe it’s after the paywall, but not everyone knows what all the routine names mean, if I have to google it, it’s something I expect the app to include. (A diagram / video of how to do it the right way) Other than that, looks exciting and a really nice take on this topic.
- jakemor 7y agoHey! Message me in app for a free month :) You can modify the routine but not based on available equipment and we have full step by step instructions along with videos for each exercise Regarding the subscription thing — that's an app store limitation
- Stunting 7y agoI'm all here for better lifting apps, but I have lots of questions. How do you qualify the "trainers," that your algorithm outperformed? Most basic strength and conditioning books will outperform the average chain gym trainer. How many of your the trainers in your sample size were Strength and Conditioning Coaches at reputable performance gyms? Would any qualify under the following statement from the National Strength and Conditioning Association's Website: "The proper education consists of an undergraduate degree in an exercise science-related field. Such a degree is imperative because it forms the foundation of knowledge that underpins the profession. An exercise science-related degree affords the capability to practice an evidence-based approach to strength and conditioning." What are your results for longer than 60 days? Do you continue to outperform human trainers at the 1 yr and 5 yr marks? For those that are uninitiated, 60 days is a incredibly short time in the world of Strength and Conditioning. Doing almost anything differently that your normal routine, consistently, over 3 months will yield positive results before plateaus set in. How are you quantifying your results? Are you raising the 1 rep maxes of your athletes 1-2x than more than Human Trainer? Their 10 rep max? Their max broad jump? Their 40 yard dash? Their 1 mile time? Their muscle mass? Lowering their Body fat percentage? I want this to work. I crave a simple logging app that will allow me to enter a variety of exercises and an AI that would help with programming would be huge. I would be willing to you pay your subscription of $8 a month if it were true.
- jakemor 7y ago>> How do you qualify the "trainers," that your algorithm outperformed? Most basic strength and conditioning books will outperform the average chain gym trainer. Trainers use Lift Log to keep track of their clients workouts during training sessions. They were identified and their data was compared >> How many of your the trainers in your sample size were Strength and Conditioning Coaches at reputable performance gyms? Would any qualify under the following statement from the National Strength and Conditioning Association's Website: "The proper education consists of an undergraduate degree in an exercise science-related field. Such a degree is imperative because it forms the foundation of knowledge that underpins the profession. An exercise science-related degree affords the capability to practice an evidence-based approach to strength and conditioning." Not sure! but they worked at or owned their own gyms so I'm sure they are certified. Only trainers who trained using the same exercises as FitnessAI were compared >> What are your results for longer than 60 days? Do you continue to outperform human trainers at the 1 yr and 5 yr marks? For those that are uninitiated, 60 days is a incredibly short time in the world of Strength and Conditioning. Doing almost anything differently that your normal routine, consistently, over 3 months will yield positive results before plateaus set in. I'm not sure! We've only been around for a few months so it's hard to say. That said, we have the data and users to optimize for this once users begin to plateau >> How are you quantifying your results? Are you raising the 1 rep maxes of your athletes 1-2x than more than Human Trainer? Their 10 rep max? Their max broad jump? Their 40 yard dash? Their 1 mile time? Their muscle mass? Lowering their Body fat percentage? % change in total volume lifter >> I want this to work. I crave a simple logging app that will allow me to enter a variety of exercises and an AI that would help with programming would be huge. I would be willing to you pay your subscription of $8 a month if it were true. try it out! And message me in app for a free 30 days
- halbritt 7y agoI can outperform 90% of human trainers as well in the first 60 days of training as most human trainers are clueless and the novice effect is real. Do any compound movement with as much weight as you can manage for a set of 5. Do a couple more sets. Add 10 pounds to the bar every subsequent workout until failure. Then add 5 pounds to the bar every workout subsequent to that. That'll get most healthy young people through the first 8 weeks of training. Train two or three times a week and you'll add 80-100 pounds to every lift. The caveat being that small people will run out of linear gains in their upper body during that time.
- jakemor 7y ago>> Do any compound movement with as much weight as you can manage for a set of 5. Do a couple more sets. Add 10 pounds to the bar every subsequent workout until failure. Then add 5 pounds to the bar every workout subsequent to that. The app basically does this very systematically. Give it a shot! It's simple and effective
- halbritt 7y agoSure, so is the program I described. No app required. One can just use a piece of paper to log workouts. What's missing is how well your app works with people that are reasonably well-adapted?
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y ago60 days isn't long enough to evaluate program performance; that's about the length of one mesocycle and thus it is not sufficient for evaluating how that performance carries forward. E.g. you could compare a peaking cycle to a volume cycle and falsely conclude that the peaking cycle is strictly better for strength gains. However, peaking is not sustainable and only provides temporary adaptations. You're also analyzing increases in volume, whereas most people will be interested in increasing 1RM strength. Volume is obviously a key component of this, but volume as a metric is also tricky. The number of challenging sets is likely a better indicator of training stress and a driver of muscle growth. https://www.strongerbyscience.com/can-we-predict-muscle-growth/ https://www.strongerbyscience.com/can-we-predict-muscle-grow... For instance, it's trivial to increase total volume by performing high reps of a light weight over a long period of time. I can spend all day lifting 35% of my 1RM, accumulate astronomical volume, but see little to no training benefit. I also take issue with your claim that your algorithm 'optimizes for accelerated muscle growth', yet it does not appear you have measured muscle growth at all. It's an absurd claim to make; you've optimized for a setsXrepsXweight volume metric. This is perhaps a semantic issue, but deceptive nonetheless. ______ I imagine that the app results in reasonable programming, and it may even be effective, but you have a long way to go before claiming any kind of empirical validation.
- jayess 7y agoAndroid version? I'd love to use this.
- jakemor 7y agoTop priority — if rev stays steady and we can afford it absolutely!
- BenMorganIO 7y agoAlso an android user, also interested :)
- z5h 7y agoYou want my phone number AND "This app does use third party services that may collect information used to identify you." I'm not so comfortable with that. Can you tell us more?
- shapiro92 7y agois there ANY science behind this? did you take into account weight, height, weather, diet, mood, sleep time, gender, prior experience, age, stress levels, drug consumption, proteins... I could go on..
- jakemor 7y agoHey! Its a pretty naive algorithm that tries to increment your weight lifting goals similarly to how the best of the best did in the dataset.
- amelius 7y agoAlso, how big is the improvement? If it's only 1-10% better than doing a random program, then perhaps it's not really worth the trouble. However, if it's 25+ percent more effective, then we're talking. (Of course, for professional bodybuilders the decision may be at a different point)
- nolite 7y agoHow did you get 6,000,000 workout datasets from 30,000 people?
- smn1234 7y agoI'm not entirely sold. Fitness magazines assert they can get me bigger, faster in every month's issue. It's a big industry. Perhaps you can post a bit more on the Blog to establish credibility.
- jakemor 7y agoMessage me I'll give you a free month :) Working on blog posts too
- aksels 7y agomy 2c: The default value for "weight" in onboarding seems to be 120kg. I'm pretty sure you can set it to 75kg[1] to avoid a lot of scrolling in the onboarding. However good job ! [1] average: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body_weight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body_weight
- jakemor 7y agoThank you!!! It's actually set to 120 for both kg and lbs — my bad!
- rlander 7y agoThis seems targeted at bodybuilding (at least the landing page screenshots are). If this really works, it would be interesting to see how the algorithm fares in competitive sports like olympic weightlifting and triathlon.
- jppope 7y agoSeems odd that they are only supporting IOS. Additionally, who knows if they got it right without supplying any supplementary documentation...
- superpie 7y agoNot a fan of the predatory "Sign up for a 7 day free trial, and if you forget to cancel we'll bill you $60 for the year membership" system. It's also a week trial, but the AI takes 8 workouts to learn -- not great for a comprehensive demo at all.
- jakemor 7y agoSorry! message me in app I'll give you a free month (stands for anyone from HN)
- komali2 7y agoOk cool but... Why not just not do that? Is the one month of revenue from people who forget to cancel, then cancel and are pissed about it, Worth it?
- jakemor 7y agoNot really — since I'm spending money on ads on day 1 I need to make the money back ASAP to reinvest in ads. Since traffic from HN is essentially free I have no problem with an extended trial period :)
- komali2 7y agoWait, now I'm confused - to clarify, I'm asking, "is it worth it to engage in shadow marketing (a free trial that converts automatically to a paid one)" and you've answered "not really." As in, "it's not worth it to do this." But you're doing it anyway?
- jakemor 7y agoSorry! I'm trying to keep up with all the comments and have been responding hastily. It's fair game in my book to use the tools Apple provides us as developers to monetize our apps. Other apps offering subscriptions do so in the same way... it's why Apple provides us the ability to even offer free trials. I'm sorry you disagree, but this is common business practice.
- ds0 7y agoI'm wondering if there's a parallel for nutrition. I'm a pretty poor eater, as it stands.
- deagle50 7y agoTheir blog post says not to rest for more than 90 seconds between sets. I can see why the app would work better with tight groupings but 90s is not enough max gains and recovery, especially for beginners.
- jakemor 7y agoConsistency trumps all! (according to the data)
- komali2 7y ago90s Jesus fuck I'd die. 2:30 minimum for me, usually more like 3:00.
- halbritt 7y agoIf you're doing heavy compound lifts like squat and deadlift, and you care about developing strength, then take as much time as you need to succeed on the next set.
- swat535 7y agoon higher weights sometimes i wait a full 5 minutes. from my experience resting more ensures you complete all your sets and reps which are the most important things based on my experience. at a minimum i wait until my heart rate slows down. i haven't noticed any additional gains for shorter weight times.
- Afton 7y agoBeginners in the first month or two are mostly just learning the motions. 90s rest is fine. Once you're a few months in, and you've progressed all the weights significantly from your untrained starting point, then 90s seems like a crazy short amount of time.
- deagle50 7y ago"The men who took longer rest periods experienced a 152% increase in MPS in the early part of recovery compared to the men who took short-rest intervals who only saw a 76% increase. That’s a two-fold difference." https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/perfect-amount-rest-between-lifting-sets-maximize-muscle/ https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/perfect-amount-re... Why would you deprive a beginner of these benefits?
- HAL9000Ti 7y agoUh. too bad I don't own a phone
- insickness 7y agoEven for a single exercise, there are a lot of different variables: weight, number of sets, number of reps, recovery time between sets, recovery time between workouts, etc. Were all of these variables adjusted and taken into account or were some of them held constant?
- bewatson 7y agoI agree, and just as important as weight/reps and number is the speed of reps. Muscle growth comes from the amount of time the muscles are being utilized under weight. If someone cranks out 10 bench press reps quickly, that will have vastly different results than a 3110 lift. (3 seconds up, 1 second hold, 1 second down)
- jakemor 7y agoWeight, number of sets, reps and recovery time were all taken into account, although they weren't necessarily constant. You can devise a relationship between someone's 1 rep - 12 rep max and adjust for it, check out epleys formula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-repetition_maximum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-repetition_maximum
- brandonmenc 7y agoI see you have a post-set rating for difficulty but "reps in reserve" is also a common assessment - any plans to add it?
- jakemor 7y agoYes in due time!
- Stunting 7y agoJakemor, I noticed you haven’t responded to anybody asking you more than a generic question about your methodology. Here’s what it looks like you did; Made a weight lifting logging app and charged a monthly subscription for it. Used your users data to create an algorithm that culled the routine of your best performers, most likely defined by heaviest weight lifted. Claimed that by following your algorithm your users could 2x the results of trainers; trainers here is defined as “people who train,” And not “people who are paid to train others.” Cited 60 days as a window of success. All of this, if it is as it appears, is massively misleading in an industry already known for snake oil. Have you compensated for your users that had big numbers but approached it in an unhealthy way? For instance, how many of your user’s deadlift high numbers resulted in a hernias? Additionally you say you have engineers and scientists working on hacking human performance. What about strength and conditioning coaches? What about athletes?
- throwaway2019X 7y ago>> Additionally you say you have engineers and scientists working on hacking human performance. In this post, he says he's a 1 man shop. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19635573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19635573
- jakemor 7y agoI said I'm looking to hire scientists and engineers
- jakemor 7y agoHey sorry to seem misleading — that isn't my intention. I created an algorithm that trains you based on how top performers on Lift Log train themselves. Top performers = highest percent change in total volume lifted from day 1. Sure, 60 days isn't a ton of data, but it is enough to show a difference. Most people don't train properly and don't increase the difficulty of their exercises between workouts — following FitnessAI's algorithm (although it is incredibly naive) does indeed result in the performance boosts claimed. Try it out! Regarding comparing to trainers — these are real trainers. I identified many trainers using lift log (on their clients phone) to keep track of training sessions.
- pushcx 7y ago> FitnessAI is so simple your grandma can use it. This is a terrible cliche. (More: https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/So_simple,_your_mother_could_do_it https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/So_simple,_your_mother_c...) How about something like: * Your lifts should be hard, your tracking should be effortless. Record your set with a single tap and spend your rest recovering for the next (...or taking selfies, we don't judge). This tells people exactly what the value is and tells the that the user that they deserve FitnessAI.
- jakemor 7y agoWhen you're right, you're right! Thanks for the rec. I've updated the site :)
- ksaj 7y agoGood call for both of you. I'd be afraid to insult this grandma's intelligence when it comes to working out: https://www.facebook.com/uniladmag/videos/72-year-old-woman-has-amazing-workout-routine/325202101435740/ https://www.facebook.com/uniladmag/videos/72-year-old-woman-... PS: Sorry for Facebook and sorry for really awful music. Hit mute first.
- papermachete 7y agoAwesome! Where's the source code?
- agentdrtran 7y agoThis is complete snake oil.
- perrohunter 7y agoI came to the comments expecting a lot skeptics and was nos let down. Guys give this a try, I fit the usual software engineer physical stereotype and would like to gain some muscle but I don’t invest that much on PT as i should. IMO, Give this a try jakemor said in the comments he’ll give a free month to anyone on HN
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- Stunting 7y agoHey bud. Instead of sending $8 a month to have information that is already accessible to you regurgitated to you with pretty UI try this instead... Do you walk? If you don't, start there. A study of sedentary, overweight men and women (aged 40 to 65 years) showed they lost body fat and weight when they walked or ran 12 miles a week during an 8-month study, without changing their diet. A control group of non-exercisers all gained weight and fat during the 8-month study." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/216495 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... Do you sit at a desk a lot? You probably have poor posture associated with it. Do any yoga, at all. Literally any program. Here's one from my favorite online yogi - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAUf7aajBWE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAUf7aajBWE Do you want to lift weights? For $8, one time, you can order Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. - https://www.amazon.com/Starting-Strength-Basic-Barbell-Training/dp/0982522738 https://www.amazon.com/Starting-Strength-Basic-Barbell-Train... This book will teach you how to lift the weights, as well as how to program the lifts, which is twice as much as this app is claiming to do. At 1/12th the price for the first year, 1/24th the second, and 1/36th the third, etc..
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y agoAnyone that puts reasonable effort into a reasonable program will see great results. Definitely give something a try, but I see no compelling reason to pay for this when there are a variety of high-quality free programs out there. The importance of 'fitness programming' per se is massively inflated online; you'll absolutely need some structure to achieve high performance, but 'the usual software engineer physical stereotype' basically can't help but make progress if they're actually doing physical activity. You could do some of the most bone-headed things imaginable and you wouldn't be wasting your time. If you're looking for tracking apps or something to do the 'thinking' for you, there are literally dozens of good options.
- shawnvo 7y agoThere seems to be a lot of shade here and I wanted to offer a different perspective. I've strength training for over 10 years and aside from the basics like nutrition, rest, form, etc... one of the most valuable tools I use are progression spreadsheets like this one: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VYNuMhonQw1SOKO_7IbGubON1KxCgCUVxRtef0gQgCM/edit https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VYNuMhonQw1SOKO_7IbG... The main value is that it not only tells you what exercises to do, but also how much more to lift each day to ensure steady growth. They are designed by well-informed people with a lot of experience in the field. However, there are some major flaws (e.g Most are just linear increases, they don't handle plateaus/failures well, they aren't personalized, exercises don't change, and the UI is pretty bad). There's a lot of potential in something like fitnessai to address these issues. Obviously, it's not going to do everything for you and won't replace your own research and experimentation, but I can see it being super valuable as a tool in the gym. @jakemor the app looks dope. Listen to your customers and keep building it out. The majority of HN may not your ideal customer but don't let that deter you.
- sawmurai 7y agoI think this will not work unless things like individual training experience, proper form execution and diet are taken into account. I also think that people are pretty stupid and you will earn a lot of money from it.
- ken 7y agoIn various places on the webpage, it brags about the design, and how you can do things with "only a few taps". That'd be great, but the first screenshot shows how I have to "Speak to FitnessAI". Do I really have to have an ELIZA-style chat, and spell out the muscle groups I want to work out today? This just looks lazy. A pseudo-English command line is a terrible design for this. You have the official "Download on the App Store" badge, but it links to a web form that requests my phone number. That's not an acceptable use of Apple's badge, according to their rules on the webpage you downloaded it from. Using algorithms to optimize my workouts sounds like a good idea in principle, but I see no proof that it works as advertised, and everything else about this app is mildly distasteful.
- jakemor 7y agoYou're only hit with the chat during sign up, after that it's optional. Beginners like the feature. The download badge links directly to the App Store on iOS; on desktop it lets you send yourself a text with the download link, which is standard behavior for Branch links. Alternatively you can just search FitnessAI in the App Store I'd suggest giving it a shot before drawing any conclusions. Message me for a free 30 days :)
- codesternews 7y agowill someone provide link to app? It's really bad to collect the phone no instead you can ask for emails.
- jakemor 7y agoHere you go! If you visit the site on mobile it links directly. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fitness-ai-weight-lifting-plan/id1446224156?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fitness-ai-weight-lifting-pl...
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