AI vs real-life trainer

It’s Friday and I’m ready for a nice relaxing weekend for a nice break between conference weeks. It was a great week of work but there’s so much going on right now and a breather is going to be nice. Monday is a holiday, and I’ll have Colin solo while Sophia is working and I’m looking forward to a nice father-son day.

I did a free session with a trainer at my gym yesterday. I was reluctant but they offered to help me get some of my metrics like my VO2 max and body composition so I thought the data would help. I had worried that the session would be a bit useless and a waste of time/workout and unfortunately that ended up being true.

He was a nice kid who had a degree in this space, but ultimately, my Whoop AI “coach” was a lot more knowledgeable and helpful than a real life “coach” from my gym. Of course, it’s not one size fits all and I’m someone who has been working out consistently for the last 20+ years so I’m probably not in the target demographic.

With that said, it got me thinking on where this world is headed when all the knowledge is in our phones and accessible at any point. A real life trainer does add value in that they provide motivation, accountability, and in-person coaching in which AI may lack. Most trainers provide that of course.

I don’t think most trainers are going away anytime soon. Many people prefer in-person coaching and need that help. But like any other profession, perhaps the low level work in the job will start to go away and the ones that will actually make it and build a large client base needs to uplevel quickly. Unfortunately, the trainer I worked with still has some ways to go until I get real value out of it.