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Sep 511 min read

The New Landscapes of Fitness

Updated: Sep 25



In this episode, originally recorded in February, we explore how technology and environmental changes are reshaping the world of fitness and sports. We learn about groundbreaking AI applications like SwingVision, which transforms smartphones into personal tennis coaches. We discuss the challenges ski resorts face from climate change and their innovative responses. We also spotlight wearable robots that promise enhanced mobility and independence. Join us as we navigate these new landscapes of physical activity, where technology, environment, and human movement intersect in surprising ways.





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Episode Transcript:

Lana: Welcome to Signal Shift, by Horizon Shift Lab. We're your hosts, Lana Price, Raakhee Natha, and Sue Chi. Each episode, we explore the latest signals in technology, culture, and society, uncovering insights that will impact our daily lives in the future. Join us as we shift perspectives, explore possibilities, and delve into real changes in our world. Curious to learn more? Go to horizonshiftlab.com.


Hi friends, unfortunately we couldn’t record a new episode this week, so please enjoy this gem from the archives, an unreleased recording from February about the future of fitness and movement. 


I'm Lana Price, joined by my very insightful co-hosts, Raakhee Natha and Sue Chi. So today we're particularly excited to discuss the future of fitness and movement.


Sue: Yeah, I was really excited for this topic. There are so many different ways to go, but I figured--why don't I take a look at the current hobby that I have, which is trying to become a better tennis

player. And I wound up finding a signal just from late last year that there are actually several companies that are based on AI that can become your AI tennis coach just by using your smartphone.


And so there's one in particular I found; it's a company called SwingVision, and it's been backed by some former tennis pros like Andy Roddick, James Blake, and Lindsay Davenport. Basically, it takes your smartphone, you record yourself, and it gives you live analysis of your playing. So it does kind of technique on what you're doing wrong and you could track your footwork, your posture, it can track how your wrist is moving. I mean, these small movements, and then it says in the future it can actually do strategy as well which is fascinating.


And so, I was just thinking tennis is a pretty expensive sport when you think about all the equipment, thinking about your coaching, all that stuff, and if this is one way you can potentially make tennis a little bit more accessible, that would be really cool. I mean, I already know to begin with, it's kind of like finding a good teacher, right? If they're located somewhere else, you might actually do something over FaceTime or Zoom. Then you bring them to a court, kind of, and they can show you what you're doing wrong or send them a recording so they can analyze that--this just takes the AI of it and kind of multiplies it. So I just thought it was really interesting. 


It goes along the long evolution of how technology has just fundamentally changed fitness and sports in so many ways. Even thinking about when I was growing up, like wooden tennis rackets, and now they're made of so many different materials and different kinds of shapes and the string tension and all this stuff that makes you a better player. So it got me really excited to see what the future could bring for sport and just another nod to how tech can be used for really good things.


Lana: Love it, love that connection to your own hobby, too. What about you, Raakhee?

[3:15]


Raakhee: Mine is an interesting one, a different one, but also yeah, it kind of sparked from here: I was in Canada in December with my family, and my cousins were all distressed because the kids couldn’t go to ski camp due to the delay with the snow, and there's no snow in the mountains.


And yeah, I guess that's where it got me thinking about this and so when I look it up now, basically what we're looking at is that the snow season, particularly last year, 2023, was shortened by about 30 days, at the top and the bottom. It's a whole month lost, right? That's a trend of what is to be and what is to come because of the effect of climate and global warming and basically, it looks like there's going to be an impact, there's no doubt about it. If we hit the sort of two degrees (Celsius) above pre-industrial levels, you're looking at about 50% of the resorts in the world having scarce snow coverage. I don't know how you even operate, and if we go to about four, it's about over 90%, I think it was close to 98%, of the ski resorts would have scarce snow coverage, which you can't really ski with that. And so, is skiing going to be an ancient sport in the future, a sport of ancient times? Right, so fascinating, and yeah, I think that particular form of movement, it’s going to be very interesting to think about what the future of that is, but it's certainly not a positive outlook by any means for skiing as we know it traditionally.


There are things that they do, like adding artificial snow to the grounds; it helps a bit, but it's definitely not the solution. There come some ski resorts that have put things like blankets to refract the sunlight. But again, these are short-term solutions; they do little things like that, but it doesn't help. What I find interesting is things like Dubai Mall, which has this indoor completely artificial ski slope, and I'm like, maybe that's what kids in the future will know as skiing. So I think to that and the AR/VR stuff when you go to an indoor place, you are like on a treadmill and you're doing sort of artificial skiing. I think that's what the sport may be in the future, maybe the few elites who can afford to go to those one or two resorts where there might be snow at all; it'll be that.


Sue: That's so nuts. And if you think about it, right now, the resorts that are trying to make artificial snow—so many of them are generated by these diesel machines that continue to spew additional emissions into the air, which isn't helping. I mean, I heard that there are some now trying to have carbon-neutral ways of generating artificial snow, but I thought that was interesting. Yeah, Raakhee, I was also thinking—does this just make skiing a sport of the ultra-wealthy who are going to be able to continue to afford that tiny slice of a mountain that you can still get your hands on? It also just made me wonder, like Shaun White, the Olympic snowboarder who has always done skateboarding as well, and it just made me wonder if there is something transferable from skiing to something that's equally as thrilling, that uses the same skills, and a slope that you would need a mountain course for, so I'm just curious.


Raakhee: I think you're thinking along the right path because that's what many of them are doing. How do we become summer sports venues, with activities like mountain biking or even just hiking and those sorts of things? As you know, the mountains will still be there; there just won't be snow. So yeah, I guess the Winter Olympics will also become a thing of the past.


Lana: Yeah, I live in a mountain city, so that really resonates because this week it was particularly warm; it even got into the 60s. I don't ski or snowboard, so I actually kind of liked it, but people were sad—visibly depressed—because this is what they look forward to: going skiing and snowboarding. So yeah, it's very palpable actually. The economy goes even beyond the resorts; the whole infrastructure of a local economy can be impacted.


Yeah, I guess I am glad we all took a little bit of a different approach. That makes it really fun.

[8:05]


I was really inspired by my neighbors. Shout out to Lucio and Beverley; they're an older couple and they walk everywhere. They do all of their errands by foot. Sometimes they walk up to nine miles a day. So, it's really a big part of their lifestyle, and I was thinking about the future of walking and mobility, especially as we age.


And so I found two really encouraging signals. They're both related to—it's called wearable robots—but it's essentially like an exoskeleton, or it looks actually more like a brace that is robotic. So it's like a powered brace that you wear.


And so, one that was developed out of Harvard, a joint effort between Harvard and Boston University, was a wearable robot for folks who have Parkinson's. With Parkinson's, which is essentially a brain disease, it can limit your movement. One of the big symptoms of Parkinson's is called 'freezing,' and it's when you're walking and your feet just lose control, and you can suddenly stop moving even mid-stride. It's a leading cause of falls, and obviously, a big detriment to one’s life if you don't have control of your feet while you're trying to walk. And so, this wearable robot basically enabled the patients; it totally eliminated the freezing. Like, they could wear it, and then when they started to freeze, the robot would push their stride. Especially for this case in walking indoors, they were able to walk again.


And so, super encouraging, and if you think about what this does, not only for someone's mobility but also their mental health and well-being and independence, it's a positive virtuous cycle.


And in another case, which is out of Korea, was a very light wearable robot called the Omni, I think they named it the MOONWALK-Omni. And so, this was for folks to enable their mobility outdoors, and so they had senior citizens wear this robot brace, and they hiked up this extremely challenging mountain. I've actually done this hike before; it's called the Yeongbong Peak and it's on Bukhansan, and it is an insane hike. I'm a perfectly mobile person, and it was very, very strenuous. I was reading some reviews of it. First of all, on AllTrails, it has a rate of “Challenging,” and then I read this blog that said: "It's a little crazy, it's a little insane, but totally worth it." These senior citizens with the robot were able to scale Bukhansan and get to the top. 


And so, I think the exciting thing about the technology is both that it's sort of lightweight and easy, but also the terrain, right, is uneven; and so with AI, they were able to anticipate what the wearer would need in terms of support as they were going up this very uneven and steep terrain up the mountain. And so, I think all of these things I felt as positive developments in technology for movement.


Sue: Wait, how does it work with the Omni-MOONWALK? … Where is it attached?


Lana: Yeah, like you put it on almost like a brace, a holster kind of, so like around your hips and your knees. And it's a body brace, like a suit, kind of.

[13:23]


And so, I guess one question that I wanted to ask as we think about our three signals--Sue's signal about personalized tennis coaching, Raakhee’s signal about the impacts of climate change on skiing as a sport, and then my signal about wearable robots -- thinking about all of these things: how would some of these signals and trends impact our societal norms or cultural attitudes? If these things were to become more prevalent in the future, how might they shift our collective values or our priorities?


Sue: Well, I guess for me, one thing that immediately comes up is regulations in sports, because let's just say if you have a wearable, or there was an announcement also that Neuralink just did its first brain transplant. So, if you're thinking about what the capabilities are of that and AI, and all of a sudden you're able to get that edge on another opponent because they don't have it, what does that do in terms of the playing field when you're thinking about any kind of competition, or any kind of sport where there's a winner or loser, or you're trying to rank first place, for example? And so, it just made me wonder if any of these officiating bodies have committees on AI, and if not, they better get on it soon.


So, that was definitely one place I saw going. Like, this is probably heading in that direction. And so, it'll be better the sooner everyone can just come to an agreement on how AI will be used in their sports.


Raakhee: It's such a good point, Sue, and yeah, my gosh, Neuralink. That was big news. Yeah. Amazing. Also, it really does feel like everything is moving faster than we even anticipated, which we saw coming last year. We spoke a lot, but I think, Lana, that's such a great question. I think the one thing for me that came up was even today, even in the year 2024, we almost see gaming and VR and all those things as very internal. I'm sitting at my desk, and I'm confined to it, type of stuff, and then there's that "oh, get outside and play outside and be in nature." 


And I don't think the conversation in the future is going to be about the either/or; I think they'll blend beautifully. I think the technology is almost migrating outside. It's like the tennis AI app. Yeah, right. It's like, for soccer, they have those dribble balls. That's the same thing: the ball captures feedback on how well you're playing or not. And I think the technology is going to slowly migrate outside, so I feel that debate hopefully will lessen where we can see these worlds merging. We still may not like it—“do I have to wear this exoskeleton and I wish I could just walk the way I used to before”—but the fact is, it is there; we can have either experience, and I find there will be more of a merging of that.


Lana: Yeah, I was thinking about—I mean, with Sue's example of the personalized tennis coach—that does feel very individual, right? It's customized to you. It's kind of this one-on-one. You don't have a one-on-one relationship with a human now, right? You've replaced that with this assistance, with your phone. But that's to help you play better against people, and we will play, I mean, I guess, either outdoors or indoors. So yeah, I think that's what sort of came up for me as you're talking about our experiences being more internal with technology and having a relationship with that, versus literally external, meaning like outdoors or with other people.


Sue: Yeah, you almost can think of these VR headsets that actually put snow in your vision. I mean, Raakhee's kind of talking about the vacation thing from last time. And if you've got that, you've still got a mountain or a hill you want to go down? Now they have temperature-controlled outfits, too. So, you can recreate this environment, unfortunately, if the days of a lot of different ski resorts are no longer an option. But there are certain ways maybe tech can help recreate those experiences for other people.


I mean, the one thing I was thinking about, Lana, when you were just talking about the personalized coaching, is what they don't have yet, I think, is the sports psychology in AI. Because as much as it is about technique and strategy and all of that, there's still that kind of what you as a person are motivated by. Is it music? Is it encouraging words by your coach? Is it taunting by the other side? Every individual is so different. And so, that's the thing that is missing that still requires that human-to-human touch. And I guess if the day AI can do that, I'll be really sad and scared at the same time.


Lana: Okay, so then in closing, for our listeners, with these signals in mind: Just wondering, what actions can you take to either prepare for or influence the future of fitness and movement, and how can you become active participants in this future?


[19:46]

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