Should Smart Pilates Reformers Track Form?
Form is an interesting consideration when it comes to smart reformers. We want to know if we are performing an exercise correctly, but what is an effective way to monitor this? This is a question that we asked ourselves when developing the Flexia.
Ultimately, we decided to track four major variables with our smart reformer’s AI technology:
Weight Moved: This is the total amount of weight moved per exercise and rep over the course of a class. This gives you a better sense of how spring resistance translates into the number of pounds moved.
Control: This is analyzed through variables, such as smoothness of carriage movement and how still you can hold the carriage.
Consistency: This is how consistent you can keep your range of motion, speed, and control during multiple repetitions of an exercise.
Speed: Each Pilates exercise has a designated tempo. We designed our technology sense when you are moving at the correct speed, so it can give you feedback on if you need to speed up or slow down.
At the end of your workout, these variables are used to calculate a Movement Quality Score (MQS) which helps you understand your quality of movement during class. Over time, you can also track your improvements.
You might have noticed that the one thing that our technology does not do is give you specific feedback on form. This was not an oversight. Alignment is a nuanced conversation, because what is “good” or “bad” and “safe” or “unsafe” is specific to the individual.
While there are general guidelines for body position during exercise, there is extensive research demonstrating that alignment doesn’t correlate well with injury. This means that you can move with what may be considered poor alignment and not get hurt or you can move with what may be considered correct alignment and still suffer an injury.
This is because injury often occurs from being unprepared or not strong enough to hold a certain position or from having a lack of control during a movement. Conversely, if you want to buffer against your risk of injury, it is beneficial to build strength and control through diverse ranges of motion.
This is why quality of movement is a better metric of how well you are doing than what position your body is in. Feedback on form may be helpful in the right context, but it is a dialogue with the client about how an exercise feels, not a one size fits all set of rules. You can perform an exercise well multiple ways and to date there is no evidence that weight distribution during a movement, which is how tech may be able to detect form, will result in injury.
Even when I was teaching in the studio, my first concern was can the client control the reformer carriage and are they using the correct resistance? More often than not, addressing these variables led to better form without ever specifically cueing a body part. The truth is that even if a client’s form is less than ideal, it’s more important that they are able to execute the movement repeatedly with control, because as they continue to practice, their form naturally improves.
Beyond that it is not helpful to idolize a perfect way of moving, because it is a made up model that can’t be realistically achieved. With this in mind tech and teachers should be guiding the client to listen and learn about their body so they can self regulate, move without pain, and get stronger.
We don’t want to create dependencies on a Pilates teacher, method, or environment for safety or security. We want to empower our students to move their bodies in all sorts of ways that keep them feeling great, and provide meaningful metrics that help them stay committed and motivated to see improvement.
I can understand the appeal of trying to turn a smart reformer into a biomechanics research lab. This concept sounds amazing, but is backwards. Instead of trying to fit Pilates and diverse human bodies into the box of “ideal alignment,” we should be looking at why so many people love and see benefits from Pilates and then find a way to capture that experience and repeatedly deliver it.
The magic of Pilates can be captured with data. However, making sweeping assumptions about positional safety, injury, and optimal movement patterns is just posturing, and risks the user focusing on things that don’t matter.
This is why Flexia’s technology measures the variables that I mentioned earlier. They’ve been proven to correlate with improved quality of movement, strength, and stability without creating unnecessary dysfunction, fear, and dependency on the technology from the user.
