The Perfect Squat Challenge app, developed by Kaia Health, uses AI-powered motion tracking technology to transform the iPhone into a virtual personal trainer that offers real-time feedback to help users achieve the “perfect squat.”

Digital therapy company Kaia Health, along with physiotherapists and sports scientists, developed the free app, available for use on every iPad and iPhone released after 2015.

Once users open the app, they are greeted by Kaia—a virtual personal trainer—who guides them through the exercises, explains a media release from Kaia Health.

Users place their iPhone upright on a table or against a wall, then step back approximately 7 feet until their body becomes visible on the phone’s screen. The app then tracks 16 key points on the body using the phone’s camera stream. This contrasts the user’s observed pose with the “ideal” predefined pose, and compares metrics including the relative positions of limbs and joints, and the angles between them.

During the exercise, Kaia offers real-time audio feedback and video instructions that encourage users to achieve as many correct squats as possible, the release continues.

Via the Perfect Squat Challenge online community, users can compete with and challenge friends on social media by sharing a personalized link featuring the number of correct repetitions. Their high score can be displayed on a leaderboard during exercise for added motivation.

“Breakthroughs in AI-powered motion tracking and correction technology means that everyone now has access to a virtual personal trainer and physiotherapist on their iPhone—and can perfect exercises such as the squat,” states Maximilian Strobel, head of Kaia Health’s AI Lab, in the release.

“In the future, this technology will integrate within our medical device apps for diseases and conditions such as back pain creating a scalable, cost-effective therapeutic tool.”

For more information and to download the app, visit Kaia Health.

To watch a video of the app in action, visit YouTube.

[Source(s): Kaia Health, PR Newswire]