Movement Health intends to improve functional fitness and the ability to perform everyday activities like bending and reaching. To do that, the feature takes advantage of technologies like computer vision and machine learning. Here’s a closer look.
Machine Vision Fitness Checks
The first step in using Movement Health is a fitness check using your phone’s camera and the Halo app for iOS or Android. Halo will guide you through five movements: single leg balances, overhead squats, lunges, overhead reaches, and feet-together squats. As you work through these motions, the Halo app uses machine vision to track your movement for assessment.
With the data from this test, Movement Health will evaluate your posture, stability, and mobility. It’ll then give you an overall score out of 100, along with more detailed breakdowns covering specific areas where you may need to improve. The experience is a lot like what you’d go through with a physical therapist or personal trainer. However, it’s all done from your phone.
Your New Digital Personal Trainer
After the initial assessment, Movement Health will provide a personalized exercise program to improve your lower scores. For example, if you need to work on your hip mobility, it may recommend bridge extensions and spine rotations. Each set of exercises comes with video instructions from physical therapist Dr. Kelly Starrett.
The Halo wearable and service certainly aren’t cheap, although it’s certainly a benefit to pick one up. This new feature could provide a more affordable alternative to personal training, though, and improving your functional fitness would save money in the long run.
Keeping Your Health Information Secure
When Halo first launched, it was an underwhelming service given its comparatively high price. Since then, it’s become an increasingly helpful tool. Frequent updates like the Movement Health feature give it capabilities you may not find anywhere else.
