Democratizing Elite Fitness
Hello and welcome to the FORM-AI blog!
The purpose of this blog is to be a free resource for all things fitness, wellness, longevity and performance. FORM-AI is an organisation made up of individuals with unique backgrounds, including all levels of Military, government service and elite strength & conditioning. We all share a love of physical training, sport or had jobs that had extreme physical demands. Our backgrounds saw us travel different roads and have different experiences, but have all come to the same general conclusion: the general baseline level of knowledge and information surrounding the topics of physical training was exceptionally low and almost entirely geared towards performance.
Whilst an emphasis on “performance” may seem logical and appropriate, this all too often falls short of being able to provide meaningful support to vast sections of the population whose goal is wellness, longevity, moving better, feeling better or using exercise as a gateway for its many benefits on mood and mental health.
This is not to say that performance does not play a role, or is not a goal for you, the individual, or for us at FORM-AI. However, we should not put the cart before the horse, as is so often done, and sacrifice these other concepts solely for short term gain or benefit.
To give an example that speaks to this, it is helpful to think in terms of training and the principles of adaptation and demonstration. If someone were to ask you to go into the gym and lift the heaviest weight you could manage, you would be demonstrating your current strength capabilities on the day. Therefore, demonstration is an active display of a physical skill or strength quality. If, for example, you were asked to lift that same load again in 30 minutes time, chances are you would not have the same success. In this instance you have not had enough recovery time to allow your body to adapt to the stimulus.
If we focus our physical training solely on demonstrating a skill or quality we rob ourselves of the ability to be able to develop those qualities. This development requires adaptation, which is a long-term process and demands that we take into account all of life’s stressors. Do you have children and therefore are pressed for training time and have disrupted sleep? Do you have a stressful job that leaves you walking into the gym mentally and physically exhausted? Or have you never trained a day in your life and live with chronic pain? What is the best approach for these individuals?
A strategy guided solely on performance, typically with the rose-tinted glasses of social media, leads to the implementation of short term strategies for success that were not designed for you, lack context and are often not guided by fundamental scientific principles. At FORM-AI we wanted to bring all of these qualities together as we understand that there is a tremendous gap between you, the individual seeking a solution and the elite-level subject matter expert who hopefully has an answer. We understand this as we have been on both sides of this relationship, from being the young athletes obsessed with training and seeking guidance to becoming coaches working with elite special operators and implementing guidance.
At the tip of the spear of the military and sport there is a spectrum of support available from medical staff, physical therapists and coaches. This support enables them to perform to the highest levels possible. However, that leaves much of the population still largely under-served. Our mission at FORM-AI is to make that connection and make this support and information accessible, so that everyone has the tools to improve their quality of life. This approach will enable everyone to train hard in the safest and most efficient way possible, no matter the context.
We can achieve this through knowledge.
A New Baseline
FORM-AI has developed a free resource to help improve the knowledge base out there in the world. We have developed a movement library app that provides a model of success, cues and an immersive interactive experience, through the use of augmented reality, with 1300 different exercises. From thoracic mobility to deadlifts with accommodating resistance, this app covers the full gamut of movement, and is there for whenever you need it.
If you want to understand an exercise in detail, want to see an exercise in your environment or need inspiration for your training session then this app is there to support you. For the app, we developed an avatar named ABEL, to be an objective and accessible character for our organisation. We designed ABEL with a love for sci-fi in mind and we had a great deal of fun developing it. After all, there is no reason why we can’t have some fun as we learn, train hard and train well.
We refer to this app as being the new baseline because everyone should have this information from a trusted source for whenever it is needed.
Stay tuned with us as we grow and provide you with more and more great content!
Thank you,
The FORM-AI Team.
