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Apps Fitnexx: Counts the repetitions of workouts automatically

BryceXXXX

BryceXXXX

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 2, 2020
145
18
Hey all! I'm currently a student at Carnegie Mellon, and i wrote a fitness app named Fitnexx, which detetcts your motion and counts reps automatically. Since there are so many Watch enthusiasts on this forum, i thought someone may find it useful.
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It is $2.99 to download plus a subscription? that is a barrier to testing this out (at least for me). There are lots of weightlighting apps, and at least one other that automatically counts reps, Fit Counter. I tested that a year or two ago and it worked, but haven't really been using it. That app also let's you train motions for counting. But it also missed counted at times, particularly if I altered the first or starting motion or timing.

Has your app been tested with kettlebells? So motions like kettlebell swings? If it tracked kettlebell workouts, I would probably demo that. For weightlifting, it is not that hard to count 8 or 10 reps. But for exercises (like swings) where I would do 25-30 reps at a time, having a reliable counting app would be good. I can see other full body workouts that involve a lot of reps where this idea could be useful.
 
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michaelb5000 said:
It is $2.99 to download plus a subscription? that is a barrier to testing this out (at least for me). There are lots of weightlighting apps, and at least one other that automatically counts reps, Fit Counter. I tested that a year or two ago and it worked, but haven't really been using it. That app also let's you train motions for counting. But it also missed counted at times, particularly if I altered the first or starting motion or timing.

Has your app been tested with kettlebells? So motions like kettlebell swings? If it tracked kettlebell workouts, I would probably demo that. For weightlifting, it is not that hard to count 8 or 10 reps. But for exercises (like swings) where I would do 25-30 reps at a time, having a reliable counting app would be good. I can see other full body workouts that involve a lot of reps where this idea could be useful.
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Hi michael
The subscription is for professional users who wanna add large number of custom exercises and routines, for most users, it is unnecessary. You know it, every needs of users should be taken into consideration.

kettlebell swing is not a native exercises, but you can add it to your custom exercises, i just added it to my custom exercises and tested it, it worked well. But one thing should be told, the auto counting for custom exercises only works on freely mode, which means you set the reps value to 0.
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I have a question, is it barely for strength exercises? can it count jump rope ? because the first screenshot seems like jumping rope.
 
SheldonKK said:
I have a question, is it barely for strength exercises? can it count jump rope ? because the first screenshot seems like jumping rope.
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Sorry for late reply, It is not barely for strength exercises, it can also be used for self-weight exercises like squatting, crunches and push-ups.
 
I have been demoing it for the past week. It is an interesting app that has potential. Some things still need work and developing and even documentation, since I can't figure out some features and some of the pictures are in Chinese (I think that is the language?).

For simple motions, it seems to count really well. So deadlifts and rows for example, in which the travel of the bar is a really smooth simple motion. These are default built in gym exercises so that may help. Other motions I have tried, like a clean and jerk with a kettlebell, are all over the place. it counts one rep as about four, but to be fair to the app, there are 3-4 different motions to that compound exercise (I squat slightly as part of the press, and it counts that squat as a rep as an example).

As a feature request, I find the 3 sec startup counter to be way too short. So I would have the be user configurable, or set it to longer, 5 secs or even 10 secs. The app starts counting immediately. I take time before starting a lift and so would prefer to start the watch and the count down, and then get ready to lift. So when deadlifting, I might take 10-20 secs getting ready with my hands on the bar, before starting (and the app may count adjusting your hands or shifting your body weight as reps during that time).

I haven't done that many variations of exercises, but the 3 sec timer also contributes to another issue: counting the first rep properly. When bench pressing, the first action is to lift the bar off the rack. No one that I know would count that as a rep. So you don't start counting reps until you bring the bar down. This app counts that initial lift of the bar as a rep.

For kettlebell swings, it seems to count fairly reliably; except, it seems to add 1 rep, which may be as I put the kettlebell down (I haven't managed to read the watch yet during a swing but I think this issue is with the last rep and not with the first, assuming I start the motion before the 3 sec countdown finishes). So I have done 20 reps of swings on multiple occasions and ended up with a count displayed as 21. The few times I didn't have 21 I think were my error, not the app. so that is pretty good overall. The other app I used in the past, Fitcounter, wasn't this consistent and does not seem to work anymore for me at all now.
 
michaelb5000 said:
I have been demoing it for the past week. It is an interesting app that has potential. Some things still need work and developing and even documentation, since I can't figure out some features and some of the pictures are in Chinese (I think that is the language?).

For simple motions, it seems to count really well. So deadlifts and rows for example, in which the travel of the bar is a really smooth simple motion. These are default built in gym exercises so that may help. Other motions I have tried, like a clean and jerk with a kettlebell, are all over the place. it counts one rep as about four, but to be fair to the app, there are 3-4 different motions to that compound exercise (I squat slightly as part of the press, and it counts that squat as a rep as an example).

As a feature request, I find the 3 sec startup counter to be way too short. So I would have the be user configurable, or set it to longer, 5 secs or even 10 secs. The app starts counting immediately. I take time before starting a lift and so would prefer to start the watch and the count down, and then get ready to lift. So when deadlifting, I might take 10-20 secs getting ready with my hands on the bar, before starting (and the app may count adjusting your hands or shifting your body weight as reps during that time).

I haven't done that many variations of exercises, but the 3 sec timer also contributes to another issue: counting the first rep properly. When bench pressing, the first action is to lift the bar off the rack. No one that I know would count that as a rep. So you don't start counting reps until you bring the bar down. This app counts that initial lift of the bar as a rep.

For kettlebell swings, it seems to count fairly reliably; except, it seems to add 1 rep, which may be as I put the kettlebell down (I haven't managed to read the watch yet during a swing but I think this issue is with the last rep and not with the first, assuming I start the motion before the 3 sec countdown finishes). So I have done 20 reps of swings on multiple occasions and ended up with a count displayed as 21. The few times I didn't have 21 I think were my error, not the app. so that is pretty good overall. The other app I used in the past, Fitcounter, wasn't this consistent and does not seem to work anymore for me at all now.
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Thank you so much, Michael. Your review helps a lot to improve the experience, I will take it into consideration so seriously.
 
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BryceXXXX said:
Sorry for late reply, It is not barely for strength exercises, it can also be used for self-weight exercises like squatting, crunches and push-ups.
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Thank you dude, I have used your app for several weeks, it is excellent, but there are still something i cant understand, like what is keep record and slack record?
 
SheldonKK said:
Thank you dude, I have used your app for several weeks, it is excellent, but there are still something i cant understand, like what is keep record and slack record?
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I will guess for fun, but I think the translation should be something like "streak". I am not sure on the math for mine, but I am not doing the built in workouts, but "keep track" would be "current streak" of doing workouts and "slack record" would be off days, or something like that. I use the App Streaks so that would be terminology from that App, so "current record" and "off days" would also work.
 
Happy new year everyone, in the past Christmas holidays, I added many useful features to Fitnex.
Taking the influence of rest time on the training effect into consideration, I added the interval rest reminde. Fitnex will remind you when the rest time exceeds 3 minutes. In the later coming version, you can customize the time.

The training sets added with WatchOS app supports modification

There are many other minor changes, not worth mentioning, but will greatly improve the Fitnex experience.
 
michaelb5000 said:
I will guess for fun, but I think the translation should be something like "streak". I am not sure on the math for mine, but I am not doing the built in workouts, but "keep track" would be "current streak" of doing workouts and "slack record" would be off days, or something like that. I use the App Streaks so that would be terminology from that App, so "current record" and "off days" would also work.
Click to expand...
Wow, Your explanation seems much better than mine, I will replace them with yours
 
BryceXXXX said:
Happy new year everyone, in the past Christmas holidays, I added many useful features to Fitnex.
Taking the influence of rest time on the training effect into consideration, I added the interval rest reminde. Fitnex will remind you when the rest time exceeds 3 minutes. In the later coming version, you can customize the time.

The training sets added with WatchOS app supports modification

There are many other minor changes, not worth mentioning, but will greatly improve the Fitnex experience.
Click to expand...
Hey dude, I have a little issue, can you differentiate "self-weight squat" and "weight-bearing squat"
 
BryceXXXX said:
Thx, I'm working on some wonderful features, keep looking forward.
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Hey dude, would you like to support customizing the icon of exercises? I found icons of all custom exercises is a dumbbell, i wanna replace them with appropriate ones.
 
Version 2.0.2

I add a sign for marking the sets done, so you can swift freely between set and set while the equipment is occupied by someone else.

1.png
 
Requests:
1. Add auto marking of a set completed after an interval of say 30 seconds minimum after repetitions are completed and movement (of the repetitions) are detected. Example if I do bench press of 11-12 reps (not normal but fatigued), and I get up and start walking or rotating my arms the app should know I’m out doing repetitions for exercises.

2. Keep count of seconds/minutes of rest between sets and record them for output readout and metrics for feedback to the user.

3. Metrics - I want everything:
what exercises had the most per week/month
what weights I used per exercise and where I’ve lowered or increased. Add a motivational not when decreasing.
^ allow end user to put in memo/notes per exercise / workout completed.
Detect when exercises have been skipped ^ coincides with notes (Fatigued, no energy, appoint, muscle failure, elevated heart rate, low motivation/focus whatever the end users notes are it’s helpful for seeing correlation of metrics).

* these are things I currently get with Strong! App - one of your biggest competitors.

PS: have a look into what colours are best for people under high intensive training - I’m sure there is data out there on this. Example Green ~ in another app I found is horrendous for me under bright light gyms, worked great for late night low light workouts at home though; overall I killed off that app for this and other reasons.

I’m not trying to say WHAT your app should do ... just hoping I can help with ideas that jog better ones you come up with.

Cheers.
 
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