A form checker that talks during the set

What a form check actually is

Most form apps record your set and give you a scorecard afterwards. By then the set is over and the bad reps are done. FormMate does the check live. The camera feed becomes a skeleton on the phone, the app measures joint angles as you move, and when a rep misses a gate it says why, in a few words, before the next one starts.

What it looks at

• Range of motion. Did the rep reach the bottom and come back to the top? This is the same check that decides whether a rep counts.
• Speed and control. Fast bounces at the bottom and the top are read as one rep, not two, and get a cue.
• Position. Hips sagging on push-ups, chest dropping forward on squats and lunges, arms coming off the bar on pull-ups.

One cue at a time

A trainer who shouts five corrections at once gets ignored. FormMate picks the one thing that matters most for the rep you just did and says only that. "Chest all the way down." "Drive through your feet." "Pull your chest up." The next rep gets a fresh look.

You can see the reasoning

The skeleton and the phase of the rep (down, up) are shown on screen with the live joint readings, so when a rep is not counted you can see what the camera measured. Nothing is a black box score.

Strictness

Lenient, Standard, Strict. The same cues, with the gates moved a few degrees. Beginners and stiff joints start on Lenient. People training for a test use Strict.

Exercises

Push-ups, knee push-ups, pull-ups, chin-ups, squats, lunges, sit-ups and crunches at launch. Each has its own gates and its own cue list.