Kabata
What if the weights you lifted counted your reps, analyzed your form, and made personalized suggestions to maximize gains? It may sound like science fiction, but the AI future is about to become the workout present. Smart dumbbells—or smartbells, if you prefer—are almost here. Kabata’s A.I.-powered dumbbells, set to go on sale this fall, are available for pre-order now. What can they do and what does it portend for weight-training moving forward? The Barbell investigates.
SMART DUMBBELLS
Kareem Aly, CEO and co-founder of Kabata, explains the concept of smart dumbbells:
“I was thinking about fitness for a long time. Where is the industry going? How can we revolutionize it. The industry had to become more tech-forward, more data-driven. I wanted something for strength-training, and I couldn’t really find anything on the market….Dumbbells, those haven’t been innovated on in a long time. If you go back to the 1920s, that’s when the first dumbbell patent came out, and it’s the exact same design that we’re still using today, basically. What if we just made dumbbells better?
One of the biggest issues with fitness at its core is it’s just delayed gratification. We thought what if we could shift that delayed gratification to become more immediate, allowing people to see their data, their analytics not in a week, not in a month, not in a year, but today and right now, during their workout and after their workout.
We give you real-time analytics as you’re hitting those reps. So, we’re counting, we’re tracking your velocity, we’re tracking every metric you can think of reps, sets, time under tension, velocity, volume, power, acceleration, intensity, fatigue. We track all that, run analytics on all that, and we send it back to you after the workout, as well. Not only that, but we have a full cloud-processing, data-processing engine that feeds you personalized workouts and programs as you’re progressing. So, we know exactly what weight you need for every move. We know exactly what move you should be doing every day. We know exactly what muscles you should be hitting for your goals. It’s revolutionary. This is the next generation of fitness, and it’s just never been done like this before.”
KABATA DUMBBELLS
The first thing you notice about Kabata dumbbells is their award-winning design. Like other high-tech innovations (think iPod or Tesla), they look cool. Resting in their compact case, the black dumbbells might at first seem like a single pair of 60s. But the display in the center tells you what they weigh. Click that display and both dumbbells instantly change to the selected weight (in 5-pound increments from 5 to 60) when you pick them up. Therefore, what Kabata calls “the worlds smallest (and smartest) home gym)” is like a pair of 12 dumbbells—a whole rack—in the space of one pair.
Then, when you train with the weights Kabata offers all of the high-tech benefits mentioned above with the data sent to an app on your smartphone:
◼️ Rep Counting The dumbbells don’t just count the weights of your set, but they compute all the reps and all the weight you use for every set and (when it comes to the dumbbells) every workout. It’s an excellent way to track strength progress.
◼️ Velocity Monitoring They also monitor the velocity at which the weights travel and use this to compute how much power you’re putting out and when that power falters.
◼️ Form Correction The dumbbells know how they’re moving in space and can offer real-time feedback to correct your form for best results, just like a personal trainer.
◼️ Automatic Weight Adjustment They also analyze the speed of your reps to determine if you’re using too much or too little and what weight you should select for the next set.
◼️ Personalized Analytics and Coaching The app provides detailed analysis of your workouts and offers suggestions.
◼️ AI-driven Workouts Artificial intelligence uses your training details to generate workouts and goals.
You can pre-order now. The cost is currently $799, plus an annual Kabata app subscription at $180.
We’re certainly intrigued by this long-awaited product that seems to be a giant leap forward in weight-training. But it’s only the beginning of how high-tech is going to impact iron-pumping in not just the distant future but also the near future. Fitness is moving fast, and we’re all for it.
