Listen up!
Looking for an effective way to maximise your runs? Then get ready to embrace audio workout coaching
Get ready to embrace the audio workout coaching trend
Audio workouts have fast become the running buddy of choice for sweat enthusiasts wanting comprehensive coaching and a supportive voice in their ear while running clubs have been closed over lockdown. But don’t expect audio training to fade into the background now that running crews and gyms are operating again. When you experience the game- changing advantages of having the words of a personalised PT or coach delivered straight to your earbuds, you may never want to rewind back to your old training ways.
MINDFUL MOVEMENTS
One of the major benefits of audio workouts is that they offer you a screen-free way to exercise – an absolute blessing when you’ve already spent your entire day staring at a screen. Plus, they provide a fresh and accessible training alternative for those of you who have OD’D on On Demand classes and are fed up with craning your neck in downward dog to see the next asana. Of course, running outside while looking at a screen is nigh on impossible, but that’s one of the reasons why audio coaching lends itself so perfectly to pounding the pavements.
Removing visual cues so you receive only audio direction allows for completely free and fluid movement. You can also take your workouts wherever you roam, plus you hear more safety tips to compensate for the lack of visual instruction (helping you avoid common injury- causing errors). What’s more, you won’t need to remember the details of your running plan or count laps while looking at your watch to know how long you’ve got left. All of this leaves your mind distraction-free to focus on your form and enjoy the surroundings.
PACE PERFECT
Indeed, audio running workouts take the guess work out of your training by giving you cues on when to stop and start on interval runs, and letting you know when you’re half way through a session or two minutes from the end. And some services even supply you with your ideal ‘match the beat’ running
music so you can keep a steady pace, whether you’re aiming for a new PB or taking a gentle recovery run.
Even better, when AI- driven audio running apps are synced with wearables to track your running metrics, you can enjoy a hyper- personalised training experience that tells you when to pick up the tempo, when to adjust your form and stride, and when to keep pushing if it senses you’re flagging. Couple that with the fact that many of the workouts are devised and voiced by elite personal trainers, top running coaches and Olympic-level athletes – and that these apps often provide you with additional audio workouts for other types of exercise such as boxing, HIIT, strength training and yoga – and you end up with a highly effective, affordable way to train that will only improve as technology develops.
‘ We are focusing on personalising workouts to suit every individual so that the intensity and duration of the workouts will adapt to the user in just the same way as a great PT would adapt fitness programmes individually for their client,’ reveals Anta Pattabiraman, founder of AI- powered audio workout app Auro (auro.fit). ‘And when you can make a year’s audio workout subscription the same price as that of a single PT session, you can bring about meaningful and sustainable change to people’s fitness habits that will impact on their health, wellbeing and longevity for the better.’