Of course there are unskilled and/or untrained coaches out there, and we probably all know (or are) folks who downloaded a plan off the internet or from a magazine that resulted in injury. But that’s exactly the problem with AI (well, A problem with AI—it also destroys power and water resources, but that’s another Substack). It metabolizes all that poorly produced advice and regurgitates it. All the influencers, the uncertified trainers, the articles misinterpreting scientific research, the marketing, it all gets scraped and repurposed. Personally, I am never going to trust this organic body to a computer’s idea of a training plan.
Yeah, AI is being used for so many things it doesn't need to be used for. Matthew McConaughey went on Joe Rogan recently (where else would a dumb idea be exposed) and said he wanted an LLM to organize all his thoughts. I would just use my brain and a bit of work, personally. I can't tell which one of those he's more scared of.
I’m a Runna user, and I did get injured. But it wasn’t Runna’s fault — it was mine for not paying enough attention to my strength imbalances! Injuries just happen. I would be shocked if your hypothesis here isn’t proven true.
From what I see, Runna's issue isn't a distinct 'lack of nuance and care' - it's that their plans are too aggressive.
And I suspect this isn't an accident or due to some unsophisticated coding, but because Runna's data shows that their athletes prefer more aggressive plans because...hard workouts make you _feel_ like you've been productive in the immediate aftermath.
And athletes are less likely to listen to AI telling them to back off than a human explaining the same thing.
But one aspect of the algorithm Runna definitely needs to address; age-grading. Currently no age grading applied.
Of course there are unskilled and/or untrained coaches out there, and we probably all know (or are) folks who downloaded a plan off the internet or from a magazine that resulted in injury. But that’s exactly the problem with AI (well, A problem with AI—it also destroys power and water resources, but that’s another Substack). It metabolizes all that poorly produced advice and regurgitates it. All the influencers, the uncertified trainers, the articles misinterpreting scientific research, the marketing, it all gets scraped and repurposed. Personally, I am never going to trust this organic body to a computer’s idea of a training plan.
Yeah, AI is being used for so many things it doesn't need to be used for. Matthew McConaughey went on Joe Rogan recently (where else would a dumb idea be exposed) and said he wanted an LLM to organize all his thoughts. I would just use my brain and a bit of work, personally. I can't tell which one of those he's more scared of.
I’m a Runna user, and I did get injured. But it wasn’t Runna’s fault — it was mine for not paying enough attention to my strength imbalances! Injuries just happen. I would be shocked if your hypothesis here isn’t proven true.
So far, the polls are spot on.
From what I see, Runna's issue isn't a distinct 'lack of nuance and care' - it's that their plans are too aggressive.
And I suspect this isn't an accident or due to some unsophisticated coding, but because Runna's data shows that their athletes prefer more aggressive plans because...hard workouts make you _feel_ like you've been productive in the immediate aftermath.
And athletes are less likely to listen to AI telling them to back off than a human explaining the same thing.
But one aspect of the algorithm Runna definitely needs to address; age-grading. Currently no age grading applied.
I require two questions at the start of every training plan
1. Do you know what tendinitis is?
2. Do you want to experience it?