Fitness through Judicious RFID Use

Here's a new one for you. In the Dallas Morning News yesterday there was a great article on ways RFID is expanding from government and logistics use cases into the mainstream of consumer life. The newest use case? RFID is helping women burn calories and get in shape. Curves, which is a nationwide chain of gyms based in Waco, Texas, has implemented RFID in approximately 10% of their locations so far. At each station, a woman flashes an RFID-tagged wristband over an RFID reader on the machine. The machine reads the woman’s workout program and gives the exerciser real-time feedback on whether she’s meeting her goals for that station.

At the end of the half-hour workout, each woman's wristband is read by reader at a desktop computer which creates a graphical display of how she did overall. Muscle groups targeted, reps completed and calories burned are all stored on the RFID chip and displayed on the monitor.

Gary Heavin, founder Curves, expects high-tech workouts to be a big trend in the fitness industry. “The consumer who is looking for the next big thing is going to have a computerized personal coaching system that designs a precision workout,” Mr. Heavin said. “It gives them moment-to-moment feedback, and it gives them a monthly report card that kind of holds them accountable for their diet and attendance in a positive way.”