Movement Correction in Instructed Fitness Training: Design Recommendations and Opportunities

The use of technology to assist in instructed fitness training in collocated social settings is underexplored. Here we focus on how technology can be designed to fit within, leverage, and be part of the strategies and tools that fitness trainees and instructors use to detect and correct performance errors. Drawing on ethnomethodological approaches and using the concept of correction to focus our analysis, we scrutinize the interaction between instructor and trainees in two fitness activities, AntiGravity Fitness and Pilates. We identify social configurations and resources employed in instances of correction. We also present an analytical tool useful for deconstructing such correction processes, highlighting the strategies and resources used by the social actors, and their impact on performance. Based on insights gained from our analyses, we propose design recommendations and identify design opportunities that capitalize on existing tools and collaborative correction strategies, such as scaffolding the correction process.