Making Strength Training Click for Seniors

Description

As Singapore’s population ages, the question is not just about helping seniors live longer, but to live well. Staying active, mobile, and mentally stimulated is essential to maintaining a high quality of life, yet motivating seniors to make exercise part of their lifestyle can be challenging as they perceive exercise to be daunting, repetitive, or even unnecessary.

As Singapore’s population ages, the question is not just about helping seniors live longer, but to live well. Staying active, mobile, and mentally stimulated is essential to maintaining a high quality of life, yet motivating seniors to make exercise part of their lifestyle can be challenging as they perceive exercise to be daunting, repetitive, or even unnecessary.

Changing these perceptions requires not just education, but also creativity and empathy. This drove digital health innovator Biologic Technik to reimagine how seniors experience exercise. The result, “Strength Training Digital Coach for Seniors (STDCS)”, is a fun, interactive app designed to teach and motivate seniors to stay strong through guided, gamified workouts. Their innovative solution led them to be one of the innovPlus Challenge winners.

Launched in 2016, innovPlus brings together innovative learning technology providers and industry partners to co-create practical solutions for real-world learning challenges. Winners receive up to $200,000 in prototyping funding to develop scalable solutions that advance continuing education and training practices. Since its inauguration, innovPlus has spurred exciting learning innovations by awarding 50 grants to date.

The challenge

The challenge to design a fun, educational, and user-friendly exercise app was posed by Jia Ying Community Services Society (JYCSS), a charity that runs two active ageing centres serving over 2,600 seniors and their families.

JYCSS observed that many of their seniors were unaware of how vital strength training is in ensuring that they stay mobile. For them, physical decline is accepted as a natural part of ageing. Left unaddressed, declining strength can lead to reduced social interaction, increased isolation, and poorer mental health.

Through innovPlus, JYCSS sought to collaborate with a solutionist who could develop a digital coach that was effective, fun, and easy to use for seniors. The project became a collaboration between Republic Polytechnic (RP) and Biologic Technik. RP contributed its expertise in fitness science and senior-focused strength training while Biologic Technik brought its technological capabilities to develop the solution.

Using smart technology to personalise the exercise journey

To kick start, JYCSS organised a launch event where 112 seniors took part in a mass exercise event. At the event, Biologic Technik leveraged its computer vision technology to assess the baseline fitness and physical condition of each participating senior.

The participants performed a short series of exercises in front of a device, which scanned and analysed their movements to identify signs of frailty and assess strength levels. This data enabled the system to generate a personalised set of exercises tailored to each senior’s capabilities.

“Biologic Technik's unique point is its computer vision technology, which enables post-analysis of whole-body movements across multiple individuals, showing strong potential for training scenarios involving physical techniques, ergonomics, coordinated team actions, or customer-facing body language,"” noted Ms Jeanie Cham, Learning Innovator at IAL.

Making it fun: Gamification and motivation
 

But identifying the right exercises was only half the battle. How could the team keep seniors motivated to follow through?

“That’s where gamification came in,” explained Mr Shawn Quck, Product Development Manager at Biologic Technik. “IAL gave us valuable input on how to make the learning experience more engaging for adult users.”

The app incorporated lively music, reward points for completed exercises, and even social features, allowing seniors to add friends and challenge one another to complete exercises together. These features not only made the exercises more engaging but also helped foster a sense of community.

 

 

(Left) AI generated exercise program for seniors on the STDCS app;  (Right) HDL Dance (Level 2) , an example of exercise the seniors do while using the STDCS app. (Images provided by Biologic Technik)

Designing for senior learners

Beyond fun and motivation, the team also needed to understand the specific learning needs of seniors.

“There’s a wide range of digital literacy among seniors,” Mr Quck shared. “We had to design the app to be incredibly intuitive—big fonts, minimal buttons, and a clean interface. At the same time, we had to ensure it still delivered all the necessary information, from how to perform the exercises correctly to how to track and earn points—all within the space constraints of a mobile screen.”

To further boost comfort and familiarity, the exercise videos featured trainers already known to the seniors from the community centres, making the learning experience feel more relatable and personal.

Better strength, better health

The results were encouraging. More seniors were motivated to continue exercising at home and even encouraged their peers to join. To celebrate their efforts, JYCSS held a graduation event for the participants.

Those who completed at least 50% of their home-based workouts over 12 weeks showed an average 10% improvement in fitness—a meaningful gain in strength, confidence, and independence.

For Biologic Technik, the results were an affirmation of their capabilities. “We’re now exploring ways to further extend and expand the use of STDCS,” said Mr Quck.

What started as a challenge to create a simple exercise app became a transformative project that helped redefine how seniors engage with fitness. By combining deep technology, pedagogical insights, and thoughtful design, the team behind STDCS has shown that strength training doesn’t have to be intimidating or boring. With the right tools, and the right motivation, staying strong can be fun, social, and empowering at any age.