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Chris Beavers<\/p>\nMarathon runners seem unlikely victims of the AI revolution, but the use of chatbots as personal trainers has prompted warnings that users could be putting themselves at a higher risk of injury.<\/p>\n
Those paying for apps that utilise ChatGPT or other generative AI services can receive daily tips on preparation, putting them on what appears to be a bespoke path to race day.<\/p>\n
Yet Chris Beavers, a real-life personal trainer, said these plans are \u201cbased on the average of what [AI] thinks is best\u201d, with no \u201cconstant feedback\u201d each week.<\/p>\n
Chris Beavers<\/p>\n
\u201cAI might try and make the programme quite fancy, where it asks people to [go all-out] when, actually, one of the best things for them might just be to pull back on training, or not overdo it, so they don\u2019t get injured and can actually run the marathon,\u201d said Beavers, who runs Father Fit, an online personal training provider.<\/p>\n
Many of those preparing for long-distance races have flocked to Runna, which provides AI-generated workout briefings and a structured plan tailored towards the user\u2019s stated goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beavers said another obvious downside of relying on AI was that people often struggle with self-discipline during intense exercise sessions. \u201cWhen you just have AI trying to keep you accountable you can find it easy not to do it, as it\u2019s just AI and it will give you a placid response,\u201d Beavers said. \u201cWhen you have to talk to an actual human about it and check in with another person, there\u2019s more of an emotional attachment \u2026 you don\u2019t want to let the person down.\u201d<\/p>\n
On social media platforms such as TikTok a number of running influencers have attributed injuries to following running plans which were conceived by ChatGPT<\/a> or Runna<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nick Berners-Price, 53, the founder of 4D Fitness, said following AI-generated plans was particularly risky for amateur runners. \u201cThe number one thing that gets you to the start line and then to the finish without an injury is your biomechanics,\u201d he said. \u201cUnless you\u2019ve got a very sophisticated system in some sports lab, then you can\u2019t analyse this.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Berners-Price, who trains between 50 and 100 people a year, said AI cannot judge \u201cthe way you move\u201d and warned that the \u201cwrong technique\u201d can \u201cobviously lead to injuries pretty quickly\u201d. <\/p>\n He said an important role for a personal trainer is finding out about a client\u2019s lifestyle, including their work hours and diet, and \u201cunless you\u2019re revisiting the AI, constantly feeding it new parameters, then I don\u2019t really see how it improves on a one-size-fits-all programme\u201d.<\/p>\n Nutritionists also fear pre-race diet routines based on AI-generated advice can be harmful. Ella Rauen-Prestes Butler, 51, the founder of Fitbakes, said runners frequently \u201ccarb up\u201d too much. \u201cThe problem is that if you eat too much at once then you will have a rollercoaster of blood sugar, and AI will always give you the same formula,\u201d she said. \u201cAI can be very dangerous \u2026 people used to refer to Dr Google but now it\u2019s Dr ChatGPT.\u201d<\/p>\n Many runners take comfort from being able to leave their running schedules to apps and AI, however. Sophia Parvizi Wayne, 29, a co-founder of Kanjo, a paediatric mental health service, said AI platforms were not \u201cdangerous\u201d but merely \u201cincomplete\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cHuman judgment has to sit in the middle, rather than taking this as an opportunity to reject AI,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we are hungover or if our body feels really bad then we have to be able to say to ourselves that we probably shouldn\u2019t [run].\u201d<\/p>\n Runna said: \u201c[Our] plans are designed by experienced coaches using proven training principles. An algorithm then tailors and adapts those coach-designed plans to each runner based on progress, feedback and real-world performance.<\/p>\n \u201cRunning, especially long-distance running, is a high-impact sport and injury risk can never be eliminated entirely. Injury risk is influenced by numerous factors including sleep, nutrition, stress, prior injuries and training outside a plan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marathon runners seem unlikely victims of the AI revolution, but the use of chatbots as personal trainers has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[6647,102,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-539839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/217b1cb7-4120-4b91-9897-33077f8dff04.jpg\")
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