Case Western Reserve University third-year student Sanjay Thiyagarajan has worked to create an initiative that changes the way people can train. Thiyagarajan and Purdue University graduate Arunesh Raja founded Smartan.ai., a fitness tech platform that acts as an AI coach to help users better understand their workouts, improve results and prevent injury.  

The platform will “start curating a personalized workout plan for you, so that you can achieve your fitness goals without getting injured with data-driven results,” Thiyagarajan said.

The pair envisions the technology being integrated into larger gyms and physical therapy centers, working alongside coaches and clients to monitor workouts, with minimal effort required from users themselves. Subscribers receive a history of their workouts—with counted reps and specific exercises noted down—and real-time feedback during each session. The program is tailored to an individual’s physique and pre-existing injuries. Because the system uses a collection of cameras and sensors to validate visual input, there’s no single point of failure, increasing its accuracy and reliability. 

For both co-founders, the idea sparked in different ways. 

“[W]hen me and my co-founder met, I used to play sports a lot, and I faced a very bad injury,” Thiyagarajan said. “For my co-founder, it was the opposite. He didn’t have any injuries, but he faced a problem where he would go to the gym, and he wouldn’t be aware of what he did the previous week.” 

The technology has the ability to cater to many different fitness needs, as well as different skill levels, whether the user is a beginner or an athlete. 

“It’s not sports-specific,” Thiyagarajan said. “It’s not meant only for athletes. It can be used by anyone. That’s what is powering Smartan, to be honest. That exact goal and mission of building consumer health technology platforms.”

As a computer science major and Chief Technology Officer of Smartan, Thiyagarajan is familiar with the careful balancing act. 

“It’s harder said than done, but one thing which it brought about was discipline,” Thiyagarajan said. “If I miss and I’m not on track for a day, if I skip doing homework or procrastinating on different things, that’s it. I’m done. The work will pile up.”

Smartan is currently working with sports academies in India to implement their technology, with hopes to expand to physical therapy centers all over the globe. With the addition of  Ravi Shastri, former head coach of the Indian cricket team, as Strategic Advisor and Board Member, the company continues to grow.

Knowing how many people this platform can reach motivates the team to keep going.

“I realized how if I had Smartan when I was going to rehab, I would have done a much better job than I did,” Thiyagarajan said. “That kept me going, thinking about how it would help millions of lives.”