Artificial intelligence wants to be everywhere, including on your wrists and in your workouts. Compared to generative AI "slop" like photo and video creation, there's a case to be made for AI infiltrating your workout and fitness plans. Not everyone has access to a personal trainer, sports physician, or physical therapist easily — in fact, few do — and that's why an accurate and accessible AI feature could fill the gap.
Of course, that puts a lot of pressure on a piece of tech known to be fallible. Anytime your health is involved, you need to be careful what devices and features you trust. Whether we like it or not, AI is coming for the health space — Garmin, Strava, Apple, Samsung, Google, and many other brands are rolling out AI-powered features now.
Suunto upgraded its Suunto Coach, an AI-assisted workout helper, to support AI-generated training plans over the summer. I've been testing them with the newly-announced Vertical 2 adventure watch, and I'm intrigued for two reasons. For one, Suunto Coach and My plan are free. Another is that they're actually using AI, which not every workout feature branded as such can claim.
So, is it any good? Here are my early thoughts after training with the Vertical 2 for two weeks and setting up an AI workout plan.
Setting up a custom My plan with Suunto Coach
After logging a bunch of running and walking workouts with the Suunto Vertical 2, I went to set up the AI-generated training plan with Suunto Coach. The process starts with a brief questionnaire for context as to your training goals and capabilities.
Suunto will ask how many hours you are currently training in a week, and then ask your maximum time commitment. You'll have the chance pick a dedicated day for long runs, or state a preference for strength and cross-training workouts. Finally, you'll share your race goal and terrain.
The questions might vary based on your training plan. I selected the "Get fast for 5km" training plan, as I'm more worried about cutting my 5K time than increasing mileage. I answered the questionnaire accordingly, with my goal being to achieve a personal best on a flat and fast course.
From there, Suunto will do some AI processing behind the scenes, developing your training plan. This will take a while, often between 10 and 30 minutes. The good news is you only have to do this once for each plan. Using the context based on your answers, Suunto will come up with a personalized training regimen.
The initial approach reminded me of Samsung's Running Coach, a similar feature that includes a brief questionnaire to get a picture of your capabilities. There looks to be more AI processing going on here with Suunto Coach. It takes more time to create a training plan and offers more variety than Running Coach, which is more rigid with fixed time and distance-based running levels.
That's what intrigues me about Suunto Coach and the AI-generated training plans, which are called "My plan" and are still in beta. For better or worse, they're really using AI. Meanwhile, AI isn't making a meaningful impact on Running Coach or Apple's Workout Buddy. The latter essentially just recites live stats you're already used to seeing on your Apple Watch.
A workout tool with potential, and some quirks
Once the training plan generated, I saw immediate potential and a few oddities. The plan does seem personalized and thoughtful, with weekly targets, long-term goals, and instructions specific to individual workouts. It does a fantastic job at taking best practices for running and applying them to a specific plan.
For instance, my plan included strategic rest days and an easy, low-mileage week that followed each pair of hard training weeks. The 10-week set prescribed six weeks of intense workouts and three weeks of recovery running, including a taper for the final week. It's all designed to maximize performance while also managing miles and avoiding overuse injuries.
These are well-known running tips and tricks that even experienced runners struggle to implement. It's great to see them in a thorough training plan that takes the strategy off the runner and onto AI.
That said, some things could use a tweak. The time, mileage, and pace targets for each workout didn't seem to align with the body of work I had already tracked on the Vertical 2. This leads me to believe the AI brains of Suunto Coach is using the questionnaire more than your prior stats when making a plan. It is supposed to evolve on the fly, and it is still a beta.
I also found it weird that the AI workout plan randomly inserted a cross-country skiing workout during week eight. I've never cross-country skied, and it's not the easiest sport to try for the first time, so it's an interesting choice.
Suunto Coach feels best as a guide, not a plan
I plan to stick with Suunto Coach, despite the room for improvement. It seems genuinely helpful for training as long as you don't take it too seriously.
By that, I mean following its recommendations generally and not to the letter. In my case, I'll follow its broad plan for weekly mileage, workout mix, and training load — but avoid hitting an exact mileage or pace target.
This is a free tool included with Suunto watches, and it'll definitely be handy for the right runner. You just need to take its tips with a grain of salt, just like any AI feature.
For adventurers
The Suunto Vertical 2 takes the best of the Race 2 and puts it into a rugged chassis, making it ideal for hikers and adventurers. It supports Suunto Coach and My plan.
