New to Tempo: Body Composition Scanning

When it comes to strength training, progress has always been easy to track on the mat—if you lift more weight, week-over-week, that’s progress. Done. Off of the mat, though, tracking changes and results have typically been reserved for standing on a scale, looking in the mirror, or calculating your Body Mass Index (BMI), all of which tell an incomplete story, particularly in the short term.

With the introduction of our new Body Composition Scanner to your Tempo app, we’re changing the way you measure the impact of all of the effort you put in with us by providing greater insights to the positive effects of strength training on your body, all from the comfort of your home.

Think of body composition scanning as the weight scale for strength training. As you train and get into better shape, your weight may not change as you add muscle. This can be demotivating, but it happens because you’re changing the composition of your body and because muscle is more dense than fat. Aside from being a great indicator for your overall health, lifespan, metabolism, and potential athletic performance, body composition better shows your progress.

The gold standard in body scanning technology is a DXA scan (Dual-energy X-Ray Absorptiometry), which uses low levels of x-rays to measure your body’s make-up. A DXA machine costs up to $80,000 and each scan can cost up to $150 and take up to 30 minutes. Using the depth camera sensors in your iPhone, though, the Body Composition Scanner in the Tempo app provides results within ±5% for body fat percentage when compared to DXA results and ±3.1% for body circumferences. When scans are done consistently, our margin of difference drops to ±0.20% for body fat and ±0.45% for body circumference, as verified through studies with Texas Tech University.

Using the app, you can now measure:

With this new technology, you can now perform these scans at home, whenever you want, with just your iPhone. There’s no extra equipment needed or purchase necessary to use this technology.* When you take a scan, here’s how it works:

1. Go to your profile in the Tempo app and tap Body Composition Scan

2. Follow the setup instructions in the app to start your scan

3. As you scan, the front-facing camera in your iPhone captures various images of you

4. These images are then stitched together to generate a 3D reconstruction of your body

5. Machine learning algorithms, not humans, trained on hundreds of thousands of body scans, create your body composition report in just a few minutes

Any time we bring professional-grade technology into your home, there’s an inherently higher possibility of error.

✅ Wear form-fitting clothing and bare feet

✅ If you have long hair make sure it’s up and your neck is visible

✅ Place the camera at about waist (table) height

✅ Scanning with a plain background is better

✅ Spin 360 degrees, slowly

✅ Make sure to have your body fully visible while spinning

✅ Make sure that your body fill in as much of the camera screen as possible 

✅ Stand in an A-frame position while spinning

✅ Make fists with your hands while spinning

✅ Make sure to have good lighting

✅ Make sure the scanning area is free of obstructions like furniture

❌ Don’t move out of the camera frame while spinning. Stay aligned with the center of the frame.

❌ Make sure no one else comes into frame

❌ Don’t stand in front of a mirror - it will confuse the camera

❌ Don’t stand with furniture obstructing the view from the camera

❌ Don’t stand too far away

❌ Don’t stand in front of furniture or cluttered backgrounds

❌ Don’t scan in low or dark lighting

❌ Don’t scan in overexposed lighting

❌ Make sure your front camera lens is clean and not producing blurry photos

If a scan fails, that’s okay! It’s new, sensitive technology, so just make sure to check our Do’s and Don’ts before trying again. If the problem persists, you can contact our support team.

At Tempo, it’s our mission to provide a workout experience that is more efficient, effective, and convenient than any other fitness solution out there. Adding Body Composition Scanning to our membership is part of the evolution of Tempo, as we continually work to provide our members with more value for their membership and more features that will enhance their personal training with Tempo. We’re excited for this next chapter and can’t wait to see you on the mat.

For information on how your results are stored, encrypted, and transmitted, refer to our privacy policy.

“With the new Tempo, we’re creating training plans that put you at the center and deliver an experience that’s even better than the world’s best personal trainer,” said Moawia Eldeeb, Tempo CEO and co-founder. “No matter your fitness level, every workout is optimized to your body’s changing needs, every time you come back to train with us. This level of hyper-personalization is integral to effective training that keeps you engaged, challenged, and empowered with tangible progress. No more guesswork, no more plateaus—Tempo evolves with you to help you get stronger every day.”

This is just the beginning of our newest chapter, and we’re excited for what’s next as we continually work to provide you with more value for your membership and more features that will enhance your personal training with Tempo. Thank you, as always, for working out with us. We can’t wait to see you on the mat.

Technology:

➤ Body Composition Scanning requires an iPhone XR or later (iPhone XR, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Mini, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max)
➤ Body Composition Scanning requires a user to be on iOS 15 or above
➤ Body Composition Scanning requires a user to be 18+

Accessibility:

This feature is currently in Beta. We're actively working on training the model to accommodate a broader range of body profiles, but do not currently offer coverage and support for every person and every presentation.