Is the Coach in the Boxing App a Real Person?

Ogumogu left this review on the Android Play Store:

“I love the app, because it teaches the basic skills of boxing, with a real human being the coach and not a computer bot.”

We were happy to read it, and we also owe Ogumogu a small correction. Nobody is sitting in a booth calling your combos live, and the voice in your ear is generated. What made the app feel human is the people behind it, who box with it, film it, test it and change something in it nearly every day.

What is a person and what is not

Since the question comes up, here is the plain breakdown for the Shadow Boxing App.

The voice calling “1, 2, slip” during a round is generated with AI. Recording every combo and instruction in every language the app supports is out of reach for a team our size, and generated speech keeps the callouts clear and consistent. We explained that choice in our stance on AI.

Everything else you train with comes from people:

• The tutorial videos are filmed by our own team, with real coaches and boxers, in real gyms.
• The boxers you see on screen during some workouts are people we filmed, doing the moves for real.
• The workouts and programs are designed with coaches and tested on real people before they ship.
• What the voice says, and when it says it, was decided by someone who has done that round themselves.

One line in the app’s tutorial section puts it plainly: learning boxing with an app “will never replace going to a gym and getting feedback from a real life coach.” We mean that. If you can get to a club, go. The app is for the days you can’t, and for people who want to learn the basics before they walk in.

The basics come from people who teach them

Ogumogu wrote that the app “teaches the basic skills of boxing”, and that is where coaches matter most. Anyone who teaches beginners sees the same things every week: the chin comes up on the cross, the feet stop moving the moment the hands start, the rear hand drifts away from the face. You only learn which of those to fix first by standing in front of a lot of beginners.

Boxing 101 is built on that experience. It runs for 11 days and adds the punches and defenses one at a time, with a short video before each workout showing the technique you are about to use. If you want the longer version, we wrote about why real coaches behind the app matter and how we film the tutorial videos.

Most workouts keep the screen clear so you watch your imaginary opponent instead of your phone. A few exercises keep a person on screen, though. In the combo progressions, a coach shadow boxes the sequence next to the timer, so you can match what you hear to what you see. That may well be the “real human” Ogumogu noticed, and it is a real one.

The team trains with it

Everyone working on the app boxes. We do the app’s workouts ourselves, on a heavy bag or in a living room, and that is where most problems show up first. A rest period that is ten seconds too short does not look like a bug in a spreadsheet. You feel it in round five.

Before we rebuilt the punching bag workouts this fall, we spent weeks doing them on a real bag and writing down everything that felt off. The coaches and boxers we work with use the app too. When we filmed in Da Nang for Round Zero, the trainer ran the usual rounds with the app calling them, and watching someone who coaches for a living use it is worth more than any checklist we could write.

You are part of it too

At the end of every workout the app asks “How did it go?”. If you answer “Ok” or “Poorly”, it asks what would have made the session better. Those answers come straight to us, and we read them, along with the reviews and the emails. This article exists because of one review.

A lot of what is in the app today started that way. When we reworked the bag workouts, the complaints in the feedback matched the notes from our own sessions on the bag almost point for point. Someone took the time to write it down, and that told us we were not the only ones bothered by it.

Thanks, Ogumogu

Thank you for the review for our Android boxing app, and for the kind words about the coaching! The voice is a machine. The people deciding what it tells you to do are not, and they will keep at it.

If you are on Android, the app is free to try on the Play Store. Start with the basics, and if something feels off, say so at the end of the workout. Someone will read it.