Incidental interaction: technology to support elder strength training through everyday movements
Incidental interaction: technology to support elder strength training through everyday movements
Strength training is a key determinant of healthy aging, yet adherence to formal exercise programs among older adults remains low. While many technologies aim to encourage physical activity in older adults, they typically rely on dedicated devices, wearables, or explicit exercise tasks. They therefore do not embed task practice into daily life.
Our new approach, termed Incidental Interaction, instead transforms everyday actions into opportunities for deliberate strength building. It thereby operationalizes everyday movements such as sitting, standing, or lifting objects as strength exercises, encouraging participants to repeat them to build functional capacity. This repetition is encapsulated in the phrase “do it twice”, and is combined with movement quality metrics to provide feedback and support progression, without requiring users to adopt new routines or equipment. We illustrate the concept by designing and implementing an ecosystem of instrumented every-day objects and pressure-sensitive mats embedded into ordinary furniture, providing real-time feedback, progress tracking, and motivational cues. To evaluate technical efficacy, we report on two structured pilot deployments with elders (2 week and 4 week studies, n=7).
system
schraefel, m.c.
ac304659-1692-47f6-b892-15113b8c929f
Freeman, Chris
ccdd1272-cdc7-43fb-a1bb-b1ef0bdf5815
Tacca, Chris
91179df2-4deb-40fa-9762-9077d9e05210
Warner, Martin
f4dce73d-fb87-4f71-a3f0-078123aa040c
Bincalar, Alex
83db8900-eb92-4261-9d57-dab3a1657705
Gomer, Richard
71c5969f-2da0-47ab-b2fb-a7e1d07836b1
Ng, Alexander
65450e71-f758-4be2-ae29-0f5d397bfcfa
Vazquez galvez, Arturo
acf2be17-823d-4e16-b85c-1e5d83cd9e94
schraefel, m.c.
ac304659-1692-47f6-b892-15113b8c929f
Freeman, Chris
ccdd1272-cdc7-43fb-a1bb-b1ef0bdf5815
Tacca, Chris
91179df2-4deb-40fa-9762-9077d9e05210
Warner, Martin
f4dce73d-fb87-4f71-a3f0-078123aa040c
Bincalar, Alex
83db8900-eb92-4261-9d57-dab3a1657705
Gomer, Richard
71c5969f-2da0-47ab-b2fb-a7e1d07836b1
Ng, Alexander
65450e71-f758-4be2-ae29-0f5d397bfcfa
Vazquez galvez, Arturo
acf2be17-823d-4e16-b85c-1e5d83cd9e94
schraefel, m.c., Freeman, Chris, Tacca, Chris, Warner, Martin, Bincalar, Alex, Gomer, Richard, Ng, Alexander and Vazquez galvez, Arturo
(2026)
Incidental interaction: technology to support elder strength training through everyday movements
8pp.
Record type:
Monograph
(Project Report)
Abstract
Strength training is a key determinant of healthy aging, yet adherence to formal exercise programs among older adults remains low. While many technologies aim to encourage physical activity in older adults, they typically rely on dedicated devices, wearables, or explicit exercise tasks. They therefore do not embed task practice into daily life.
Our new approach, termed Incidental Interaction, instead transforms everyday actions into opportunities for deliberate strength building. It thereby operationalizes everyday movements such as sitting, standing, or lifting objects as strength exercises, encouraging participants to repeat them to build functional capacity. This repetition is encapsulated in the phrase “do it twice”, and is combined with movement quality metrics to provide feedback and support progression, without requiring users to adopt new routines or equipment. We illustrate the concept by designing and implementing an ecosystem of instrumented every-day objects and pressure-sensitive mats embedded into ordinary furniture, providing real-time feedback, progress tracking, and motivational cues. To evaluate technical efficacy, we report on two structured pilot deployments with elders (2 week and 4 week studies, n=7).
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More information
e-pub ahead of print date: 16 January 2026
Keywords:
system
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 511106
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/511106
PURE UUID: fb77d723-beac-4368-ac07-9100a35e6024
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 05 May 2026 16:31
Last modified: 06 May 2026 02:08
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Contributors
Author:
m.c. schraefel
Author:
Chris Freeman
Author:
Chris Tacca
Author:
Alex Bincalar
Author:
Richard Gomer
Author:
Alexander Ng
Author:
Arturo Vazquez galvez
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