“All of this fitness tech just makes me want to take a nap!”
For one of the most obese countries in the world, we sure are obsessed with fitness.
Everywhere you look you see magazine headlines reading, How to Get Fit in Less Than a Week, news stories on how to maintain a work out routine and exercise equipment that’s supposed to give you a 20-minute daily workout while simultaneously doing as little activity as possible. It’s all supposed to make working out easier, more convenient, and, well, make working out feel like less of a chore. And with the introduction of technology, combined with celebrity endorsements, it’s gotten harder and harder to find excuses to NOT work out.
Or has it?
If you’re an avid Hulu watcher (and we know you are ever since Seinfeld got thrown into the mix), you’ll see commercials for DailyBurn, a once-a-day, 30-minute workout channel that demands you work out because they KNOW you have time to do it. Because you can do it whenever you want in the comfort of your home. They say, “Now you’re out of excuses!”
Yeah, you think so, DailyBurn? Well, I bet us non-exercising folks could probably think of a few excuses right off the bat:
“Yeah, I’m home, but I’m tired and don’t have the energy.”
“I walked all over the city today. That’s a kind of a work out.”
“My Internet is acting funny, I can’t seem to stay connected so…”
Or, my personal favorite, “You can’t tell me what to do, Bob Harper!”
Technology is supposed to make working out simpler, more convenient and more effective, right? But remember when the Wii first came out, and the marketing strategy behind it was that you could no longer play video games for hours on the couch getting zero activity (and probably shoveling Spicy Nacho Doritos into your mouth like a Blue Whale that’s just encountered all the krill). And how wrong were they?
I bet that no matter what incentive a fitness app provides, there’s an excuse right around the corner:
Charity Miles
Incentive: Earn money for charities every time you run, walk or bicycle by using the free Charity Miles app.
Excuse: How about I find one of those annoying charity street canvassers (or they’ll find you) and just automatically donate $10 bucks a month without having to lift a single finger. Boom.
FitRadio
Incentive: Workout mixes are essential to keep you pushing yourself to work out harder. Whether it’s trying to reach the top of the next hill or doing a few more reps or whatever. FitRadio is a good option to cure bad music blues by offering a mix of upbeat and hardcore tracks like this, that keep your heart rate up, in the groove and in the mood.
Excuse: They don’t know what I like to work out to. What if this is my workout jam? They don’t know me.
Zombies, Run!
Incentive: This taps into your imagination. If music doesn’t get you going, maybe pretend zombies will. This interactive app casts the user as a runner trying to desperately escape zombies. As you run, zombies are hot on your tail and the app will cut into your music to tell you that they’re gaining fast, thus getting you to run faster, right?
Excuse: Please. Just grab a hatchet, a shotgun, 300 to 600 rounds of ammo, board up your windows, stay quiet af, stock up on munchies and wait until the zombies decompose into harmless skeletons. I’m not running anywhere.
Also, zombies are not real, so there’s that.
The issue here is not that technology makes exercise easier; it’s that it doesn’t provide anyone the will to work out. You can’t trick people into exercise. You have to inspire them to work out. Simply saying, “you’re out of excuses” isn’t going to work.
When people care about their health, their fitness, their appearance or being the best they can physically be, they actually do it.
So rather than trying to provide charitable, musical or fantastical incentives to get someone to work out, what if technology could be used to inspire people to care about their fitness rather than trying to condense and simplify exercise when we damn well know it isn’t simple at all?
Only time will tell. Until then, I’ll be tricking my Wii into thinking that it’s tricking me into being active.
