I’ve been having fun recently with some apps that make fitness into a game. There are a lot of games based on different concepts, but I’ve been experimenting with Pathbound and Ascended as the heroic quest theme works nicely for building fitness.
I started with Pathbound first – it is focussed on running and it has definitely helped me be a little more consistent. I think this is mostly because it gives me reasons not to delay a workout to the next day, but instead gives me an extra reason to be active that tips the balance. There’s a nice community around the game with lots of interaction through Discord and guild specific boards, which has been encouraging and also helps build accountability. The only downside for me is that I was pretty consistent with my running in the first place and could probably do with a little more help being consistent with my strength training.
I’ve now started playing with Ascended, which has a series of story missions which you unlock by completing activities. It does track strength training, but in a fairly loose way, so it would be easy to make progress just doing cardio. For someone who exercises as much as I do, the 90 minutes per day limit is a little limiting though I understand the rationale for it. The app is very well put together though doesn’t quite seem to have the same level of community around it as pathbound. It’s early days for me so there may be things I haven’t tipped into.
Overall I am enjoying the apps, they add a little bit of extra motivation which can tip the balance between working out and skipping a day. And the community elements on Pathbound have been great.
Of course there’s a down side with any gamification – it can easily drive people to push too far, and not all online communities are healthy places to be. There’s also a risk that the app consumes too much time between workouts, thus drawing us into more screen time.
Have you experimented with gamifying your workouts? How did you find it?
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