Did you start off 2016 full of good fitness intentions? Maybe you even got stuck in and rode on the wave of January motivation. But with the mornings and evenings still dark and (real) spring seeming a long way off, it can be tough keep your fitness intentions from flagging.
Fear not. Unsurprisingly, there’s an app for that. We will profile the best, or the most entertaining, over the next few weeks to keep you in gear.
Pact
iOS, Android
Some people love their gym. They’re a regular through the doors, decked out in the latest gym gear, sharing their progress through ab selfies, living the #strongisthenewskinny lifestyle. Fair play to them.
And then there are the rest of us, who sign up with great intentions in January. The ones that go three times a week for three weeks, before it tails off and before you know it, it’s been over a month and you haven’t set foot in the gym, uncomfortably aware that it’s gouging a hole in your bank account regardless.
Somewhere in the back of your head, your mother’s voice can be heard shrieking “€60 a month? Money down the drain!”
You start walking the long way home just so you don’t have to pass the gym doors and feel that familiar stab of guilt. Eventually, you drag yourself back, do your required 30 minutes. More short-term good intentions and so the cycle repeats.
Imagine there was an app that could act as that guilty voice, prompting you to work out or eat your vegetables and generally just prod you into a healthier lifestyle? That’s what Pact aims to do. It encourages users to commit to certain goals – work out three times a week, or eat at least five portions of fruit or veg a week. So far, so ordinary, but where Pact sets itself apart is it adds a financial incentive.
If you complete all your activities for the week, whether it’s food logging, exercise or consuming your five a day, you get a small reward. But if you fail to hit your targets, you pay at least $5 per activity missed. If you log the right food for five days but miss a workout, you’ll find yourself $5 down – minus your other target awards. It records activity through gym check-ins, the in-app motion tracker, the step counter or through its partner apps. And that’s why you’ll find yourself out walking at 11pm on a Sunday night.
Verdict: Something will feel a bit trimmer – fingers crossed it's not your wallet.
Zombies, Run!!
iOS, Android
Some people love running, they love the time to clear their heads (editor’s note: for those people – irishtimes.com/GetRunning).
Some people, myself included, prefer to run only when chased. Which is where Zombies, Run! gets its core thinking. Even before The Walking Dead hit TV screens, there was a consensus that if you were being trailed by zombies, you should probably pick up the pace. So what better motivation for a running app than the undead?
The app tells a story as you run – you are a runner en-route to one of humanity’s last remaining outpost. , It custs into your own music playlist with “broadcasts” from this base.
Occasionally, you hear your zombie detector beeping ominously, letting you know there’s danger nearby. If you have “zombie chases” enabled, you’ll have to pick up the pace to outrun them. It’s tense, but it certainly provides the motivation to pump those legs as fast as you can go.
It's running without realising it. Verdict: Saying it makes running fun might be pushing it, but nothing motivates you into moving quicker than the prospect of imminent death. Even if it is fiction.
