Most of big service providers are known for using algorithms that predict what customers can buy. Can the same formula be applied to something as personal as health and fitness? Our intuition tells us it cannot. It is more likely that you will see improvements if you receive support from time to time.
Get professional advice
While traditional fitness apps are ideal for recording data and analyzing performance, it is often best to receive daily instructions on how to achieve your fitness goals. Fitness coaches can use your data to better understand and analyze your workouts. So if you are using an app, ask for professional advice on how to interpret and use the training data. It is useless if you do not know how to handle it!
Seek regular support
To have goals is one thing, to reach them is a different one. Fitness apps are great for counting calories, tracking races, and providing exercise routines, but they are not necessarily the answer to the long-term behavioral change you are looking for.
Fitness programs generated by an algorithm are often behind their goals. One-third of US consumers who used a wearable fitness product did not use the product within six months of purchase. And it’s not just those annoying wearables that do not work. Most applications achieved between one and 28 out of 100 scores when analyzing behavioral changes.
The reason? Only few health and fitness applications have reinforcing factors that are characterized by encouragement, judgment, and interactivity with others. Apps do not have a realistic social component – although they can track your workouts, they cannot ask questions like “My calf is a bit tight, should I still go?” Interpersonal interaction offers those who want to make friends a motivation that is far more difficult to achieve with technology alone. Find someone who can support you regularly.
Follow a realistic training plan
If you are always busy, you can stay in shape and often put off at the expense of a difficult schedule. In today’s “still active” way of thinking, things do not get easier as work and play become blurred. Nonetheless, we business people have every reason to stay fit and healthy.
Frequent travelers, business lunches and long hours are just some of the things that challenge a healthy lifestyle. We all know that business people have a hard time setting goals – only that health and fitness aspirations are not always high on the list.
While there are more than 100,000 health apps, 30% of which are fitness apps, professionals need tailor-made fitness programs that fit their busy lifestyle. In general, we want to know what to do, when to do it, and how to achieve it when it comes to fitness. For business people who travel frequently, it is difficult.
The problem with many self-improvement apps, including fitness, is that they usually provide a good foundation for improvement, but you really need something else to really make it work for you.
Applications should represent interpersonal interaction as a core element. Any technology can benefit from becoming a bit more human.