Technology has directly impacted and changed the lives of human beings. Currently, one of the trends is Gamification in the search for fitness projects. Gamification, over time, has been given new meaning and gained greater notoriety.
By encouraging the engagement and curiosity of users, the tool seeks to further promote the participation, interest, and involvement of those who use it.
The potential of this trend is that it can provide for the professional world is increasingly evident. Therefore, an updated system for gyms is of vital importance.
In this article, you will find out how you can introduce gamification for fitness projects. Also, create a great environment for anyone who seeks to exercise more and get healthy.
Benefits of gamification
When gamification is present in a fitness experience, it creates a fun and challenging environment for participants. Users feel “transported” from reality to an alternative world where they achieve many achievements and continue to strive to do the best they can.
As with most games, gamified training experiences are often addictive, leaving users eager to go back and overcome the next challenge. This can result in greater loyalty and retention as students return to the academy to achieve their next goal.
When applied to a group situation, gamification also generates a sense of community and competition, which is highly sought after. Many gym-goers are looking for a close-knit community that offers support, friendship, and a friendly rivalry.
Gamification for fitness: Why use it?
There is only one common ambition in most people: the will to win. This feeling is evident everywhere, but it is exposed in a gym environment. There is healthy competition between students and, in some cases, with themselves.
The sooner you understand this fact, the better you can take advantage of it for your benefit, and the sooner you can choose a gym system that helps you.
Students develop at different paces, but they all practice exercises and frequent their space expecting to be rewarded. Some are looking for better health, better appearance, or a variety of other reasons.
Feeling of achievement
This feeling serves as a motivation for the student not to stop and try to improve himself every day. Exploring this feeling is one of the goals of gamification. People play games precisely because they feel rewarded for doing so, but they can give up if they don’t feel rewarded enough.
The difficulty of a game is measured precisely by the ratio between challenge and reward. A very challenging game with low rewards is considered difficult, but if we reverse the situation with few challenges and many rewards, it would be an easy game.
It is important to balance these two factors to keep the student entertained. A good balance between challenge and reward is a powerful retention weapon, as participants will always come back looking for the same feeling and will hardly ever leave their gym.
Healthy competition
Naturally, there is healthy competition among students, even if not explicit. It is innate in our society, regardless of age, gender or interests.
This competition exposes in a light and fun way and you, as a manager, can only win. Regardless of how it is applied, competition always stirs the pride of each student. So, in addition to encouraging the student to improve, he will hardly run away from the challenge and continue in his academy.
Measure performance
For gym-goers, it’s much easier to see their progress in numbers on the screen than it is to feel it in their bodies. Levels, achievements, and benchmarks against other participants are simple methods of demonstrating results to everyone and evaluating development.
Gyms that have adopted gamification already have the technology to expose all this data with the help of remote sensors and devices. It is now possible to compare which of the students had the best performance and which ones had the greatest evolution in a given group.
Nowadays, it is not enough for the customer to recognize your brand. It is also necessary to identify and enjoy relating to your business. Gamification proposes this pleasure in the relationship through fun and technology.
Affordable and complete
One of the hallmarks of gamification is accessibility. Regardless of age or exercise experience, it covers all audiences with varied activities, encouraging beginners to veterans to excel.
In addition, this trend allows you to work for several muscle groups at the same time, changing only the intensity that the exercises are done according to the capacity of each student.
Gamification in the fitness sector
Recall your early childhood experiences with exercise. They likely involved playing a team sport or taking classes at a gym, where you had fun with your friends to reach a common goal or set a winner.
Things aren’t much different after kids grow up. As adults, we tend to look for experiences that bring back that spirit of fun and competitiveness we enjoyed when we were younger. Luckily, advances in technology have allowed games to advance into many aspects of daily life. With gamification being very prevalent in the fitness industry. Consider these examples:
indoor cycling classes
New generations of indoor cycling bikes build up with the ability to measure the user’s performance. It shows a variety of statistics throughout the workout. These bikes can link to a leaderboard, allowing performance statistics for participating bikes at the front of the room. This means users can compete against each other and themselves, bringing a gamification factor to your gym’s indoor cycling programs.
Cardiovascular equipment in the network
It gives users an easy way to monitor fitness progress whenever they log into Precor’s cardiovascular console or use the Preva app to record their workout. This app was created from the science of gamification to give users medals for completing workouts. They get more medals at the start of the fitness journey to stay motivated and inspired, eager to get back to the gym for more medals.
Wearable fitness technology
Many users use training monitors to monitor their physical performance and general health. These wearable devices, when integrated with heart rate technology, are ideal for use in a gamified environment. Benefits include the ability to analyze individuals’ fitness levels, customize training to match their abilities, develop a relationship between students and coaches, and create a fun and competitive environment.
How to implement gamification in your gym
How can you incorporate gamification into your gym? Here are some ideas to start in your fitness project:
Search
Between you and your employees, try out some of the fitness experiences mentioned above so you can take notes on what you can do at your gym. Don’t be afraid to try gamification experiments outside of your comfort zone. They can still help shape your view of gamification and other kinds of things that might interest students.
Chat with industry experts
Work with fitness equipment vendors to see what they offer in creating competitive training environments that include gamification in the experience. From networked fitness consoles to group training classes with stat tracking, there are plenty of options for adding tech gamification to your gym.
Involve your employees
It is also interesting to engage your employees to ensure they are fully aware of the gamification approach and adopt it in their interactions with customers and students. The support of your staff can help generate excitement around your academy’s new gamification experiences. Employees are great at generating little competition and friendly rivalry among themselves and customers.
Creativity
Think about what you and your employees can do to run competitions and highlight achievements. It’s not always necessary to have expensive technologies behind your gamification approach. Thus, think of ways that encourage high involvement, participation in your gym and ensure that you can measure and monitor a person’s performance so they can beat previous records.
There are some ideas. Those who lost the highest percentage of weight during boot camp. Who participated in the most training sessions in a row. Or who maintained their highest heart rate during a Spinning class.
Conduct a treasure hunt
You can organize a scavenger hunt at your gym or an outdoor area such as a nearby park. At each station, participants must perform a specific set of exercises to receive a clue and find the next station. When they complete the treasure hunt, they can win a prize like a free personalized training session or a gym store gift certificate.
For a relatively low investment for you, users will remember this day and take the opportunity to compete against each other in pursuit of victory.
Create an obstacle course
Challenge participants to a list of pre-determined exercises that test the whole body: arms and shoulders, abs and legs. Include high-intensity cardiovascular exercise for a powerful experience. Whoever finishes faster will be the winner!
Above all, you need to ensure that your gamification experiences are fun for your students. They include opportunities to reward and recognize a job well done.
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