Fitness Tech Is Playing, Changing The Game

Tue, August 09, 2011

Click Image to Enlarge

KMUW / Fletcher Powell

As some estimates show the US video game industry topping 20 billion dollars, fitness advocates occasionally find themselves at odds with the rapidly expanding popularity of the sector. As part of our Sound Mind and Body series, KMUW’s Fletcher Powell looks at the way some fitness technology companies have decided to work with the video game model instead of against it.

A few years ago, there was a bit of a stir when a number of school districts around the country announced that they were going to begin incorporating Nintendo’s “Wii Fit” video game into their physical education routines. Initially, some people seemed bothered that schools might replace any part of their “traditional” PE class with a video game—even one that combines yoga, strength training, and aerobics.

Of course, the idea was to get kids moving, somehow. And it wasn’t a huge leap of logic to take something kids seem to enjoy—namely, video games—and apply it to something nearly everyone agrees kids need—physical activity.

And the people at these schools weren’t the only ones who saw the potential of something like the Wii Fit game. In the three years since the game’s release, it’s become one of the ten best-selling video games of all time. And the game is just part of a much larger trend that is taking traditional fitness ideas and filtering them through our rapidly expanding digital world.

Just as our smart phones are enhancing the way we’re able to communicate and navigate our daily lives, a whole set of new devices have been released over the last five years or so that are able to enhance our physical fitness routines as well.

Lauren Smith is a student at Wichita State University—in fact, she just got her degree in business management and is going back for one more class to finish her second major, entrepreneurship. A little while back, her mom got her something called a Fitbit, which is, ultimately, a sort of hi-tech pedometer…

Smith: …it’s just one of those things that, you know, you’re supposed to have 10,000 steps every day, just to maintain healthy lifestyle, so, um, it was just kind of a cool little device that…

Like a lot of these new fitness technologies, the Fitbit doesn’t really operate on any kind of new idea. Obviously, pedometers have been around for quite some time now. But what it can do, and what many of these products are aiming to do, is to make the experience more than just a simple counter of steps.

Smith: There’s actually—it’s plugged in right now, it’s just a USB base, and I believe the range is about 15 feet. Whenever you come within that range of the base, it uploads information every 30 seconds or so…

Smith clips the Fitbit to the inside of her pocket—it’s only a few inches long—and it begins to measure her activity. The steps she takes, the intensity of her workout. And then, every time she passes by her computer, it uploads that information automatically to her Fitbit account. She doesn’t have to do a thing. And that’s when the fun really gets started.

Smith: When you go to the website, you have your dashboard and you—like, you’re supposed to have your 10,000 steps a day? You can also set another goal…

She says you can log on to your account and see your activity level, the number of calories you’ve burned throughout the day—even if you’ve just been sitting on the couch—and you can use the site to help balance the food you take in with the calories you burn.

Of course, Smith says, it’s not necessarily perfectly accurate.

Smith: So, one day when we were on vacation, we essentially—we climbed a mountain. So… I only had about 6,000 steps or so, but we climbed a mountain, so they were all going up the mountain.

Still, for her, this isn’t a huge deal, because she doesn’t consider herself a serious athlete. Mostly, she says that she just uses the Fitbit to make sure she’s moving enough each day to stay in shape.

Smith: …kind of like when you’re at the end of the day and you go, oh, I don’t want to do anything else, I just want to go to bed, it’s kind of—like, you can look down at it and go, ok, well, maybe I’ll just walk around the block once… ok, I guess that’s alright.

And that’s one of the major things many of these products seem to want to do—to make it easy for someone like Lauren Smith to see that she’s getting enough exercise on a daily basis. Because, really, it doesn’t mean a lot to know that you’re supposed to take 10,000 steps a day if you don’t have a way to track it.

Of course, the creators of these devices are still selling a product, which means they want to cater to the largest market possible. Which means selling not just to the casual user, like Smith, but to the more serious athletes, too.

Stanley: I’m out there every day, pushing myself, trying to get better…

This is Thomas Stanley, a program associate at the Kansas Leadership Center. He’s also a marathon runner.

Stanley: I was talking to someone today, it’s on my bucket list to do an ultra in the next couple years, maybe 50 miles…

Stanley’s device of choice is the Nike Plus system, which combines sensors in his shoes with an app on his iPhone and helps him track his pace, distance, and calories burned in real time.

Stanley: I can track progress much easier. So, before it, I never knew how fast I was going, I never really paid attention to speed, I would occasionally look at the clock. But, I think, with this it’s much easier to track how fast you’re going over long runs, it’s much better to look at improvements over a period of time.

And he says that, with this system, he knows right away if he needs to pick up the pace in order to meet his goals.

Stanley: So, I like to track and make sure I’m staying at a steady pace, so if I get a mile that’s a little behind, I’ll push ahead…

One of the brilliant things that products like Nike Plus and the Fitbit have done is to take advantage of a person’s natural desire for positive feedback. This is something that might seem obvious, but it’s also taking a page from the most successful video games out there right now. World of Warcraft, for example, has built a multi-billion dollar industry offering positive feedback to users for completion of various tasks. The Nike Plus system does a similar thing, giving rewards for beating goals and encouragement from famous athletes for setting new personal records.

Stanley: So if I break a record, my running record, like, the longest distance, they’ll usually say, “good job,” you know, it’ll be someone like… Lance Armstrong says, “you did a good job, you broke a personal record” so, that’s a lot of fun.

The other thing these products have keyed in on is good old peer pressure. Meaning, they’ve adapted their devices to the social media market. In some cases, it’s as simple as posting updates and goals to Facebook.

Stanley: So it’ll post—while you start running, it’ll post a little thing on Facebook that says, “If you comment or ‘like,’ Thomas will get cheers,” while you run. So every now and then I’ll do that, and I’ll just get a random applause from my phone, which is exciting.

But some social media sites have popped up that are completely devoted to sharing your workouts with your friends. For many people, it just seems a lot easier to exercise with other people. Which is why a site like dailymile.com has built more than 300,000 users in about two-and-a-half years. The site allows people to upload their running routes, connect with friends, and give comments and encouragement to each other about what they’re doing. Basically, like Facebook for runners.

Both Lauren Smith and Thomas Stanley say that they don’t really feel like the devices they have actually make them do more in the way of physical activity. Which means that, on some level, the initial motivation to exercise probably has to come from somewhere else. But Smith said it does help to be able to see what her activity is day-to-day. And Stanley says that, even if it doesn’t make him do more, it definitely makes him better.

Stanley: It doesn’t make me run more, but what it does do is it makes me run more consistently when I do run. So, it does push me to push harder if I see myself falling behind.

Going forward, it’s hard to imagine that we won’t be seeing more of these kinds of products, especially as the smartphone app market continues to explode and people are able to find new ways to track their progress and connect with their friends. And while an app that will do all of your exercise for you is still probably a bit down the road, many PE teachers will tell you that finding one that helps you do something is still pretty good.

Funding for KMUW’s Sound Mind & Body series is made possible, in part, by Via Christi Health.