Review: Fitocracy app brings an RPG touch to working out

If you have a hard time getting on the treadmill or dragging yourself to the gym on a regular basis, you know that it can be tough to stay motivated. Without people in your life to help you stick to fitness goals, it can be even tougher. Maybe you’re one of those people who is really addicted to the joys of training for a specific sport or for health reasons. Or maybe, like many of us, you’re somewhere in the middle. You work out with some regularity, but you sometimes need a little boost to get your running shoes on.

These days, our gadgets follow us into the weight room or the running trail, and there are already plenty of apps that help track your training workouts, running routes, and nutrition. Some of my favorites include RunKeeper, DailyMile or LoseIt. Over the years, I have tried dozens of these apps, and a few have helped me track my workouts to an amazing level of detail. However, my experiences with these apps are usually mine alone. Finding other runners or strength training friends generally happens outside the apps. If you use your mobile phone to help you train, you may feel lonely after so much data-entry tapping. The fitness app Fitocracy potentially solves this issue. Fitocracy has only been around for less than two years, but it is already gathering a following as a platform that encourages discipline and consistency through social and gaming elements.

How it works

Fitocracy started out as an invite-only Web application. Over time, the company’s user base has grown to 600,000 people, according to CEO Brian Wang. The app is currently available on the iPhone; iPad and Android versions are in the works. The secret to Fitocracy’s recent surge of success is simple. The app asks you to track your workout data, and you are rewarded by a system of power-ups, achievements, and challenges that come straight from the world of role-playing video games. Fitocracy also encourages you to get more social with other fitness enthusiasts, creating a community of people who are competing with you, but also applaud you for your achievements.

Getting started with the app is simple. You can register for a new account in the app (or on the Fitocracy website) by using an e-mail address, or your Twitter or Facebook credentials. Because the app is geared toward social interaction, the tutorial animations prompt you to first fill out a profile. Fitocracy keeps things simple; you’ll only be asked for a user name, profile pic, and bio. You can also enter your weight, but the app won’t display that to fellow friends and competitors. It’s a nice touch of privacy, and adds a bit of relief in case your goals are related to weight loss and you’re worried about what others might think.

The app navigation is divided into five major areas (with a button for each one): Feed, Groups, Track, Leaders, and You. Under the feed, you’ll find a feed of status updates from other users, as well as announcements about who has leveled up and conquered new challenges in the app. Groups provide access to a nice roundup of different niche interests in fitness, and the selections are pretty impressive. I found groups focused on strength training, powerlifting, Crossfit, yoga, running, and even dietary/lifestyle groups such as Paleo. Once you join a group, you get a mini feed of peoples’ questions and comments about the topic. I found that most discussions in these groups were very active, even though it’s composed of short status messages. You can’t post images, but the groups do support hyperlinks.

The groups are one of the reasons that Fitocracy feels like a real community. Not everyone is a runner, and not everyone is interested in bodybuilding. By finding the group that works best for your specific interests, you can begin to follow other users who you may have more in common with.

The Leaders button takes you to a leaderboard where you can see the top users of the app. You can also view just users you follow or users by gender.

Tracking is simple. By using the Track button, you can add hundreds of training sets and reps from a built-in, searchable library of activities and put together a workout for a single day. Adding sets and reps just takes a quick tap, and you can remove them with a swipe. Once you’re done entering your data, you can submit your workout. The app awards you points for each of your day’s activities, and the wait for the calculation is pretty fun. If you get enough points, you’ll level up, just like you level up your mage in games like Final Fantasy.

Fitocracy can import data from RunKeeper, so if you’re using RunKeeper to log your training, it can make things easier. Still, Fitocracy doesn’t support the GPS tracking features found in other apps. You can also export your own data anytime as a CSV file.

Similar to Facebook’s Like button, Fitocracy lets users “give props” to their friends to encourage more activity. This social integration makes it easy to follow people and make new friends. It’s a bit reminiscent of the early days of Twitter, when users followed many new accounts because the community was smaller and people were getting to know who was there. Receiving props is surprisingly one of the most effective parts of the app. When users encourage you after your workout, you feel a great amount of support.

Leveling up and notifications

Milestones in fitness can really help with one’s self-confidence. If you’ve ever set out to do a set of ten chin-ups, you know that it can take weeks to accomplish it, and when you do, you feel like celebrating. Fitocracy has a built-in database of these milestones, and when you track workouts, you are sometimes rewarded for completing these “quests.” In my case, I was rewarded for running 5K, training on the bench, and logging ten sets of exercises in a week. Getting rewarded for staying consistent and working with small, incremental goals really feels good.

Fitocracy displays your achievements right in your profile, and other users can poke around to see how far you’ve come. I consider myself pretty fit: I do strength training and I run about 5-6 times per week. Even with my previous experience, I was still delighted each time the app commended me for completing quests. Most achievements come from physical feats, like running 1,000 miles or performing 30 pull-ups in a single set. Others come from being social, so if you’re good at talking to other people and encouraging them, you can also earn these achievement badges.

Fitocracy is free, but you’ll have to pay for one of its more interesting features. For $4.99 per month, users can engage in a one-on-one fitness challenge. You can pick the style of combat, whether it’s a max-rep squat or running a half marathon. Those challenges are also prominently featured in the app.

The app’s purple and white interface is elegant, but the gestures needed to retrieve notifications can get a bit repetitive. It’s easy to miss the notifications that appear in the upper right-hand corner, and navigating through them to get to other user’s profiles involves too many swipes. I found myself losing a lot of precious time going back and forth to get to people I followed or to give props.

Conclusion

Tracking your fitness data is nothing new in the world of Web and mobile apps. What I liked about Fitocracy is that it has created a welcoming place and an original interface for people who are new to fitness. If your goal is to lose weight or take up a walking regimen, it can be a good space to find others that will encourage your efforts without judgment. I was also surprised by the community of more advanced users. Some Internet forums for running, endurance sports, and strength training are home to disputes and trolling, but I’ve found that Fitocracy’s advanced users are very encouraging.