6 Reasons Why a Fitness Challenge App is the Best Workout Partner
When it comes to establishing new fitness habits, we all have big goals. But busy days, repetitive workouts, and good old-fashioned laziness often take over and prevent us from maintaining these habits long term. Learn why a fitness challenge app is the workout partner you need to get in shape and stay that way.
1.Encourages Goal Setting
The problem with making promises like “I’ll go to the gym every day” is there’s no specifically measurable goal and no end date. If the plan is to go to the gym every day for the rest of your life, then skipping a week isn’t really a big deal, is it? Before you know it, you haven’t worked out consistently in months.
A fitness challenge app gives you a precise physical or nutritional end goal such as miles run, stairs climbed, workouts logged, or days without sugar. The app gives you structure to keep you moving towards this goal. And when the goal is reached? You have the opportunity to re-evaluate and aim higher.
2. Keeps You Consistent
Goals are reached through the successful accumulation of baby steps. Not only does it take time to establish new habits, but it requires consistency to build lasting strength, flexibility, and fitness. A fitness challenge app is your pocket reminder to move daily. Logging in on a regular basis helps maintain a healthy daily routine.
In general, it takes 40 days of consistent behavior to establish a new routine. 20 days to let go of old habits, and 20 days for new ones to take root. Daily notifications from a fitness challenge app will keep you on track until consistency becomes your default mode.
3. Provides Accountability
Accountability partners are motivating, and studies show a virtual partner is just as effective as a real one. A fitness challenge app not only serves as an accountability partner by requiring you to log in daily, but can give you access to hundreds of virtual workout buddies by way of leaderboards and competitive rankings or community forums.
With the FitAtom app in particular, you can join challenges based on your geographic location, your age, or your goals. If you select to share your workouts or make them public, your presence on the app motivates others too. You’re less likely to skip a day if you know someone is watching.
4. Tracks Your Progress
Thanks to negativity bias, the human mind is much more likely to focus on the one day skipped than all our small successes. Without a prompt to think otherwise, our self-talk can quickly become pessimistic. But bullying ourselves in an attempt to motivate is anything but helpful. In fact, when we speak to ourselves critically, we’re more likely to feel helpless and depressed.
Positivity is motivating. When the dashboard on your fitness challenge app highlights your successes, you’re more likely to continue with the upward trends. Visualizing how many days in a row you’ve done your workouts, how much weight you’ve lost, or how much strength you’ve gained creates a positive feedback loop that makes you want to keep going.
5. Offers Community Support
When you’re part of a fitness challenge, you’re not doing it alone. You’re competing against or alongside like-minded others, who share similar goals to you. This in itself creates a sense of community, which motivates by keeping us from feeling alone. Your virtual fitness partners could even be real-life friends.
When people join together to share in a similar cause, relationships and general wellbeing are strengthened. When we feel supported, we have a natural tendency to want to support others too. This supportive role is empowering and helps us feel in control of the positive change in our lives.
6. Fitness Challenges Are Fun!
Working out isn’t only about work. In fact, if we can’t find a way to make fitness fun, it will never be sustainable. Daily victories are fun, rising to the top of the leaderboard is fun, and competing alongside your good friends is fun. Most of all, it’s fun to see real-life positive changes as a result of your daily commitment.
Use a fitness challenge app to relieve boredom in your workouts, move past a plateau, or to reach your goals sooner. It’s the best virtual workout partner to have on your side!
