Should You Gamify Your Workout?

Working out can be fun, but it’s not a guarantee. So a new study was conducted to find out if turning exercise into a game would improve performance and results.

And the answer seems to be yes, if the game is fun.

The researchers designed a social game called MapTrek. Subjects used their Fitbit to track their steps and the game would show them how far they would have traveled around somewhere like the Grand Canyon or the Appalachian Trail. Then people compared how far they made it through these landmarks versus other people. And it worked pretty well.

Those who played the game increased their amount of steps, on average, by about a mile every day. And for 146 participants we find that to be pretty good.

Of course, we’ve seen something similar to this before, when Pokemon Go became such a massive hit and was considered the hottest new way to get off the couch and move around. That game faded, and like the MapTrek participants who stopped playing when the study was over, its fans went back to the couch. But that doesn’t mean the perfect exercise game isn’t still on the horizon. If you know one let us know.

-Shane M.