How Has AR Apps Transformed Our Workout Regime?
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are altering the ways we accomplish our mundane tasks. AR has made substantial growth in the past few years in many sectors, including health care, gaming, entertainment, mental wellness, education, the hospitality industry, and many more. Augmented reality has also paved its way into the Fitness industry. It has immensely changed the approach of people in their workout routines. It has positively encouraged them to work out and has made it entertaining like never before. Can you imagine getting excited to workout? But it is possible with AR.
People always like trying new things when it comes to their diet and fitness. They will try everything possible to make their lives simple in the best ways imaginable. There are many techniques to stay in shape; however, somehow, that always feels like a battle very challenging for many. In North America, almost 93.3 million adults suffer from obesity, which is now 39.6% of the American population. You can only imagine their struggle to fight the problem. Our experts in the technology field are trying to bring innovation in the fitness industry to solve this problem so that most people can defeat obesity and stay fit. AR can play a huge role here. Many AR apps can help stay you fit in an entertaining way of-course.
What is an AR fitness app & What can it do?
Before going ahead with how these apps work, let’s talk about how it is. There are only a few such AR apps. They work a bit differently; however, with the same principle, each app syncs digital visual content into the individual’s real-world environment.
AR apps can boost individuals and enhance their workout experience even when the weather prevents them from working outside. This is because it allows a fully immersive space where a user can communicate with objects that are not there; exercising becomes extra encouraging, whether done indoors or outdoors.
Apart from its immersive features, AR apps can also offer data in real-time. This works two ways— first, you prevent overstretching your body as you can track your movements. Second, you can increase efficiency, since you are aware when to increase the force or take it down. Every detail, such as distance covered, calories burned, heart rate, becomes a helpful set of measures to keep you on track.
Personalized workouts, holographic trainers, workout gamification, diet and nutrition apps, are a list of AR apps that can get you on your toes with so much to do.
Let’s discuss each one in-depth to know how these apps work and what they can offer you.
Holographic Trainers
This is one of the most enticing apps in AR fitness. Instead of seeking boring workout videos or reading instruction manuals on an app, users can visualize a virtual personal coach in the gym or any other workout space. Imagine: You can walk around your instructor to see the way muscles work and workout beside him or her.
Workout Gamification
This might sound bizarre, but games such as Zombies, Run! Or Pokemon Go can make you run upside down. Apart from a powerful trigger for AR, Pokemon Go is an excellent alternative for the gym. It’s a simple way to run several km a day, gathering monsters without feeling like you’re working out. An app, Zombies, Run! Works in a similar way. These zombies are just like any television reality running after the players and don’t want them to see another day. This is more like an augmented audio app and gets you moving quicker. Besides circling you with zombie noise, and changing your reality into zombie-invaded one, this app blends AR with gamification. Once you finish your running goals, you gain significant items. Even before you’re aware, you’re good enough to outrun a mob of zombies.
Diet & Nutrition Apps
Several apps keep track of nutrition habits, calories, and create a particular diet for allergic people. People love such apps. Now, what if we add AR features to such apps?
The US startup, Suggestic, developed an app enabling users to display their preferences, choose a diet or nutrition plan, and enhance it’s user’s unique biology. As much as amazing these features are, they are not game-changing for nutrition apps, until the AR innovation.
The Suggestic app provides users something different than those regular nutrition apps. Users can point their phones at any restaurant menu and immediately see what’s favorable for them, as per their biology, diet, goals, and preferences.
Hiking Apps
These apps enable users to display their runs, cycling sessions, or hikes, once they’re done. One great example is the Strava app. This app allows users to pin a topographical map of your route to any leveled surface and analyze a 3D model of the landscape you just climbed.
AR Runner
This app stimulates you to break a sweat by positioning virtual checkpoints as you can in record time. The game provides you multiple field shapes and sizes to avoid boredom. If you beat a score, you’ll gain a special place on their scoreboard. The app even has various game modes with multiple sets of directions. If you wish to play a warm-up round, you can walk over the checkpoints in that particular order.
Future of AR in Fitness
Innumerable people are trying to find ways to defeat obesity and the health risks linked with it. Using such immersive technology is the right step to boost engagement and raise the fun factors in the fitness regime.
The last thing is to remember if you are the one interested in developing such apps, it is essential not to only focus on the fun and engaging factors of the app, but also make it accessible and affordable for a vast mass who are physically challenged or live in remote areas of the gym centers.
The fitness industry is yet to embrace AR in their training programs; it will undoubtedly attract and arouse curiosity in more people. Especially the young crowd will get ready to leave behind their sedentary lifestyle and become more active and adopt a healthier lifestyle through entertaining exercises.
