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Diary of a fat man – Fitivity (sometimes walls get in the way)

Diary of a fat man – Fitivity (sometimes walls get in the way)
Alex Beech

Alex Beech

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For last seven days I have been trying out Fitivity (Android|iOS), and it has been a great week. The bodyweight focused exercise programs is far more closely matched with my interests and usual workouts than my previous trials – which may explain why I found it so successful.

If you are unaware of bodyweight training as a concept it is quite simple, you use your body’s natural (in my case considerable) bulk… to provide the resistance for training. Some common examples of these are push-ups, crunches, and planking, but these are just a tiny selection of the exercises that can be included in a routine.

Easy layout and menus

For me this was perfect because – bar one or two exercises – I knew all of the exercises listed (at least in the Home Bodyweight Program that I selected). With most of the routines being fairly simple circuits of five or six repeating exercises, each with a fixed duration. This meant all I had to do was look down to remind myself of the exercises and the timing, and away I went.

You may remember that my last physical training tool was Daily Yoga (Android|iOS), and I think it is only fair that I revisit a point I made there. One of my big problems with this app was that I didn’t know the positions, a fact that made it difficult for to follow each stage of a routine. However, the spoken explanation that ran throughout meant a lot was done to accommodate the less experienced.

Easy examples

By comparison Fitivity’s app comes up short. When I didn’t know a specific exercise I had to tap on it to bring up an explanation – not a hard process thanks to the easy to navigate menus – but enough to break the flow of the routine. This is a real issue as the point of the training is to maintain a high heart rate for short periods, tough if you are constantly stopping. This never proved an issue for me, but I can imagine it would for newcomers.

Even knowing the exercises proved to be problematic, however. While timings for each exercise were listed, there was no in-app timer. My only method of actually measuring time (at least where I exercise) is on my phone. This led to an odd situation for me of having to write out exercises and timings on a sheet of paper and then timing them from a stopwatch app.

Tricky exercises for me

For me, the best thing about the Fitivity is that the routines are good. The app features quick hitting exercises that never get boring and most of which can be done with ease at home. I say “most” because I did find a few issues with certain exercise. The first issue was space, with exercises like the Walking Lunge having me across my apartment before I’d even taken two steps (I am 193cm). The other problem I hit was the term “to exhaustion” for the Knee Push Ups exercise because my knees began to hurt long before I reached exhaustion.

Push it

Fitivity sets a good routine, with a good interface and explanations of exercise. As someone who knows most of the routines, it would be near perfect with the simple inclusion of an in-app timer.

I am out of the office for the next two weeks, so my diary is about to take a short hiatus, but I will be back on the 16th with how Noom Coach (Android|iOS) has helped me out. And who knows, I may even keep on with my Fitivity training while I am away.

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Follow me on Twitter: @DoFuss

Alex Beech

Alex Beech

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