ComFit20

Have you done your workout yet? Working out together is fun and keeps people active. We want to build a platform - ComFIT - for communities to perform an easy and fun fitness program together.

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Inspiration

In the past few weeks, since we first received the “Shelter-In-Place” order, my life has just not been complete without the personal interactions I have at the gym without my workout crew, playing beach volleyball on the weekends with colleagues, Sunday spinning on the bike with friends. Those personal interactions motivate me to stay accountable, grow stronger and share laughter together. Trying to stay fit while under lockdown is just not the same. I needed a solution. So, I decided to build a tool that would enable me to bring this social experience to my workouts: a Python-based circuit training app for working out together, remotely, with friends (https://github.com/sfechner/SylviesFitnessCircuit). Being a part of so many fitness communities, I reached out to friends looking for beta testers and immediately got an overwhelmingly positive response. Each day became brighter with their feedback, ranging me from “it’s so good to see you all working out” to “you are the reason why I start my day”. With growing interest from people outside of my immediate social circle, or from others wanting to host their own workouts, we decided to not only work out together, but also to form a team to transform this original Python code into a web app accessible to everyone: ComFIT (community fitness) https://cofit20.github.io/.

What it does

Circuit training style group workout classes are growing in popularity all over the world, as it makes working out a fun, social experience. In this style of training, exercisers go through a routine of activities that run for certain periods of time, with prescribed durations of rest or water breaks. Having a trainer is critical for telling exercisers when to switch and holding them accountable to break limitations. Without an open gym or trainer, exercisers need a tool for keeping them on track during their workouts. That’s what ComFIT is. A virtual drill sergeant. Web app users will see a timer counting down and announcements for the next exercises. The user can also build their own workouts with a specified or random routine, all while dictating time intervals for activity and breaks. In particular, we will provide workouts that start at the same time all around the world. Users can share their screen with friends over a video platform and recreate that group workout experience. We included a video demonstrating the workout, thus, individuals with every fitness level background can follow the program.

The problem ComFIT solves

Exercise is critical to both our physical and mental well being--both of which are at risk while Sheltering-In-Place. Staying in the house all day means less overall physical activity and can lead to a serious decline in mental health. Most people’s only options for exercise are walking or running, which just isn’t enough. This web app will empower people to have that group exercise class experience, bringing back that “accountability buddy” motivation. With more time spent at home, we are all becoming more socially distanced, more isolated, and at greater risk for depression. We want to help people stay active, happy and connected.

User Stories

To identify the main use cases of the tool, I asked my friends aka beta testers what they like about the workout we were organizing together.

User 1: “The COVID-19 pandemic means that physical distance is necessary for public health. However for my personal well being I need to exercise and see my friends. Sylvie’s Fitness Circuit makes both possible and fun through web based video sharing. The HIIT workouts are efficient and well thought out and I can do them in my small apartment all while listening to a fantastic soundtrack. During this strange time, I’m really grateful that I can be physical while physically, but not socially, distancing.”

User 2: ‘As the COVID shelter-in-place orders took away my biking commute to work, I suddenly found myself exercising less. Sylvie’s Fitness Circuit is a great way to get that exercise back and have fun while doing it! Every session focuses on a muscle group (arms, legs, core etc.) and are well thought out to be challenging without being impossibly hard. Sylvie demonstrates at the beginning how to do each exercise so everyone is up to speed from the beginning, and you don’t need equipment like dumbells to join. Glad to take part in these classes and hope this will keep going even after things open up again!’

User 3: The main aspect I like about team interval training is that I draw the energy from my gym mates. Alone, I would never work so hard on Push Ups, as I do knowing my friends are pushing hard too.

The solution you bring to the table

ComFIT brings the social fun of group exercise back into the user’s life. There are a lot of apps and YouTube channels out there to follow exercises at home on your own or guided through a personal training, but this isn’t enough. We want to provide more than these simple “at home workouts.” We want to build a platform that motivates people to organize workout circles with their friends who will hold them accountable, help them grow stronger, and be someone to share some mid-workout pain cave laughter. It’s about coming together to stay fit in the time of Covid. The platform provides weekly fixed workouts that can either 1) be started whenever you desire, 2) started at a fixed provided time or 3) generate a link with your desired workout and fixed time that you can share with your friends. Furthermore, you can create your own workouts and choose from giving exercises and time options.

What you have done over the weekend

For the transformation of the existing SFCircuit app, a thorough evaluation of the existing tool was performed to get an understanding of the main use cases of the tool. Once the user stories for the tool were defined, an technical analysis was performed. Two possible realisations were discussed in depth. At first an server in the backend for the generation of the workout pages. The second approach was a more lightweight approach based only on HTML5 components. Pro and Cons were evaluated and the final decision was set to the lightweight approach due to the reduced complexity of development and hosting. Once the environment was defined, possible libraries and frameworks were evaluated and based on the requirements included in a project skeleton to allow fast development along multiple members. Mainly we rely on the bootstrap framework for the rendering and decided to do the hosting simply on github due to no cost at all and excellent service. We defined two main use cases, which is the individual training and the shared training across multiple people. The Idea here is to keep the footprint small and be able to use the same templates for both cases. After some experimentation we decided to use Json Files for the definition of the workouts, which are then parsed for the user interface. The challenging part is the ensure an more or less synchronised workout for multiple users without any synchronisation performed by an web server. Once the functionality was implemented, tests were performed to have a deployable version ready until the deadline. In parallel, the business side was analyzed by some of our members. Another big part of the work done this weekend was the creation of the content for the site. Exercise videos needed to be recorded and modified and workout plans were defined and implemented.

The solution’s impact through the crisis

Working out together has a big impact on your mental health and thus we expect that providing a platform for people to organize their group workouts will help people to stay sane throughout the difficult time period and beyond. Staying active throughout shelter-in-place is challenging for a lot of people. ComFIT is an easy solution to bring motivation for workout back into your living room. 1) The user doesn't need to think about a workout plan (unless the user wants to). 2) Users can easily build a workout community with their friends by sharing a link. 3) ComFIT brings people together despite social distancing. 4) ComFIT works on multiple platforms.

The necessities in order to continue the project

In order to continue the project, we need to invest time for software development to translate the potential ComFIT brings into an advanced platform. Surveys of users would be a good way to set priorities for implementing next features. With a growing number of users, github pages may become too slow to provide accurate synchronization for shared workouts. Thus, transition to hosting the platform on a different domain may become necessary. In the future, we want to offer shared workouts via a private zoom channel organized by personal trainers.To support the development of the webpage, we need to find sponsors for financial support and ways to advertise the platform of different social media.

The value of your solution(s) after the crisis

We hope to catalyze the formation of new communities. Through fitness routines, people build friendships that may last a life long, much longer than Covid-19 will! And up to today, we have no clear idea of when we will return to a life as it was before the crisis. The new normal might require public places like gyms to be strict in limitations on how many people can workout at the same time. For those individuals who belong in the high risk group for Covid-19, social distancing may even be a longer “new normal” than it’s for the rest of the poeple. Thus, there is a lasting need for ComFIT after the crisis. Furthermore, there are other non-covid markets we can address: 1) people who don’t like gyms, 2) people who want to workout with their friends who don’t live nearby (the current users live across the globe: USA, Germany and Brazil) and 3) coaches who train athletes in far away geographic regions. Here is a link to the business model: https://canvanizer.com/canvas/rzHP6Qt1UqTGB

What's next for ComFIT

Few Ideas to improve the platform:

  • Include analytics to display how many users are doing the workout on the same time
  • allow people to do a custom workout based on their need and share it with friends
  • Add video call connections to easy connect (include functions to build a community within the platform)
  • Sharing of playlists to listen to the same music while workout
  • Feedback to include new exercises
  • download a workout to perform the workout offline
  • implement a function to create workouts with different skill levels
  • Improvements on UI to allow intuitive use of the app
  • Add a counter how many people did this workout already
  • Gamification: Add leaderboard for popular workouts or exercises
  • Add better Workout editor for easy customization
  • Acquisition of server time for easy synchronisation between devices

Link to Demo Video

https://youtu.be/UhItnWaO-Pg

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