How to Gamify Your Workouts
The hard part of exercise is rarely the workout. It is starting the next one. Turning training into a game gives you a small reason to show up today, and today is the only day you can train.
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Quick answer: Give every session points for the time you put in, add the points up into levels, and reward days in a row. Keep the rules simple enough to run on paper. A fitness RPG like CharacterSheet does the counting: every minute you train earns XP for one of six stats.
Why a game helps
A workout pays off in weeks. A game pays off the same evening. A number that went up because you trained is a small thing, but you get it today, and that makes the next start a little easier.
Trials back this up with a real but modest effect that shrinks once the game ends, and how to gamify your whole life walks through that research and takes the same rules beyond training.
It will not do the push-ups for you. It just gives you one more reason to begin, on the days when "it is good for me" is not enough.
Three parts worth copying from games
- Points for time, not results. You cannot control how strong you are this month. You can control whether you trained for thirty minutes. Pay yourself for the minutes.
- Levels that get harder. The first levels should come fast, so the game gets going. Later ones should take real work, or the number stops meaning anything.
- A streak with a low bar. Count the days in a row, and make five minutes enough to count. More on that in the streak guide.
Doing it on paper
A notebook is enough to start. One point a minute, a new level every few hundred points, a tick for each day you trained. Write the session down before you shower, or you will not.
If you wear an Apple Watch, the Activity rings, awards and 7-day competitions are a free game to try before any app, and how to pick a gamified fitness app shows where they stop and what an app can add.
Paper breaks in two places. You forget to write things down, and nothing stops you from being generous with the maths. If you notice either, that is the moment an app earns its place.
Keep the game honest
- Only count what you timed. "About an hour" is how forty minutes turns into sixty.
- Stop paying for what got easy. A walk is real training at the start. A year in, it should not level you up any more.
- Have something to lose. A stat that never drops is a trophy. One that slips when you stop is a reason to come back.
How CharacterSheet does it
- Tap the plus button and pick what you are doing. There are more than 30 activities, and you can add your own.
- Start the timer. XP comes by the minute, and the timer stays on your Lock Screen while you train.
- Each activity has a difficulty for your level. One that is hard for you pays more per minute. One you have outgrown pays nothing, so you move on to harder training.
- Good habits add buffs: bonus XP on everything you earn. Training days in a row build the biggest one, Momentum.
- Neglect a stat and it starts losing XP each night. It never drops a level.
