Add competitive edge to your workouts with iPhone app Fitocracy

There’s nothing new about an app that allows you to track your workouts. Fitocracy, after huge success with a browser-based service, has launched a new iPhone app that brings everything you can expect from a fitness app, but adds a competitive edge.

Fitocracy’s USP is the way it lets you go head-to-head with other users and friends. Earn points by logging fitness activities to earn badges or rank on a leaderboard. You can also follow your friends’ progress and join groups based on a certain activity, such as running or rowing.

Gamification seems to be key for the makers of the app. If you’re like me and earning badges doesn’t really do it for you, this may not be the fitness app for you. But, if you like earning points and working your way up a leader board with your friends trailing behind, I’d get downloading.

Extra points can be earned after completing specific groups of fitness tasks or ‘quests’ from other users or your friends. These quests are everyday tasks that the app then gives you the equivalent in exercise. For instance, The ‘Paperboy’ quest suggests the following – “Take a ride around your neighbourhood. If you hit a trashcan make sure you sprint away from that lady with the knife and rabid dog.” Translated by Fitocracy, that’s 20 minutes of biking and 0.5 miles of sprinting.

The app makes Fitocracy easily accessible by mobile phone for the first time, especially alongside the new social features the app has meaning you can spread the word to all of your friends. You can see the status updates and tweets of your friends and other users. You can also post details of your work once completed, as well as the amount of points you earn.

The new app makes it perfect for users to track their workouts as they complete them, check in on leader boards and look up exact steps to the quests they’re working on.

Starting out as a browser-based social fitness contest, Fitocracy has amassed 250,000 registered users. Fitocracy say they have logged over 2 million activities on the site to date. With a mobile app now in play, they could soon start to see this grow quickly. It’s a market that seems to be getting more and more crowded so to be successful you have to be different. We think Fitocracy stands a good chance with the competitive fitness freaks out there.