Wednesday, September 26, 2012

My Gamified Life: Fitocracy


I mentioned in a previous post that I've made it a habit to exercise, and so I don't have to expend any mental energy to get myself there (I have plenty of other things on my mind). But I think the best way to keep a habit is to make it FUN, each and every day.

Gamification: It takes tremendous self-discipline to motivate oneself today based on some imagined/abstract healthy future. Instead, the best way is to INCENTIVIZE yourself on a day-to-day basis to exercise. Now, having society pay people to exercise would be impractical. But remember: a huge number of people play Farmville and World of Warcraft for days non-stop just to win virtual points. The incentive is further reinforced long-term by mechanisms such as leveling up, completing quests, reaching achievements, and receiving virtual tokens of support from friends. Incentives can be entirely virtual and cost nothing. Microsoft got its employees to volunteer their time to find bugs in Windows 7 by giving them virtual points People did a mind-numbing task (finding software bugs) over and over and over without pay, just because it was fun to get virtual points and compete against other employees.

Guess what? There IS a website that gives you points for working out, gives you fitness quests RPG-style, and lets you socialize all at the same time. I've been using Fitocracy since November 2011, and I think it's crazy everyone isn't using it.

The beauty of Fitocracy is the combination of two features:
1) Incentive system that lets you track your progress. This is simply fun. During my workout, I use the iPhone app to easily enter in my exercises as I'm doing them. At the end of the workout, it rewards points based on the type of workout, the # of reps, and the # of sets (generally, points are compound lifts > isolated lifts > cardio). I automatically get a good sense of how much I accomplished, and I feel like I've earned something. I don't think twice about working out. After you accumulate a certain number of points, you level up. People give each other "Props" just like Facebook's "Likes." There are also quests and achievements. As further encouragement, it automatically graphs your progress on each exercise for you.
2) Social network. Fitocracy boasts about 230,000 users, and many of them are fitness enthusiasts and personal trainers (and a disproportionate number of cardiologists and orthopedic surgeons). And yes, lots of nerds too. You can easily find people who match your fitness interests. Many of them post pictures of themselves (i.e. before and after transformation) so you can see what kinds of results they're getting. You can see EXACTLY what exercises they do down to the last detail. Got a question for one of them? Need advice? Just ask.

Typical workout entry


These two features synergize. For example, Fitocracy has a universal set of "Achievements" that anyone can obtain. These are things like "Bench press your body weight" or "Deadlift 2X your body weight" or "Run 200 miles total." For the longest time, I was in awe of other people with the 15-pullups achievement- I started out just struggling to get the 5-pullups achievement. In the back of my mind I thought "well I'm not THAT intense- and probably won't ever get there." But then I read one profile and figured out how quickly that person went from 3 to 15 pullups… and it was less than a year. And what kind of motivation do you think I got when I achieved it last month? The habit is self-perpetuating and only gets stronger over time.

Myths: Just talking to more experienced people on Fitocracy is a great way to re-educate yourself. There's a lot of fitness controversies out here, but here are some myths that are pretty much completely debunked:
1) "I don't want to weightlift because I don't want to get bulky- I just want to get toned". OK it takes many years for a guy to bulk up lifting weights every day (unless they take steroids- not recommended). How long do you think it takes for a woman who has >10X lower testosterone? Women will slim down with weightlifting because muscle takes up a lot less space than fat. If you take 10 minutes to look around Fitocracy, you'll rapidly find dozens of counter-examples to the bulky myth (like this and this). The bulky women you see in magazines are either on steroids or are in the <5% of women who have naturally high testosterone.
2) "Deadlifts are bad for your back, and squats are bad for your knees." I used to get back pain and it's completely stopped since I started doing deadlifts. I used to get knee pain if I ran too much and now it's never a problem. You can only injure yourself if you have bad form, and Fitocracy lets you talk directly to other people (like personal trainers) about your form. Some people even post videos of themselves so others can critique them.
3) "Everyone needs cardio." Only necessary if you have a family history of heart disease or if you're training for a sport that involves a lot of cardio. Weightlifting is enough.
4) "Situps reduce belly fat." Actually, probably the best way to reduce belly fat (or any type of fat, because spot reduction is impossible) is squats because maintenance of the big muscles will divert energy from your fat reserves.
5) "High-protein diets kill your kidneys." It increases your kidney blood flow, working it harder, but that doesn't mean it's damaging your kidneys. Think of it as exercising your kidneys. Sure, people with kidney failure will worsen it if they eat more protein, but that's no different than trying to lift heavy boxes immediately after breaking your leg.

I think we're entering an age where traditional sources of information like fitness magazines and celebrity workouts have pretty much lost their value compared to just talking to other regular people like you and me who have made real progress. If you look in magazines, everyone is airbrushed and all the men are on steroids, and they don't do anything but work out. You have no way to verify the information they give you. On Fitocracy, you can see literally thousands of actual success stories from people who are just as busy as you. Along those lines, Reddit Fitness FAQ is also an excellent source of information.

Here's my shameless invite link.

Track your performance over time.
iPhone app

2 comments:

  1. So I'm assuming you took the Coursera Gamification course too? Hahaha this is good.

    ReplyDelete

About Me

MD/PhD student trying to garner attention to myself and feel important by writing a blog.

Pet peeves: conventional wisdom, blindly following intuition, confusing correlation for causation, and arguing against the converse

Challenges
2013: 52 books in 52 weeks. Complete
2014: TBA. Hint.

Reading Challenge 2013

2013 Reading Challenge

2013 Reading Challenge
Albert has read 5 books toward his goal of 52 books.
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Albert's bookshelf: read

Zen Habits - Handbook for Life
5 of 5 stars true
Great, quick guide. I got a ton of work done these past two weeks implementing just two of the habits described in this book.
The Hunger Games
5 of 5 stars true
I was expecting to be disappointed. I wasn't.

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