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Hbit — Make the world your gym
Creative bodyweight exercises you can do anytime and anywhere, at home and on the move. No equipment or money required. Social accountability and playful interactions with emojis and GIFs through challenges from friends, family, colleagues and enemies.
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Looks great! As someone who hates gyms, this might just be the tool that removes me from the couch. 🤔
@dora_izsaki Thank you for your comment!
I used to go to the gym years ago and then got into bodyweight exercises.
A few months ago, my girlfriend and co-maker, Lilia Katherine, and I signed up for a gym and tried going regularly. However, we struggled to make time for it and when we did go, we found the experience very sobering. There usually seemed to be a small handful of huge bodybuilder types and a lot of people who lethargically lumbered away on machines and used every opportunity to sit down and stare at their phones. We cancelled our memberships a couple of months ago and haven't missed it for a second ever since.
All we use now is Hbit and we have fun, challenging each other with GIFs and emoji, which often gives rise to all kinds of hilarious banter. We both feel that our fitness levels are steadily improving and it's good to get up from the computer every now and again for a burst of bodyweight exercise energy.
If you care to try the app, there are even some exercise you can do from your couch 😉
@andreasbuild It is quite interesting! I talked to many people recently, and we all seemed to have the experience you just described. I also canceled my membership after a few sessions.
I think that bodyweight apps like this could be an amazing asset for similar peeps who feel just uncomfortable in gyms. I also feel that they can serve as a great initiator and introduction to a more active life. Many of us have self esterm issues, and the usual advice of 'just go for a run outside!' won't work. However, if I can excercise at home, and can build some confidence first, I would definitely start working out :)
@dora_izsaki Yes, exactly!
Long before I got into exercise, I thought that to get fit, one had to join a gym or purchase equipment. For years, I passed on going to a gym, because I was a scrawny kid who lacked confidence. So it was like a chicken and egg thing. I wasn't fit, but to get fit I felt I had to go to a gym and I didn't want to go to a gym, because I wasn't fit.
I eventually bought some barbells to train at home and I later joined a gym, convinced by friends. Personally though, if someone would have told me about bodyweight exercises, before I found my way into exercise through the purchase of equipment, it would have had a huge positive impact on my life.
If you and the people you talked to would care to try the app, it would be great to hear your thoughts, doubts and ideas :)
Kudos on the launch! Love the social accountability aspect. How does the app ensure that the exercise recommendations are safe for each user's fitness level?
@narendra_solanki Thank you for your comment!
Yes, regarding social accountability we aim to encourage people to use the names they go by in real life and a real picture rather than some kind of generated avatar. We intend for Hbit to be a friendly and approachable community, much like you would find in a small town gym.
We're toying with the idea of updating the app icon and launch screen to feature the pictures of particularly enthusiastic users every now and again (given their consent, of course). Similar to how sports apps, such as the FIFA games, feature app icons of celebrity athletes. The idea is to encourage, promote and support as many everyday "working class" athletes as possible.
Currently, the app provides an overview of all kinds of exercises for varying fitness levels. It does not specifically recommend anything at the moment. You can shake your device for a surprise exercise and if it doesn't seem right for you, you can shake again to get a new one.
People have a natural instinct as to their individual capabilities and fitness level. We recommend for everyone to go by that and to definitely stay on the safe side in case of doubt. If you have any ideas for a mechanism regarding the safety of exercises, we would appreciate your thoughts!
@manoj_11 Thank you for your comment!
I'm a fitness enthusiast myself and I also love doing exercises without equipment. I always find it amazing when I see bodyweight exercises that are so simple, but effective and I think why I never thought of that particular exercise myself before.
If you care to share some of your own exercises on the app, we would be curious to see them! We aim to help as many fitness enthusiasts as possible and to inspire those who are not yet enthusiastic about fitness to get into it and to see exercise as something fun and creative rather than a boring chore.
Fitness and exercise can be like cooking. It can be a boring chore or creative fun. It entirely depends on what people make of it.
@brian_edwards7 Thank you for your comment!
Please share any thoughts, doubts and ideas you may have when you try the app.
For a surprise exercise, just shake your device. I also sometimes just take a few minutes to scroll and do whatever exercise the app presents me with (given that it is within my capabilities and fitness level). Double tap exercises to bookmark the ones you want to save.
As exercise without music is a bit like bread without butter for me, I sometimes pick an uplifting song, do random exercises for the duration of that one song and then continue with my day.
@sydney_porter1 Thank you for your comment!
That's an interesting thought. We explored that idea ourselves before. Learning was a use case that seemed obvious. For example, you could challenge someone to read a page in a book about a subject they're curious about. Another example would be in terms of general health and nutrition. For example, you could challenge someone to stay hydrated by taking a sip of water or to eat a healthy food or meal.
Do you have any specific use cases in mind?
@goncalo_lousa Thank you for your comment!
I can't help but feel that gyms are an outdated business model that hasn't really changed with the times to fit into a world where everyone has so much going on in their lives and we have all this digital technology and connectedness.
Every gym I ever went to (with the sole exception of a very friendly small town one), basically seemed the same. The only real difference between gyms seems to be their choice of color and logo. I do think that a more flexible approach towards exercise and fitness makes sense and it definitely works very well for me.
Let's see if we can convince and inspire people. It would be great if we could redefine exercise as something that is spontaneous, energizing fun, refreshes the mind and clears one's thinking. Personally, these are the main reasons why I exercise and being physically fit is just a nice bonus that comes with it.
@goncalo_lousa Thank you!
It's an uphill battle. The current belief system of seeing fitness as something that requires a gym membership or the purchase of equipment and a scheduled routine seems firmly entrenched. Funnily enough though, this doesn't even seem to work for most people and yet they try to force themselves into it and feel guilty when they don't get the results they expect.
This is not even to mention other commonly held oppressive beliefs that take the fun out of life, such as those in restrictive diets, calorie counting or that fitness is about how you look and having an "instagrammable" body.
We're on an important mission and will persist, no matter what 💪
@andreasbuild I do exercise at home all the time precisely for those reasons. it's possible to save money and time and still do a lot. Let me know if you are needing any help in developing this ;)
@goncalo_lousa Exactly, that's the spirit!
The best help we can get right now is for people to try the app and share their thoughts. The good, the bad and the ugly.
You and I both know that bodyweight exercise works. The questions are:
∙ Is the app a useful resource for creative bodyweight exercises?
∙ Can social accountability in the form of challenges from friends and family encourage people who find it difficult to make exercise stick?
It would be great to hear your opinion as someone who's already into bodyweight exercise :) And if you would try to get someone into bodyweight exercise through the app's challenge functionality, it would be great to hear your thoughts and the thoughts of the person you challenge!
It all really boils down to how we can make the most of bodyweight exercise and convince as many people as possible of its benefits.
I like this idea. My hobby is training, so I always have a problem not having opportunity when going on a business trip.
Are you have a plan to have a feature correcting the posture?
@naoto_shibata_morph Thank you for your comment!
We're using the app on trips and in hotel rooms ourselves, maybe you'll find something that you'll find interesting. Some of our personal favorites are the abdominal exercises with pillows and the back exercises with towels.
There already are some exercises for correcting posture. Going forward, it may be worth having a dedicated feature specifically for that 🤔
If you care to try it, we would appreciate any further thoughts, doubts and ideas you may have!
@imranqq Thank you for your comment!
Yes, getting challenged by someone you know seems to encourage those who don't pretend not to have received a challenge. We also added challenge reminder notifications and shame points for expired exercise challenges.
Social accountability is something that you only tend to get as a gym-goer if you have someone to go with. It seems largely absent from fitness apps, which makes training with a lot of them a rather lonely pursuit.
For us internally, a big step up was when we added GIFs to the challenge functionality, which creates a lot of opportunity for playful interaction and creative motivational messages.
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