After seeing the xkcd comic about Fitocracy, I scoured the internet for invitations and was thrilled when I finally found one. Now that I’ve been using the site for a month or two, some of my enthusiasm has waned. The concept is excellent: Turning fitness into an RPG-style game is a brilliant idea, tapping into my inherent desire to earn XP and level up.
I have some minor gripes with the service that are understandable given that it is still in beta, like non-collapsable comments and props and non-removable updates from the Fitocracy team on my homepage. What troubles me are some issues that are more deeply rooted: I am unable to track my fitness progress over time, and I’ve found that the actual act of using the service has become somewhat of a chore, such that I find myself saving up multiple workout days and entering them all at once in a batch at a later date.
I’m not sure why the timeline only goes back three days. Maybe they don’t have the ability to store or process more data than that currently. Regardless, it’s frustrating as a user, because I would like to see a history of my workouts and exercises to see how I have progressed. The “personal best” stars and per-exercise history is nice, but not particularly useful. I’d like to be able to chart a specific exercise over time, as well as see a list of all the exercises that I have logged in the past.
Perhaps more importantly, looking up and entering each exercise is a major pain, one that has discouraged all of the people I invited to the service from continuing to use it. The frequently used exercises is not particularly accurate or useful—I’d rather be able to see a list of everything I have used in the past. Saving workouts doesn’t help me. I would imagine that it’s nice if you’ve got a regular plan, but I tend to have a general idea of what I want to do on a given day and attempt to accomplish it, varying the specific exercises I do based on what is available and how crowded the area is.
Instead, I’ve taken to using Evernote to jot down the exercises I perform in “Fitocracy lingo” while I’m at the gym. Later when I’m batch entering the multiple days, I’ll look up each exercise again and again by typing unique parts of the name for it in the search box. Perhaps there could be a manually managed “favorites” list that I could curate on my own and draw from to make this process easier. I’ve noticed they’re working on developing an app, which I’m sure will also help with mid-workout entry, although sadly it appears that they’re starting with iOS.
Fitocracy is a great idea, but right now it seems to have a hard time holding on to people who aren’t primed to enjoy its unique flavor. Progress tracking and a less painful way to log works could help retain and expand its userbase.