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Google Fit: An effortless, comprehensive view of your fitness

officialandroid.blogspot.com

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Re: Google Fit: An effortless, comprehensive view of your fitness

#11

Post by michokest »

michokest wrote: post #10
gadders wrote: post #4

A better name would be "Google Cardio" (or Met Con if you want to be trendy). Cardio != Fit. Strength is as much or more an aspect of fitness.

That's my main problem with the fitness app industry at large. They are much more focused on steps, running and calories than actual fitness. And don't get me wrong, cardio works to a good extent. For most of sedentary folks, doing anything will be better than doing nothing, and their fitness level will improve. But real fitness is about a lot more: strength training, interval training, sports, etc. Bodyweight workou…

And you can see that strength training or HIIT are completely left out from the announcement. Strava, Withings, Runtastic, Runkeeper and Noom Coach: all of them tracking apps, with very little emphasis on the prescriptive aspect of fitness.

People need a coach, not a tracker.

Re: Google Fit: An effortless, comprehensive view of your fitness

#12

Post by drcross »

michokest wrote: post #10
gadders wrote: post #4

A better name would be "Google Cardio" (or Met Con if you want to be trendy). Cardio != Fit. Strength is as much or more an aspect of fitness.

That's my main problem with the fitness app industry at large. They are much more focused on steps, running and calories than actual fitness. And don't get me wrong, cardio works to a good extent. For most of sedentary folks, doing anything will be better than doing nothing, and their fitness level will improve. But real fitness is about a lot more: strength training, interval training, sports, etc. Bodyweight workou…

From your website it doesn't tell me anything about what your app actually does. "A fitness app for people who hate fitness" I don't hate fitness, I don't exactly love it either. I think you're pushing people away from the start.

Re: Google Fit: An effortless, comprehensive view of your fitness

#13

Post by Florin_Andrei »

gadders wrote: post #4

A better name would be "Google Cardio" (or Met Con if you want to be trendy). Cardio != Fit. Strength is as much or more an aspect of fitness.

True, but be careful to not fall into the other extreme.

There was a time when I was lifting 3 times a week, every week, bench pressing 100kg, etc. And I tried to ride a bike uphill (pretty long ride) and nearly puked my guts out.

You need both strength and endurance. And some fine motor skills, like playing ping-pong or throwing a frizbee.

And some R&R interspersed in there, regularly, otherwise you'll collapse from stress sooner or later.

It's probably impossible to have a perfect exercise regime and live a modern busy life, but the bottom line is - diversity is good.

Re: Google Fit: An effortless, comprehensive view of your fitness

#14

Post by treehau5 »

michokest wrote: post #11
michokest wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my main problem with the fitness app industry at large. They are much more focused on steps, running and calories than actual fitness. And don't get me wrong, cardio works to a good extent. For most of sedentary folks, doing anything will be better than doing nothing, and their fitness level will improve. But real fitness is about a lot more: strength training, interval training, sports, etc. Bodyweight workou…

And you can see that strength training or HIIT are completely left out from the announcement. Strava, Withings, Runtastic, Runkeeper and Noom Coach: all of them tracking apps, with very little emphasis on the prescriptive aspect of fitness. People need a coach, not a tracker.

And the only way I can see that solution happening is some sort of full-body wearable, neck to toe.

I remember an Under Armor commercial demoing some sort of envisioned prototype of this kind of tech.

edit: They also have something called Armor39, a strap that goes around your chest. I am now curious. Anyone used this?

Re: Google Fit: An effortless, comprehensive view of your fitness

#16

Post by mikestew »

michokest wrote: post #10
gadders wrote: post #4

A better name would be "Google Cardio" (or Met Con if you want to be trendy). Cardio != Fit. Strength is as much or more an aspect of fitness.

That's my main problem with the fitness app industry at large. They are much more focused on steps, running and calories than actual fitness. And don't get me wrong, cardio works to a good extent. For most of sedentary folks, doing anything will be better than doing nothing, and their fitness level will improve. But real fitness is about a lot more: strength training, interval training, sports, etc. Bodyweight workou…

> That's my main problem with the fitness app industry at large. They are much more focused on steps, running and calories than actual fitness.

Because that's easy to measure with accelerometers and gyros, and easy to display some numbers. Go do some stuff with your device along for the ride, see a pretty graph when you're done. Did I do more than yesterday? Hurray! Now to post it to Facebook with the handy "Share" button. I think I'm doing something (and I am, even if not optimal for fitness goals), and I don't have to think very hard about it.

The type of user your site is attracting are the people who don't pay attention to all of the step/calories stuff anyway. I'm a pretty hard-core runner (yeah, I should lift more), and step count is a mere novelty for me. There's nothing about Google Fit that attracts me (Garmin Connect keeps track of most of that stuff anyway). But I'm not their market.

Re: Google Fit: An effortless, comprehensive view of your fitness

#17

Post by parfe »

Fogest wrote: post #9
parfe wrote: post #3

Just installed the phone app. Less a "comprehensive view", and more of a pedometer with graphs. You can manually add activities but the only options are: Walking, Running, Biking, Other. And even then, you can only record duration. I suppose there is hidden integration with the wearables, but why can't I manually input the data? If I can't record squats, then what's the point?

It is meant to aggregate data from other fitness apps. They just need to integrate with Google Fit

>"No need to check one app to see your weight and another to review a run"

Except the blog post doesn't allude to anything more than what's already present. I can already input weight and run time and it looks like it tracks heartbeat.

Maybe the phone app has problems loading widgets with the webservice currently being flakey.

Re: Google Fit: An effortless, comprehensive view of your fitness

#18

Post by lost_name »

Were people asking for something like this, or is this Google responding to Apple's HealthKit?

I understand the need to offer competing products on their own platform, but I've come to doubt the long term usefulness/support of products in that second category.

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