I’ve been physically active and health conscious since I can remember. When I was a kid, I used to play sports with my neighbors and joined my school sports teams, but I never was able to join professional clubs or specific teams that could aid in my growth and betterment in sport.
A trend I am noticing lately are apps that allow you to join gyms, sports clubs, seminars,etc instantly from your phone via an application. Check out: http://onefit.mn. It’s really cool what they are doing in Mongolia, a small developing country. Despite being behind in infrastructure and technology, they are developing mobile apps that are pretty useful.
Even in Europe it’s HARD to find applications that will show me nearby gyms, pools, dojos, etc and book a session without any contracts. Yes there are Meetups, Google Maps, but they don’t have the feature to schedule a training session or something like that easily.
However, I think we are coming to a new age in fitness and sports. See: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2485287,00.asp for top fitness applications, although they are a little different from the one above. People are starting to realize that more and more people are using their phones to find services and what not, so I’ve been seeing more developed Facebook pages and websites out there.
THE FUTURE
I think soon enough in the future, applications like onefit will become more common in other countries. I happened to stumble across it by accident, but I am sure there are more out there like it or applications in the works somewhat similar to it. My predication is that we’ll have wealth of information that we can choose from to make decisions.
The benefits obviously are finding centers that are close to you and being able to make decisions on the go without wasting time on finding more information through calling people and what not. Time is one of the most important things in life, and being able to manage it well is very important.
The flexibility these kinds of apps provide are also a great if you think about it! Some days I am just dead tired and other days I feel like I don’t need any sleep. Being able to log in and schedule a service feels like it allows people to do activities that are relaxing. Hopefully I will be able to download an application similar to it in my hometown.