Life In 19x19

Is anyone else on Fitocracy?
Do you want to be?

I'm totally into it... it's a social game where working out gets you points to level up (see a recent xkcd comic ).

I've tagged myself with "L19" (username Malweth)

I don't understand.

Think of a competative, leadership board ranked game..

Which happens to be run by reporting fitness exercises which you have completed as you do them.

The flaw here is.. Well, honesty.
If you were really competing, people would lie allll the time. And people /already/ lie about fitness related goals and accomplisments. I've seen many a 20 minute workout reported as 30 minutes, even by people who work out daily..

So, the game/numbers side of things is probably useless, but, as a neat way to get people thinking about and focused on working out, it's a nice idea.

I see it more as competing against yourself and your friends. I personally have no interest in getting on the leaderboards (nor could I if I tried at my current level of fitness ).

The idea is to promote fitness by providing external achievements that might be more obvious than physical achievements gained by being fit. From experience, it can be difficult to stay on track -- even when physical improvement is somewhat obvious. It's the same idea as server ranks - yes I'm getting better at Go, and I realize this on a concious level, but without some external influence I don't subconciously believe it.