Factors Influencing Use of Fitness Apps by Adults under Influence of COVID-19.

During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many countries imposed restrictions and quarantines on the population, which led to a decrease in people's physical activity (PA) and severely damaged their mental health. As a result, people engaged in fitness activities with the help of fitness apps, which improved their resistance to the virus and reduced the occurrence of psychological problems, such as anxiety and depression. However, the churn rate of fitness apps is high. As such, our purpose in this study was to analyze the factors that influence the use of fitness apps by adults aged 18-65 years in the context of COVID-19, with the aim of contributing to the analysis of mobile fitness user behavior and related product design practices. We constructed a decision target program model using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and we analyzed and inductively screened 11 evaluation indicators, which we combined with an indicator design questionnaire. We distributed 420 questionnaires; of the respondents, 347 knew about or used fitness apps. Among these 347, we recovered 310 valid questionnaires after removing invalid questionnaires with a short completion time, for an effective questionnaire recovery rate of 89.33%. We used the AHP and entropy method to calculate and evaluate the weight coefficient of each influencing factor and to determine an influencing factor index. Our conclusions were as follows: first, the effect of perceived usefulness on the use of fitness apps by the study groups was the most notable. Second, personal motivation and perceived ease of use considerably influenced the adult group's willingness to use fitness apps. Finally, the perceived cost had relatively little effect on the use of fitness apps by adults, and the study group was much more concerned with the privacy cost than the expense cost.

Analysis of Strategies to Increase User Retention of Fitness Mobile Apps during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the fitness-related field. More people started working out at home, and the use of fitness mobile apps that can measure the amount of exercise through a scientific method has increased compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic. This phenomenon is likely to continue even after the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore this study aimed to investigate the importance of and satisfaction with a fitness app's functions according to consumers while using the fitness mobile app. Through this study, we intended to provide data for creating an environment where users can use fitness mobile apps consistently. A total of 420 questionnaires were distributed through Google Survey for about 3 months, from 13 September to 20 November 2020, and a total of 399 complete questionnaires were analyzed in this study. Regarding the data processing methods, frequency analysis, exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, descriptive statistical analysis, and IPA were used. The results are as follows. First, the first quadrant of the IPA matrix indicated the high importance of and satisfaction with the fitness mobile app, and included five attributes: cost-effectiveness, easy-to-understand information, ease of use and application, privacy protection, and compatibility with other devices. Second, the second quadrant of the matrix indicated relatively low satisfaction in association to high importance and included five attributes: accurate exercise information provision, design efficiency, daily exercise amount setting, convenient icons and interface, and provision of images and videos in appropriate proportions. Third, the third quadrant of the matrix, indicating low importance and low satisfaction, included five attributes: not sharing personal information, overall design composition and color, customer service, reliable security level, and providing information on goal achievement after exercising. Fourth, in the quadrant of the matrix, indicating low importance and high satisfaction, five attributes were included: exercise notification function, continuous service provision, step count and heart rate information, individual exercise recommendation, and individual body type analysis information.

Home Smart Fitness System Integrating Fitness Program and Product Design

Under the influence of COVID-19, the time of the public spent at home increased greatly, during which the consumption of home decoration, sports and fitness increased significantly. Under the epidemic, the public can not participate in centralized fitness and weight loss exercises, and mobile-based fitness apps and home fitness equipment have become the focus of attention of the home-based fitness population during the outbreak of COVID-19. The purpose of this study is to propose the product interaction and design direction of intelligent fitness system in home application scenarios under the concept of hybrid design, in order to avoid the blind fitness of individuals based on fitness applications and enhance the intelligent fitness in the home environment to bring more scientific guidance and richer experience. The focus of this paper is to establish a fitness system that integrates scientific fitness guidance, online fitness intelligent experience, fitness social contact and fitness products into an innovative design concept of the industry. This concept is based on a survey of family fitness needs and future market demand, as well as case studies. The system consists of application carrier module, exercise prescription database, fitness APP and interactive experience module. Furniture provides the possibility for the application carrier of the system, and the huge sports prescription database provides suitable exercise prescriptions for the users to choose according to their fitness environment. Mobile app is the carrier of connecting users and intelligent fitness system, and the interactive experience module of mobile APP will bring functions of virtual fitness coach and social fitness game. In the future, with big data, artificial intelligence technologies and the concept of hybrid design, new smart home fitness system products will become possible. © 2021 ACM.

Digital Tools for Adapting Corporate Wellness Programmes to the New Situation Caused by COVID-19: A Case Study

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our lives completely: social distancing, confinement, telework and above all, negative consequences on our mental and physical health caused mainly by increased physical inactivity and sedentarism. Up to 34% of employees were doing telework during lockdown in Spain, and 30% remained working remotely even afterwards. Companies have developed corporate wellness programs that have proven its positive results before the pandemic. The problem with the situation caused by this pandemic is that workers cannot exercise anymore in the workplace facilities, so if they want to take care of their health and well-being at home, they should go digital. The aim of this research is to show how a well-known Spanish fitness company, O2 Centro Wellness, has applied all its digital knowledge to help its partner company, Mahou-San Miguel, to adapt its wellness program into the new reality, developing a successful online corporate wellness program using a fitness app and other social media tools. This case study may help other companies around the world as telework is growing and corporate wellness programs should adapt to this new reality. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Acceptance of Digital Sports: A Study Showing the Rising Acceptance of Digital Health Activities Due to the SARS-CoV-19 Pandemic.

In pandemic times, the possibilities for conventional sports activities are severely limited; many sports facilities are closed or can only be used with restrictions. To counteract this lack of health activities and social exchange, people are increasingly adopting new digital sports solutions-a behavior change that had already started with the trend towards fitness apps and activity trackers. Existing research suggests that digital solutions increase the motivation to move and stay active. This work further investigates the potentials of digital sports incorporating the dimensions gender and preference for team sports versus individual sports. The study focuses on potential users, who were mostly younger professionals and academics. The results show that the SARS-CoV-19 pandemic had a significant negative impact on sports activity, particularly on persons preferring team sports. To compensate, most participants use more digital sports than before, and there is a positive correlation between the time spent physically active during the pandemic and the increase in motivation through digital sports. Nevertheless, there is still considerable skepticism regarding the potential of digital sports solutions to increase the motivation to do sports, increase performance, or raise a sense of team spirit when done in groups.

Predicting Physical Exercise Adherence in Fitness Apps Using a Deep Learning Approach.

The use of mobile fitness apps has been on the rise for the last decade and especially during the worldwide SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, which led to the closure of gyms and to reduced outdoor mobility. Fitness apps constitute a promising means for promoting more active lifestyles, although their attrition rates are remarkable and adherence to their training plans remains a challenge for developers. The aim of this project was to design an automatic classification of users into adherent and non-adherent, based on their training behavior in the first three months of app usage, for which purpose we proposed an ensemble of regression models to predict their behaviour (adherence) in the fourth month. The study was conducted using data from a total of 246 Mammoth Hunters Fitness app users. Firstly, pre-processing and clustering steps were taken in order to prepare the data and to categorize users into similar groups, taking into account the first 90 days of workout sessions. Then, an ensemble approach for regression models was used to predict user training behaviour during the fourth month, which were trained with users belonging to the same cluster. This was used to reach a conclusion regarding their adherence status, via an approach that combined affinity propagation (AP) clustering algorithm, followed by the long short-term memory (LSTM), rendering the best results (87% accuracy and 85% F1_score). This study illustrates the suggested the capacity of the system to anticipate future adherence or non-adherence, potentially opening the door to fitness app creators to pursue advanced measures aimed at reducing app attrition.

Influence of Fitness Apps on Sports Habits, Satisfaction, and Intentions to Stay in Fitness Center Users: An Experimental Study.

The use of technology in sports and fitness is proliferating thanks to advances to facilitate its practice and improve adherence. Beyond adherence, it is important that technology is understood as a facilitating medium. The main objective of this study is to know the influence of the use of the fitness application (app) on sports habits, customer satisfaction and maintenance intention of fitness center users. For this, an experimental, controlled and randomized study was carried out, characterized by being a field trial, with a sample of 66 participants divided into a control group (n = 33) and an experimental group (n = 33), with 38 (57.6%) men and 28 (42.4%) women who self-monitored their physical activity for 8 weeks. The dimensions analyzed between the pre- and post-intervention phases were the changes in their sporting habits (frequency of attendance and duration of the session), the changes in satisfaction and the intention to stay with respect to the fitness center. The results in general do not show significant differences between the two groups and conclude that the use of the fitness app did not directly influence the sports habits of the participants. There were also no significant differences in terms of satisfaction with the fitness center or in their intention to stay in the fitness center. Therefore, it is shown that the use of the fitness app, as a single download or use element, is not enough to improve habits, satisfaction or the intention to stay in the fitness center.