Do you find motivation to get up and active a struggle sometimes? It can be difficult to begin and then maintain a fitness regime that works for you, particularly if you don’t have a regular workout buddy to keep you going. Have you considered a virtual fitness challenge?
With the rise of technology, tracking devices and smart phone fitness applications, virtual fitness challenges have become increasingly popular since the COVID-19 pandemic. They allow you to participate in a fitness event without being physically present, tracking and logging your movement and pushing your virtual self along a pre-built route, with the aim of hitting distance targets and hopefully winning a medal or some other reward for the achievement.
Introduction to Fitwins Virtual Fitness Challenges
Fitwins is a Virtual Fitness Challenge provider. The brand was founded by competitive long-distance runner Carl Ryde, who started out mapping his own distance challenges and inviting friends to participate by emailing their results in. Eventually he introduced medals and reward packs to the challenges, and they became so popular that the natural progression for the brand was to develop an app that made the process much smoother and more user friendly.
Each month a new map challenge is launched, with an exclusively developed heavy duty medal up for grabs for users who complete their distance targets. Users will log their distances through the Strava app (although more fitness apps will be added to the compatibility in early 2023), and they will traverse routes around such iconic cities and landmarks as Rome, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney and Lapland.
What stands Fitwins apart from other similar providers is that we place a heavy focus on the community, encouraging fellow users, and pushing them to stay motivated and complete their fitness targets.
Five ways to complete a virtual fitness challenge
We know that everybody is built differently, with their own way of keeping fit. Some will hit the gym first thing on a morning and take part in some classes, or lifting some weights. Others will head to the swimming pool and do some gentle lengths. However, it can be difficult to maintain the motivation to keep at it. One lazy morning can lead to another and before you know it, you’ve lost your groove. This is where a virtual fitness challenge can really come into its own.
So, how can you complete a challenge like the Fitwins virtual fitness challenges? These are our top five ways to complete the challenge. Which one suits you the best?
The Walking Challenge
Many Fitwins users choose to take a long and strong walk with friends, family or simply alone with their thoughts. Whether you’re an avid walker who notches up fifteen miles in a day or you simply put a mile or two in each morning as you walk the dog, those miles add up and before long, you’re receiving a high quality Fitwins virtual challenge medal through the post to show off to your loved ones.
The Hiking Challenge
Hikers are seriously dedicated individuals, often taking off to a picturesque part of the world to traverse hills and mountains for hours at a time. By adding an extra motivational aspect like a heavy duty medal of achievement to the mix, you will find yourself pushing to do just one more mile before you turn back around and head for the car.
The Road Running Challenge
A very popular method of completing the Fitwins Virtual Fitness Challenges is to get your running shoes on, put your headphones in, and take on the joys of a long distance run. Our company founder Carl Ryde developed the Fitwins brand initially for people like him who were dedicated long distance runners, and some of the Fitwins regular users often amass thousands of miles a month between them by running the virtual routes.
The Treadmill Challenge
Even though the Fitwins app can connect to your Strava’s GPS to track your distance as you go walking or running somewhere out of your house, did you know you can also complete your miles on a stationary piece of equipment like a cross trainer or treadmill? You can then input your distance covered into your Strava and these miles will tally up towards your targets. Not everybody wants to brave the elements, no matter what the weather is, and would prefer to do their exercise in the relative warmth and safety of the gym.
The Cycling Challenge
Approximately 6.5m people cycle for sport or leisure in the UK alone, are you one of those people? If so, you can take on a Fitwins virtual cycling challenge and target hundreds of miles of a virtual grand tour of the likes of Great Britain and France. These challenges typically last for 2 months as opposed to the single month challenges of our walking and running challenges, giving you a chance to complete a mammoth tour.
How to Prepare for a Virtual Fitness Challenge
Preparing for a virtual fitness challenge requires proper planning and training. Start by setting a goal for yourself and creating a plan to achieve it. This may involve increasing your daily step count, adding more cardio to your workout routine, or practicing hiking on weekends. Make sure to also invest in proper equipment and clothing to prevent injuries and ensure you’re comfortable during the challenge.
In addition to physical preparation, it is important to mentally prepare for the challenge. Visualise yourself completing the challenge and achieving your goal. A good way of keeping yourself on the straight and narrow is by sharing your intentions and then your progress on social media. Fitwins has a fantastic community social group of hundreds of likeminded people who encourage and support one another, with some of them even getting together to complete the challenges together. By having the support of friends and family, it helps keep you motivated and accountable.
Fitwins Virtual Fitness Challenge Rewards
You can take the Fitwins challenges on completely for free, with access to our global leaderboard and the satisfaction of having achieved your monthly target, whether you smash through 25 or more than 200 miles.
However, if you upgrade and register for a Medal Entry, then when you complete any of your targets you will earn yourself a fantastic reward pack that includes a certificate, some goodies by our partnered brands, and an exclusively designed and created heavyweight medal to keep as a memento of your achievement.
There are several great ways to save money with medal entry; one is that you can refer your friends to join you on the app and you will both receive half price entry to the challenge of your choosing (usually £18 for a single entry, but you can each enter for just £9).
Alternatively, you can purchase a bundle deal of challenges, where you will save up to £42.
No matter how you get there, the rewards pack represents phenomenal value and is a tremendous gift to yourself as a reward for all the hard work you put into hitting your targets.
Join the Virtual Community
As mentioned above, what stands Fitwins apart from many other virtual challenge providers, is that we place a huge emphasis on the sense of community and togetherness that our service brings. You get complete visibility of the leaderboard to track your progress against other users, create or join groups that help you and your friends to keep track of one another and dish out some encouragement to those who are struggling. Our social media community group has hundreds of active users who share their achievements regularly, and who have grown to become great friends with one another.
In essence, Fitwins Virtual Fitness Challenges are not simply a way to keep fit, they are a lifestyle. Why not download the app on either Google Play or Apple App Store via the links below, register for a free challenge to trial the experience and join our Facebook group to find likeminded people who are always happy to push you to succeed, however you get there.
