Fitness app PumpUp will keep you motivated with photo sharing features

Search for #fitfam in Instagram’s Discovery tab and the photo app will tell you there are more than nine and a half MILLION photos with that tag, solely dedicated to people documenting weight loss goals, flexing their muscles, sharing juice recipes and, let’s face it, showing off about their achievements. It doesn’t just stop there, have a quick flick through some of these images and you’ll see there are all kinds of variations on it too, like #fitlife (2,410,601 posts) and #fitlifestyle (124,830), the list could really go on and on.

It’s clear that many people who are dedicated to a fit and healthy lifestyle are sharing photos online religiously, so it’s no surprise new app PumpUp intends to take advantage of this trend, combining personalised workout plans with a photo sharing element to boot.

Once you’ve downloaded PumpUp, the app urges you to input all kinds of details about your goals, spare time and workout equipment, prompting you to choose a goal from “lose weight”, “get toned”, “build muscle” and “be healthy”, so it can serve you up with a personalised workout plan. I tried this out for myself and I was pretty impressed with the results, PumpUp works with the time and stuff you have and then walks you through a range of different exercises. I specified that I’m not a member at a gym at the moment, so I was served lots of great at-home workouts that actually seemed doable and not too confusing – but were accompanied with little animations, just in case.

You can then rely on the app during and after your workout too, using it to track time spent, activity, calories burned and goals smashed. There’s also a really handy schedule feature to keep you on track that I love and regular tips that are delivered to you as certain elements of the app load up.

But what’s PumpUp’s unique USP? Photo sharing.

PumpUp wants its users to share every stage of their fitness journey, including “post work-out selfies, progress pics, healthy meals and more”, according its website. In this way it plans on harnessing the enthusiasm people already have for sharing their healthy lives online, but wants to transport it into a single, like-minded community to make people feel more inspired than ever.

Well, in theory it makes a lot of sense, but our problem with PumpUp’s vision is that in many ways it’s reinventing the wheel. Those who are dedicated to their health and fitness goals but also love showing them off with selfies are already using Twitter and Instagram to share their photos and achievements, will they really want to change their habits and fragment their experience with a new app? We’re not so sure, but judging from the amount of people already using the #teampumpup tag, something seems to be working and we’re interested in watching how the app continues to grow throughout 2014.

You can download PumpUp for your iPhone from iTunes for free.

Image via the PumpUp Fitness Facebook page.