The Corona crisis is not only driving me into the home office, but also into the digital gym for the first time in my life. A personal experience report.
I currently miss exercise. The bike ride to work. The weekend shopping trip. Going to the gym. All canceled because of Corona. Since I've been working in my home office, I've virtually become one with my office chair and find it a relief to at least be able to move freely around my apartment after work and lounge around on the couch. No, I'm not a prime example of a healthy home office routine.
At least not until four weeks ago. It all started with a Facebook ad from the "digital gym" Gymondo, which touted a free trial month to me. And it came at a time when my local gym was closed and I was shrinking like a rotten plant in terms of exercise at home. This timing can't be entirely coincidental.
So I signed up for a trial month quite spontaneously and first filled out my profile, which asked me, for example, which areas of the body I particularly wanted to train. In my case, I just wanted to improve my overall fitness, so the answers here weren't easy. In the end, the system suggested a fitness program that I couldn't do anything with at first.
That's why I then went looking for courses myself and was initially stunned by the abundance of courses on offer: Gymondo currently has 69 programs on offer. A program, in turn, consists of various workouts, can last from two weeks to a year, and is comparable to a course at the gym that you attend regularly. When you select a program, you can enter fixed days of the week on which you want to train and a personal training plan is created. You can select two programs in parallel, but you can also select individual workouts at any time. However, the latter is quite tedious because you never know exactly which workout to expect, which is why I find participating in programs much more convenient.
Fortunately, there is a filter that allows you to filter the programs by severity (easy, medium, hard) - essential for a fitness newbie like me. I was surprised, however, that there is no filter by course type, such as yoga, dance, or BOP, which makes course searching a bit tedious at this point. I looked at several programs and would like to share my experience with you:
Dancing
Since I love to dance and can usually be found in the Zumba and dance classes at the gym, I was initially excited about the idea of moving my dance workout home. Here, however, disillusionment came rather quickly. Gymondo offers a total of two dance programs: Sweat & Dance and DanceWorx. In both programs, I immediately found the trainers very likeable and the workouts good, but the monotonous elevator music in the background spoiled the fun of the exercise for me. Having your own Spotify playlist running in the background is not something I find to be a serious alternative, as the movements of the trainers then no longer match the beat and the music. Here I would like to see Gymondo offer dance classes with chart music in the future. Because without rousing music, a dance class is just a fitness workout for me.
Fitness
There are a lot of fitness courses for every fitness level and this is one of Gymondo's great strengths. I am very excited about the course BodyShape BeginnerThe trainers are very friendly and show a variation for beginners and for advanced users for most exercises. The individual workouts last about 20 minutes and can therefore be perfectly integrated into everyday life. My tip: Turn off the background music, turn the trainer a little louder and let a favorite Spotify playlist run in parallel. This works wonders for motivation.
Yoga
I myself am not a yoga novice and would also not recommend anyone to attend an online yoga course without basic knowledge, as the correct execution of the movements is very important here. However, if you do have some experience, yoga can be very relaxing in the comfort of your own home. Gymondo has a total of six yoga programs to choose from, and I'm happy with the program SimpleYoga . The trainer explains the asanas in detail and so far I am very satisfied with the program, even if I find the background music a bit soporific. But even in this case, you can run your own playlist in parallel and turn off the Gymondo music. This feature is worth its weight in gold for me.
Remote Training: A short Summary
Here are a few points that I particularly appreciate about Gymondo and digital gyms:
- You are not bound to times and can always start a workout when it fits best into your daily schedule.
- There is no need to go to the gym, which is a big motivation killer. The time saved is also not without.
- The workouts usually only go for 20 - 30 minutes - for me this is more motivating than the course duration in the gym of usually 60 minutes.
- The range of courses is huge and you can do the workout you feel like at any time.
- The trainings never drop out spontaneously. That is not a matter of course.
- At around 80 euros/year, Gymondo is significantly cheaper than local gyms.
And these are the main challenges:
- The coach can't correct you directly if you do something wrong.
- Without a fixed place and date, you need more self-discipline.
- Taking a course in a group is very motivating during training. Unfortunately, this experience is not available online.
- I sometimes forget if I have a workout scheduled and on what day. Here I would like to have a reminder email at the beginning of the day when a workout is scheduled.
- After a workout, you are asked whether the workout was rather easy, just right or rather hard for you personally. I always provide information here, but it's not clear to me whether this adjusts the course of my program to my constitution and preferences.
Of course, Gymondo has numerous other features such as nutrition tips or a community, but I have not yet taken a closer look at them in my first month, as they are not as relevant to me personally as the quality of the courses.
The pricing at Gymondo seems very fair to me overall. For twelve months, for example, you pay 83.99 euros/year (i.e. 6.99 euros/month). There are also other pricing models for three or six months, which are also worthwhile if you don't want to make a long-term commitment yet. When I compare the price with my local gym, I find it unbeatable. Gymondo also often has promotions like a free trial month or even offers a 25 percent discount.
My Summary
I've been an official Gymondo gym member for a week now and am very happy with it. I canceled my membership at my local gym because I only ever attended classes anyway, which I can now participate in from the comfort of my own home. Whether as a long-term solution or as a Corona stopgap, I didn't think that a digital gym could trigger such a big motivational boost in me, and I especially don't want to miss the short fitness and yoga workouts in my everyday life anymore.
Here you can make your own picture: https://www.gymondo.com/de/
