{"id":5449,"date":"2011-10-18T05:31:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-18T03:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=5449"},"modified":"2015-02-16T09:01:14","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T14:01:14","slug":"gamers-hit-gym","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/gamers-hit-gym\/","title":{"rendered":"Gamers Hit the Gym"},"content":{"rendered":"

I got a smile out of this CNN article about “Fitocracy”<\/a> – a new site (currently in beta)\u00a0started by two\u00a0gamers-turned-fitness enthusiasts: Brian Wang and Richard Talens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The reason? I’ve got one of these at home: my son, Ryan. Now 21, he’s been my steady training partner since April. Right now, “Minecraft” (aka “Mindcrack”) is the game du jour, but he plays a wide variety of both online and board games. And – although he hasn’t fallen in love with squatting or deadlifting yet – he’s definitely\u00a0starting to\u00a0get\u00a0into the iron.<\/p>\n

“Fitocracy” sounds like it’s right up his alley:<\/p>\n

“People don’t realize that video games are an expression of personality,” Talens said. “There’s certain qualities that people have. They’re obsessed with improving the stat sheets, getting to the next level; they pay a lot of attention to detail. Guys who play (‘World of Warcraft’) … are very intense about whatever they do. They can turn that addiction and all its characteristics into fitness.”<\/p>\n

It’s a theory they’re taking to the bank. Talens and Wang are the co-founders of Fitocracy, a website that’s turning gaming geeks into fitness geeks. The site has 70,000 users in its beta version and hopes to open to the 60,000 on a waiting list in the next couple months.<\/p>\n

Fitocracy members can “level up” by earning points for their workouts. New levels unlock special challenges or “quests” that are designed to push users out of their comfort zones. For example, a runner might have to do yoga, or a bodybuilder might have to tackle a 5K.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It sounds like these guys could be onto a winner – the fact that there are 60,000 people on the waiting list is pretty impressive! And the physical turnaround that Wang and Talens made is equally impressive. They’ve gone from fat\/skinny-fat to buff<\/a>… and it’s awesome that they’re now motivating others to do the same.<\/p>\n

Ryan read the article over my shoulder – he’s certainly interested in checking “Fitocracy” out. I’ll be curious to see if he gets into it… it looks pretty cool!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I got a smile out of this CNN article about “Fitocracy” – a new site (currently in beta)\u00a0started by two\u00a0gamers-turned-fitness enthusiasts: Brian Wang and Richard Talens. The reason? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,21,22,28],"tags":[667],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5449"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9549,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5449\/revisions\/9549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}