Will It Motivate You To Complete Your Workouts?
Want to get paid for exercising on a regular basis?
Want to get paid for exercising on a regular basis? Well, you can with the Pact app that works on both Apple iOS and Android-based smartphones. You will be paid for keeping up with a regular exercise routine and if you don’t exercise you will be penalized.
The Pact app was devised by two students from Harvard. It works on the principle that most people will be more motivated at the thought of losing money than earning money. They believed that this could be linked to fitness and gym visits and so Pact was born.
If you are serious about your workouts and visit the gym regularly each week then this is a very good way to earn extra cash. Even the most hardened of bodybuilders have off days and don’t relish the thought of attending the gym on those days. So Pact is there to motivate you.
How Does The Pact App Work?
When you use the Pact app you have to commit to a target number of gym visits each week and agree what your fine will be if you don’t attend. You need to set up your following week’s pacts by the latest on Sunday before the week begins.
You can set a fine of between $5 and $50 (it defaults to $5) and this has to be paid for every visit to the gym that you miss. When the week comes to an end, the people that met their targets and attended the gym will be paid out a share of the total money received from those that failed.
The payouts for attendance vary and are based on the amount of revenue earned from those that don’t attend. When the app has first launched the payouts for full gym attendance were between $0.50 and $0.75 per workout.
The app has grown in popularity so much that these payout levels have been reduced. It is still a good idea as you will want to avoid paying that fine.
You may be wondering what happens if all of the Pact users meet their targets with full attendance. Well, the answer is simple – nobody gets paid anything. When you use the app you should focus on what you will lose rather than what you will gain.
How Does Pact Know You Have Visited The Gym?
The Pact app uses GPS to verify that you have attended the gym. They claim to have over 40,000 gyms in their database and you have to check in and check out from every gym visit.
If you sign out before 30 minutes has elapsed then you will not receive credit as this is the minimum workout time.
After you have checked in, the GPS system on your phone will measure the amount of time that you have spent there. If you forget to check out once your workout is complete then this will be done automatically once the GPS system knows that you are no longer at the gym.
If the gym that you attend is not recognized by the Pact system then you can submit the details to them so that it will be added in the future.
What If You Don’t Use A Gym For Your Workouts?
If you work out at home then you can still use the Pact app to motivate you.
In 2013 two new features were added for those people that did not use a gym for their workouts. The first was called Motion Tracker which tracks motion over a 90 minute period. If over 30 minutes of motion is detected then you will be rewarded with a successful credit.
The movement does not have to be continuous as you will obviously need rest time and time to set up different exercises. The motion sensor is reasonably good and it will help those that workout from home.
The other way to monitor nongym workouts is through the use of third-party partner apps. These apps also include activity trackers such as MyMapFitness or Moves for the iPhone and Fitbit and Jawbone for Android phones.
These seem to work better than the Motion Tracker function of Pact and will provide you with success credits in the same way.
So Should You Use The Pact App To Keep You On Track?
Most people believe that losing money is not a good thing and this can be a very good form of motivation. You need to think about the Pact app in this way rather than the small amounts that you will make from it for succeeding.
It is not perfect and you need to make sure that you don’t over commit in your first week of using it or you could end up burning yourself out which really defeats the object. The addition of the motion detectors for home or nongym use is a good feature.
Some people will advise you not to set your fine too high. If you set 3 sessions for a week with a $5 and miss them all then you are looking at $15 total. If you set a $30 fine then this will be $90 if you miss the week. It all depends on what will drive you. Some people will not be motivated by losing $15.
The Pact app is totally free and it can help. Anything that motivates you to attend your workout sessions is a good idea.
Overall Impression 4 out of 5
I love this app! Not because its the perfect app for training or learning to workout or keeping your diet in check. Its the perfect app to make sure you get your ass in the gym! That is the #1 thing in my mind that causes too many people to fail. Even if you cheat on your diet, as long as you continually go to the gym it will eventually become part of your lifestyle which then makes it easier to start working on your diet. Bravo, great idea Pact app!
The main reason for the lowered stars (at the time of writing this) on device friendly and user-friendly is the high amount of user complaints. It shows complaints that many workouts are not logged, causing the user to lose their Pact money. This could be quite aggravating when putting money on the line. Great idea, just needs to work out the bugs being reported to earn a higher rating.
