Sitting in front of a computer all day and failing to get enough physical exercises is bad for a person’s health. So more and more of Ukraine’s office workers are taking up sports, and information technologies are helping them do it.
According to the U.K. medical journal The Lancet, Ukraine ranks 118 out of 188 countries in the list of most healthy countries. The war in the eastern part of the country, plus Ukrainians’ taste for alcohol and cigarettes are the main reasons the country is so far down on the list.
Doing more sports can fix that, according to Eugene Shimalsky, the cofounder of Fitior, a startup that is developing a smartphone application that aims to bring people together to do sports, creating a sort of online social network for amateur or professional athletes.
Shimalsky is himself keen on swimming, boxing and strength training.
He and the cofounder of the Ukrainian lifestyle portal bit.ua, Tatiana Grinuova, launched Fitior’s application in September 2016, and it immediately became popular, attracting several thousand users in Kyiv. New Yorkers and Londoners are next – the company plans to roll their product out in those cities in a short while.
“Theoretically, our app could work anywhere, but the user community (in Ukraine) is present only in Kyiv at the moment,” Shimalsky told the Kyiv Post. “London and New York are huge English-speaking cities, and presence on these markets is a very logical move for an app with a wide target audience.”
Designed for those who jog, swim, ride, or go to the gym, Fitior makes sports more accessible, according to Shimalsky. It now includes about 40 kinds of activities, including individual, group and game-type sports. Users of the app can even find a chess partner or fencing opponent.
Ultramarathon runner and organizer of Kyiv jogging tours Volodymyr Dehtyarov told the Kyiv Post that Fitior has helped him out a couple of times.
“I have this application installed. I managed to find several running mates in my neighborhood with its help,” Dehtyarov said.
According to him, any physical activity helps office workers. “Not necessarily even sports – simply increasing the time on one’s feet and walking, you can achieve great health benefits.”
“But if I had to choose between the gym or outdoor activities, I would without a doubt choose a jog or a walk in the park or the woods,” he added.
The app helps users seek out not just fellow fitness fans at the same level, or upcoming events, but also coaches to help them adopt healthy lifestyle. Besides, the apps gamification features gives its users the chance to become more engaged in their chosen spots, build a network with kindred spirits, or simply enjoy breaking personal records.
The application allows its users to create profiles, photo and video albums, chat with other users, and share achievements with other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
The main difference between those internet networks and Fitior, according to cofounder Grinuova, is that it’s a niche place where there’s no depressing news in the app’s timeline, including political and economic ones. On the contrary, news about sport achievements is always motivating others who want to take sports up, she thinks.
“We aim to inspire others to be more engaged in sports. Many people, especially in metropolises, lack companions to do (sports),” Grinuova told the Kyiv Post. “Healthy people are always better than unhealthy ones.”
The app supports the Russian and English languages and currently works only on iOS devices, but the developers promise to produce an Android version as well.
“We want to test out the strategy and our ideas on iOS at first,” Shimalsky said.
“The application is ‘hyper-local,’ and so the chances are high users will be able to find someone close by who, for example also plays squash, and that they can play with,” he said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Denys Krasnikov can be reached at [email protected]. The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by Beetroot, Ciklum and SoftServe. The content is independent of the donors.
