Under Armour Gained an Engaging Fitness Community with the Purchase of Endomondo

Some of the main reasons that people don’t want to exercise is because they aren’t motivated enough and they don’t have fun working out. It’s very common knowledge that if you’re having fun doing something, you’re more likely to want to do that activity more often. Endomondo, a new personal fitness platform has based its entire foundation around this simple idea.

The Endomondo Sports Tracker is an app that works with any iPhone, Android, Blackberry, or Windows phone. The app has been dubbed as a “personal trainer in your pocket,” and it’s evident why. The Endomondo app not only tracks your personal fitness, but it also provides real time feedback while the user is working out. This real time feedback is actually voice feedback, encouraging the user to keep pushing to hit their goal if they are falling behind, or praising him or her for hitting a new personal record.

As a personal trainer, Endomondo carries a multitude of features to help the user track their fitness. The app carries a GPS tracking map that shows the user where they are going, how far they’ve traveled, and can be utilized as a tracker for friends to monitor progress.

After the workout, Endomondo displays the entire history of the workout, showing times for running, the entire map of the workout, and any comments or likes the user’s friends may have posted during the workout. Before the workout, the user can set workout goals that Endomondo will give audio feedback on during the workout to help motivate the user to keep pushing through the end of the workout. Additionally, the user can set workout goals to compete against friends.

Endomondo also functions as more of a social media presence, allowing the user to tag pictures of the gear and their friends working out, as well as upload pictures of themselves working out and post status message. Additionally, the user can post workouts to their Facebook, Google+, and Twitter pages, allowing them to share their workouts with all of their friends and encourage others to try their exercise routines.

Endomondo’s goal is for working out to be fun, and they have leaned heavily on the power of social media interactions to achieve that. Using this power, Endomondo strengthens its feedback system, allowing close friends and significant others to send real-time pep talks back and forth through the app to their friends, providing users with that extra push to keep going.

Positive reinforcement has been proven to be a strong tool to achieve success throughout history, and that motivator is hard at work in this app. In addition to being able to send pep talks, friends can keep track of what each other is doing on the app and send them challenges to encourage their friends to keep working harder and harder. Friendly competition is something that always drives people to dig a little deeper and go that extra mile.

Endomondo can track multiple sports, including running, cycling, walking, mountain biking, kayaking, skiing, and more than 40 other sports. If the user wears a heart monitor, the app can connect to that monitor, allowing the user to keep track of their heart rate during the workout. As a final touch, the app allows the user to listen to their favorite music while they work out, giving them a comfortable and positive exercise environment.

Endomondo is compatible in over 15 different languages, including English, French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Dutch, Russian, Spanish, and many more.

For users that are really committed to running and want to take Endomondo even further, there is a premium level to the application. Premium features include training plans, advanced statistics, and interval training. The training plan feature allows the user to create and store personal training plans that are set for runners aiming to run a 5K, 10K, half marathon, and full marathon. Interval training allows runners to set up their own programs and add a different dynamic to their training regimen, either using their own creations or the predefined interval sessions.

The app itself syncs with the Endomondo website, which the user can log into and see their entire training history and fitness activity, allowing them to evaluate their progress and see where they need to improve.

Recently, Under Armour purchased Endomondo for $85 million, along with the MyFitnessPal fitness app for $475 million, as part of their goal to establish the world’s largest digital health and fitness community. These two apps combined have reached over 100 million users since their releases.

With these two acquisitions, Under Armour’s network grew significantly, allowing the company to truly establish a dominant position in the online fitness and global health communities. This company has always been a leader in both of these communities, and continues to expand that as they try to further their goal of connecting millions of people through fitness and exercise.

The purchase of Endomondo is particularly of use to Under Armour because of its international presence, according to Forbes, allowing its Connected Fitness community to truly gain more global expansion. These two purchases will be the second and third acquisitions by Under Armour, who acquired MapMyFitness in 2013.

Under Armour also has its own fitness-tracking app called Under Armour Record. These four applications combined give Under Armour an extreme leg up in the fitness-tracking technology and global health industry, and allow Under Armour to offer options for fitness lovers and workout enthusiasts from every possible angle.

Endomondo is a useful workout application and most people will utilize it as a personal motivator for their running regimens. Personal training and audio motivation are two of the most important things runners and active exercisers need to stay focused and work hard, and Endomondo provides both of these tools, free of charge.

You can download the Endomondo app to your Smartphone here.