A personalized running app for smartphones: the app that keeps you running
How to prevent novice runners from giving up? Personalized technology may offer a solution. Fontys University of Applied Sciences/School of Sports Studies in Eindhoven investigates the role of intelligent systems and wearable technology in offering runners personalized training advice.
In general, novice recreational runners find it difficult to keep on running, because injuries and lack of motivation start to kick in after a while. Low-cost smart technologies offer opportunities for supporting and motivating runners.
Mobile applications
The Fontys Move to Be research group, a multidisciplinary team of human movement scientists, psychologists, and designers, develops solutions that promote sustainable and responsible exercise.
The InspiRun, a personalized running app for smartphones, is a good example. The app offers customized feedback and creates personalized training schedules based on the user’s objectives and physical abilities. It uses GPS information linked to a pulse monitor and user’s perceived intensity of the training and adjusts training schedules on the basis of these data. Competitive runners receive other feedback than social runners, but the app serves the same objective for all: running with joy tailored to people’s abilities. The research group is also involved in other projects in which wearable, sensor-based solutions are developed to monitor and guide people during sports and physical activity.
Online decision tool
The research group, in collaboration with a considerable number of professionals and researchers, is also developing an online decision tool that helps less experienced sports participants choose from hundreds of existing sports apps. This tool will link recreational runners, walkers, and cyclists to a specific app. Both app projects focus on keeping people moving. With personalized and suitable apps runners can use tailor-made support in their own environment at the moment it suits them best.
Other research projects
- The project ‘KEIGAAF’ focuses on exercise for children from socially disadvantaged families. By strengthening the interaction between the children’s physical and the social living environment, children are inspired to become more active and their neighborhoods can be improved.
- The ‘Together we can do more’ project investigates the effectiveness of lesson study as a method to increase the professional skills of Physical Education (PE) teachers.
Contact
Would you like to know more about our research projects? Please contact us.
Research group Move to Be
Fontys University of Applied Sciences/School of Sports Studies
www.lectoraatmovetobe.nl
Professor Steven Vos
E-mail: steven.vos@fontys.nl
Telephone: +31 (0)88 50 89799
Mobile: +31 (0)6 10 583 996
