Jabbie app seeks to make fitness more inclusive

Physical exercise is typically a solitary activity. Unless you're playing team sports, it's just you swimming laps, jogging down the street or straining on the weight machine.

But adding a social component can often pay dividends. If your friends are biking on Tuesday evenings or mall walking on Saturday mornings, you're more likely to show up.

Exercising together can also get your competitive juices flowing, resulting in a longer workout that pushes you closer to your goals.

The inventors of Jabbie recognized the power of group efforts in the pursuit of personal fitness and they built that component into a mobile app that they plan to release. The app will let users get personalized encouragements from a community of users who share similar personal fitness goals.

Jabbie users can set their own fitness activity schedules and set their personal goals and milestones. But they can also join or create a "troupe of support" and schedule workouts with other troupe members.

With group participation, members send and receive encouragements from other members. While that communication happens primarily online, Jabbie members can also use the app to make connections with users nearby in the offline world.

Jabbie's creators are Bunmi Alo, an entrepreneur and software developer who immigrated to the US from Nigeria, and Dr. Joy Cox,  a body and social justice advocate. They share the belief that "the accessibility around fitness is a social justice issue" and that their app will provide "a safe space for users to be active regardless of their fitness level or location."

Jabbie is slated to be launched by the end of the year. You can learn more about the plans for Jabbie in the video below and on the Jabbie website. You can hear the creators discuss their philosophy and their plans on the Wellness Lately podcast.

Alo and Cox hope to raise $27,000 to finance the production of the app. Supporters can donate using this PayPal link.

z

Browse More Articles

Tweet

Written by Ric Manning

Follow me on Twitter @ricmanning and read my technology columns at My Well Being.