Bringing the Social Back to Working Out

For many of us, lockdown brought about an upheaval of our daily physical activity and fitness habits. For some, it meant getting in a daily workout courtesy of YouTube and an extra hour saved on commuting. But for others, it led to sluggish weeks of being stuck indoors, only moving between a desk and the fridge.

I'll admit I flitted between the two. As a lover of group fitness, I struggled to find anything online that generated the buzz and motivation that I got from working out in a class.

That's where I see the advantage of Classmate.

Classmate does a great job of bringing the social element back to online workouts. On the app, you can schedule a private class and choose whether you want to make it available to just your friends or open to anyone in the Classmate community to take part in. If you’re feeling spontaneous, you can head to your activity feed and join classes others have set up. All classes are currently being conducted over Zoom, removing any geographical constraints to exercising together.

And if you needed any more incentive to get your friends to join up, Classmate is cleverly designed to get cheaper per participant when more people join a class. I'm always looking for ways to cut down on costs so I’m a huge fan of this pricing model.

So how about the class experience?

Fun, seamless and social.

After signing onto the Zoom call, my friends and I were greeted by our lovely instructor who was clearly very knowledgeable and experienced. She immediately put my apprehensive friends at ease with her inclusive introduction to LYT Yoga.

The class was seamlessly run with a progression from simple poses through to a longer sequence of movements. Perfect pacing and encouraging coaching left us feeling calm and reset by the end of the session.

A unique aspect of the class format was the allocated social time. Before starting the workout, my instructor gave me and my friends five minutes in a breakout room to chat. At the end of the workout, ownership of the meeting was transferred to one of us so we could continue to socialise afterwards as well.

I much preferred this to the set up of other virtual workouts in which people would just say “hi” in the chat box with the occasional brave person unmuting to say how they were feeling. Much less scary when it's only your friends on the call.

As someone who loves to use the gym as an excuse to catch up with friends, this made for the perfect virtual alternative.

I would definitely recommend Classmate as an exercise platform, particularly in the current climate where exercising in person is not always an option. I'm looking forward to checking out the different exercise classes and seeing the user experience on the app continue to improve with upcoming features, including time zone scheduling to make connecting with friends overseas that much easier.

Whether you're craving connection or looking for a new exercise class, grab a mate and give it a go!