ADRENALINE FITNESS APPLICATION

User Stories

User case study’s for Adrenaline Fitness App

Charmaine Kelly

2/7/2014

User story one

User detailsGender: Male

Age: 34

Height: 6ft

User one is a male in his thirties of typically good health. He works in the hospitality and music sector which keeps him busy most evenings and late nights over the weekends and sometimes involves travel. Anti-social hours mean a later start to his day and leave little to no time for the gym. Throughout the week the user will participate in several self-directed weight lifting or bodyweight sessions in order to maintain some level of fitness.

During these sessions the user isn’t tracking the amount of time he dose each exercise, but instead is taking it at a slower pace counting out each repetition. Each set contains between 10 – 20 reps depending on each exercise. Sometimes this can go wrong as he can easily be distracted from counting by the radio, music or even his partner whom he lives with. But this aside, as someone who doesn’t know a lot about fitness even a rough estimate of reps allows him to be confident he is maintaining his fitness level.

The user primarily lifts weights when he works out. It isn’t always practical to set up these weight circuits because his weights are bulky and come in a variety of sizes with added accessories which make it time consuming to move them from the cupboard in the hall where they are stored, to the living room of his home where he has the space to use them. This also means that his workouts are interrupted when he has to add or remove weights from the barbell for different exercises. Another piece of equipment he uses is a pull up bar to work his core. Again this is bulky piece equipment is placed away out of sight and is set up before each session, as it restricts the movement of the door and mostly because his partner says so.

Typically the user has half an hour to spare daily and setting all this up could take between ten and twenty minutes. This is a considerable amount of time spent fooling around with training equipment rather than actually using it.

On the days when the user doesn’t lift weights or the days he is travelling with work, he will opt to use bodyweight exercises instead. He tends to use the same method of keeping the pace slower and counting each exercise to either 10 or 20. These are usually basic moves such as squats, lunges, burpees, sit-up and push-ups. Although there are possibly up to one hundred different equipment free exercises the user doesn’t spend the time looking them up online to learn the correct form and would rather carry on using the same techniques day in and day out knowing that his body is probably immune to the benefits by now.

The user would like to improve his endurance and cardiovascular fitness a great deal and his only knowledge of doing so in by running. If the user is going for a run he will track his distance using GPS and record his time using a free running app. This app uses a login system to create an account; each account can then be synced with the user’s social media networks. The user can track progress and set goals using this app. For example, the user wished to be able to run 10miles by the end of this year. The app has designed a training regime for him to follow which includes his rest days. He can monitor his times and distance at the end of his run when the app shows his progress using a line graph and gives him the option to share stats on Facebook. He found sharing made him motivated in the beginning, as he liked being able to share and show off his progress. However, time is an issue as the user doesn’t have an hour or more to spare in clocking up these miles and has admitted only running twice in the last three months because of this.

Generally speaking the user has little to no warm-up routine and uses very little stretching in his training. Documenting this information and witnessing the user training has made it apparent he is stuck in a rut repeating the same circuits and reps daily giving him no real progress or achievements to date. The user has said his goal would be to build on his endurance and power as the strength is already there. He knows he is strong because of the amount of weight he can move but the power comes from how quick you can move it and the endurance is of course the time in which you can maintain this work rate. As he performs his reps slow power isn’t something being worked nor is endurance as he gives up when he reaches his target rep. Improving is something he wants but he lacks the motivation he needs to move forward to the next stage.

User story two

User detailsGender: Female

Age: 25

Height: 5.6ft

User two is female in her twenties and is in great physical health. She works part time in retail and part time as a fitness / kickboxing instructor and is studying full time for her degree. As a result time is very precious and keeping up with her training is very important, as well as maintaining weight for competition.

When the user trains it is varied, one session can be for technique and flexibility were another is high intensity interval training concentrating on the power behind each movement. Typically her week breaks down into seven structured workouts with her coach.

Three early morning cardio work outs that focus on endurance and power, these sessions can include a number of different techniques. Sometimes she will have an hour of hill sprints and other times it will be an hour of one on one with her coach of constant kickboxing drills against his body armour and focus pads. Other times it can be 30mins of drilling combos and movements against a partner followed by 30mins of interval training using her own body weight against her.

On a Friday evening she will have her only heavy weight lifting session of the week, concentrating on strength and conditioning. In this hour work out she will complete a circuit of 16 stations. Each station is made up of two different exercises using the same or similar equipment. She will stay at each station for two minutes taking 30seconds to change to the next when done. Most of these are exercises are weighted, for example, should press changing into an upright row, or weighted lunges into weighted step ups. The user likes to count reps for some of these stations to know she has the power to move these weights as many times within the time limit, but up to 32 exercises is a lot to remember!

Two evening classes a week combine her martial arts techniques with body weight training to provide an all-rounder workout that promotes strength, endurance and technique all in one. Here she works with a partner taking turns on pads, or drilling with a mixture of partners changing every round. These sessions concentrate on technique at the beginning and end with high intensity cardio. And lastly one session of sparring every Sunday is were all those session comes together so she can complete a minimum of 5x2min rounds of full contact fighting with 30secs break in between and a fresh man in each round to ensure she keeps her work rate high. After her rounds are completed she is expected to be ready for the next man in the ring for his 5 rounds, this means in any sparring session she can complete up 12 rounds.

Like most fitness enthusiasts this user loves to post about her workouts on Facebook because she loves the world to know how hard she is working at her dojo.

This is a lot of time to spend training and the user is all too aware that it isn’t always possible to make it to the gym for each session, sometimes other commitments come first and her priorities

must change. When this occurs the user finds it tough. Although she is a highly motivated person in her club and when she is teaching fitness classes she struggle to find motivation for herself when alone. Whether it is the lack of her coach pushing her on or lack of club members to compete against, exercising alone is hard! Most apps are based on running and the user finds carrying a bulky phone whilst running annoying and distracting.

Most running apps are designed with long distance in mind. When the user goes running it is for a short jogging distance to warm up followed by sprints as having the endurance to maintain the explosive power it takes to climb a hill at the same speed up to 10 times in a row is more valuable to her than running long distance at an average pace. This means most apps are useless to her progress; instead the user wears a heart monitor to track how hard her body is working and to know when it has entered fat burning mode which helps her keep her weight on target for competitions.