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Six weeks ago, I was having a tough time sticking to my running routines and goals. Physically, I was mostly fine. Mentally, the thought of running — a sport I usually love — made me roll into a blanket burrito and never leave my bed. I started hating myself, but none of my usual fitness apps and trackers were helping. After building a weeklong streak, I couldn’t muster the energy to get out of bed one Saturday. I broke it and spent the next day wallowing in guilt and self-pity.
Fed up, I went digging around the internet and ended up downloading the Gentler Streak app.
Gentler Streak is what it sounds like. It’s an iOS and Apple Watch app with a more compassionate approach toward building a fitness habit. You can set an activity status: active, on a break, sick, and injured. Selecting one of the latter three won’t break your streak. Instead, your activity is represented on an “activity path,” which is a visualization for your overall training load. There’s educational reading about nutrition, exercise, rest, and the interplay between all three. Each day, you open the app, and it’ll give you a nudge. If you’re super well-rested, you might get told to push it a little. If you’re tired, you’ll get reminded that resting is good, actually. And if you really don’t know what to do, you can tap a “Go Gentler” button on the Apple Watch to see a series of suggested exercises based on activities you like, with recommended durations and intensity levels.
There’s a lot I love about all this. First and foremost, I enjoy that it incorporates breaks and “failure” into your eventual success — and doesn’t judge you for it.
