Fitness at fingertips

With youngsters aiming for a better and healthier life, apps on fitness are mushrooming by the day.  These are within a youngster’s reach but what makes one app different from the other is the convenience factor and the user-friendly nature.

One such app is Orobind, a start-up catering to the health and fitness domain which is the brainchild of Satya Vyas. Satya, a graduate from IIT Roorkee, tried his hands at three start-ups before opening Orobind along with his partner Shubhanshu Srivastava, who is also a graduate from IIT Roorkee. 

“We started thinking about Orobind in 2013 when I was working with ‘Chai Point’ and Shubhanshu was with ‘Snapdeal’. We wanted to build something that could create a strong impact on people’s lives. We saw that there were a large number of fitness apps out there but failing to create a massive impact. We believed that the only way we could solve this problem was by bringing a personal fitness coach into people’s lives. The idea has evolved a lot since then but we are still holding on to our core belief,” says Satya.

Orobind, essentially being a mobile application, solves the concern of heading to the gym after a tiring day. But it motivates people to be hale and hearty with the help of their smart phones.

“Orobind is striving to make it extremely easy for people to be healthy. There is a lack of mobility and poor nutritional habits among many people. The problem gets aggravated as people lose motivation after a point in time. That is where we come in. Our certified personal fitness coaches train people either one-on-one at their homes or in groups and try to take them through a lifestyle change by getting them in a habit of tracking, monitoring what they eat etc. Since there is a person who comes to you, it becomes all the easier for someone to stay motivated,” says Satya.

He explains, “When we were starting out, we deliberated a lot over names, we wanted our name to give hope to people that if they fight the good fight, there will be a better tomorrow. Thus we came up with the name 'Orobind' which is a Bengali derivation of Sri Aurobindo’s name — one of the revered spiritual gurus of India.”

Ask him why people  should choose Orobind and he says, “Basically, there are hundreds of apps in the health and fitness category. But most of them are simply data entry tools — which they call logging — logging of food or logging of workouts. Then there are other set of apps which have paid virtual trainers. We don’t believe in a virtual model, especially when a customer has to pay for it. We believe that the only way a person can get results and  change the lifestyle is when there is someone standing next to the person and training him or her. So our app uses technology to connect an individual to coaches and group workout activities, monitor performances, capture data and all that, but it is not virtual. A coach of your choice comes to your home or to the community to train you — either one-on-one or as a group.”

With the festive season already knocking on the doors, there is a lot to look forward to when it comes to eating out or consuming the fanciest  sweets and savouries. One almost forgets the amount of calories one consumes during this season. This not only hampers the regular diet but also one’s health. At times like this, the best option is to take some time out of the busy schedule and take care of fitness and health.

“Most of us in India today are highly aspirational — we want to look good and live a healthy, disease-free life. Being fit and in good shape plays an extremely important role in achieving that. One can subscribe to Orobind or take part in group fitness activities in their community or  get a personal fitness coach along with a dietician coming home. It doesn’t get easier than this,” he adds.