Keeping a nation
fit, at home

A business that had to reinvent itself

I was the sole designer at Fitternity, an Indian startup that sold gym memberships. When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, people stopped going to the gym and the business came to a standstill. During this time we built a whole suite of virtual products to help our users stay fit at home — and once gyms started reopening in the second half of 2020, we had to help users ease back into physical fitness options.

The pivot — virtual products bridging users from home workouts back to physical gyms.

Bringing the studio into the living room

With gyms closed, the first job was to recreate the experience of a class — and a trainer — at home. Two products led the pivot.

01

Zoom Fitness Classes

Before COVID, Fitternity let users book sessions in fitness studios. During the pandemic, I re-jigged that feature to let users book group fitness classes with their preferred trainers — offering a variety of options like Yoga, HIIT, Calisthenics and Cross-Fit. It helped us monetise, and gave fitness experts a platform to sell their services.

Zoom Classes — booking group sessions with preferred trainers across Yoga, HIIT, Calisthenics and Cross-Fit.

02

Zoom 1:1 Personal Training

On similar lines to the classes, we launched a 1:1 training platform for people to book fitness and mental-health sessions. I introduced the ability to buy session packs, with a complete flow for users to add their preferences.

1:1 Training — personal fitness & mental-health sessions, session packs and a preferences flow.

From a cold call to a comprehensive program

To improve the work-from-home experience, we cold-called Zoom Fitness Class users and discovered they needed more motivation, socialization and guidance. In response, we ran a pilot — the #30DayChallenge — featuring celebrity trainers, daily fitness plans, nutritional guidance, socialization opportunities and a weekly personal-training session, for a cohort of 30 users. It was promoted through a web landing page, with participants added to a WhatsApp group for fitness-plan delivery.

#30DayChallenge — the web landing page for the pilot program with celebrity trainers and daily plans.

App concept — the comprehensive #30DayChallenge experience that was designed but never shipped.

Reopening — online and physical, together

As lockdown restrictions eased and gyms began to open, we had to help users access both online and physical fitness options. I redesigned the homepage to hold both worlds at once, so members could move fluidly between an at-home class and a gym booking.

Homepage redesign — one surface for both at-home and in-gym fitness as the world reopened.

Rebuilding trust for the return

Going back to a gym in a pandemic took trust. To rebuild it, I created a set of fun illustrations (most adapted from Freepik), placed at strategic points in an infographic to educate users on the precautions gyms were taking — plus a landing page so members could understand every safety measure in place.

COVID precautions — an illustrated infographic & landing page explaining the safety steps gyms were taking.

What this project taught me