What if you lost $5 every time you missed the gym? I’ll tell you what would happen, all those skipped workouts replaced by date nights, all night couch potato session and after work happy hours would turn into one expensive habit. Well that’s the premise of GymPact, a new smartphone app created by two recent Harvard grads that forces users to shape up or pay up. Users make a ‘pact’ with the service to go to the gym a set number of days per week. For each day that a user does not show up on an appointed day, the app debits $5 from their bank account. GymPact co-founder Yifan Zhang recently told The New York Times: “Behavioral economics show that if you tie cash incentives to things that are concrete and easy to achieve like getting to the gym, it’s very effective. People don’t like losing money and it’s one of the strongest motivators, much more than winning money.” Want to know more? Check out this video.

Would you try GymPact?

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One Comment

  1. WOW, that’s a great challenge. My job pays for your gym membership when you show that you have gone X amount of times quarter or annually based on there stipulation. Either way money talks…

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