2. User story one
User details
Gender: 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 timefor 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
ismaintaininghis 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 samemethod 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.
3. 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 appshows 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 likedbeing 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.
4. User story two
User details
Gender: 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 weekcombine 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
5. 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.
