How Trainr Evolved from a Fitness Challenge App into a Full-Scale Digital Fitness Ecosystem
A deep dive into how Riseup Labs helped Think37 Ltd build and scale Trainr — from AI-powered gamified challenges to...
From structured challenges and AI coaching to subscriptions, gym discovery, group missions, and CRM integration – a complete digital fitness ecosystem for users, gyms, and platform operators.
Trainr is an AI-powered fitness and challenge engagement platform built for Think37 Ltd to help users build consistent healthy habits through structured challenges, gamification, social motivation, and intelligent coaching. What began as a challenge-based fitness app has grown across three phases into a scalable, monetised, multi-sided platform, serving individual users, gym owners, clubs, and platform administrators from a unified system.
Think37 Ltd
Health & Fitness Technology
Mobile & Web Platform
Ongoing Product Development
We developed a dynamic, cross-platform mobile application (iOS & Android) to keep users engaged, competitive, and on track with their fitness goals across discovery, daily progress, AI coaching, social interaction, and gamification.
Users join structured, goal-driven challenges — step tracking, weight loss programmes, workout consistency plans, and more. Each challenge features daily task checklists, real-time progress tracking, completion milestones, leaderboard rankings, and prize rewards. Local XP tracks challenge-specific performance, while Global XP accumulates lifetime progress.
The Home screen surfaces dedicated panels for Nutrition, Workout, Weight, Sleep, and Activity. Each panel opens an embedded detail page with progress graphs filterable by Day, Week, and Month, alongside AI-generated performance overviews, follow-up questions, domain-specific badges, and — for Weight — a BMI panel showing current status and trend.
The built-in AI coach provides personalised daily nudges, progress summaries, and follow-up questions tied to real activity data. Two AI-powered input flows accelerate task completion: the Describe Flow lets users explain a completed meal, workout, or habit in natural language, and the AI marks relevant tasks complete automatically. The Photo Flow lets users capture an image, which the AI identifies, labels in up to five words, awards XP for, and provides feedback on.
A deep progression engine motivates users through Global XP, Local XP, levels, credits, badges, streaks, and missions. Credits are earned through levelling up, leaderboard performance, badge progression, and group mission completion — and can be purchased in-app. Badge categories span tasks, streaks, photos, classes, buddies, reactions, referrals, AI usage, sleep, steps, nutrition, weight, and challenge completion.
Trainr syncs automatically with Apple Health (iOS) and Google Fit (Android) for real-time, accurate logging of steps, workouts, calories, and weight — reducing manual entry and keeping the daily core loop frictionless.
The social layer keeps users motivated through community interaction. Users can post updates, comment, and react in a prioritised feed that surfaces content from buddies first, then local club members, gym members, and global clubs. Local clubs are created in-app; global clubs are managed from the admin dashboard. The Buddies system supports search, requests, buddy profiles, push-style reminders, a friendship score out of five hearts, and randomly generated pair missions.
Users can upgrade to Core or Performance subscription plans directly within the app. The Core Plan includes a seven-day free trial with monthly and annual pricing. The Performance Plan unlocks unlimited AI coach interactions and is promoted to Core users after engagement milestones. Supported payment methods include Apple Pay, Google Pay, and card — with full support for discount codes, referral discounts, and credit purchases.
The user profile provides a comprehensive view of personal progress — XP breakdown, earned badges, completed missions, active and historical streaks, a getting started checklist, an image collection grid, a referral panel, and an upgrade panel. Completing the getting started checklist unlocks a Performance Plan discount. Completing the referral flow grants discounts to both the referrer and the referred user.
After completing a workout or logging a meal, users can generate a share-ready visual overlay. Workout overlays display workout type, duration, calories burned, distance, pace, volume, XP earned, and streak or badge progress. Nutrition overlays display meal type, calories, protein, macro split, and goal alignment. Overlays use predefined templates with dynamic data mapping and can be saved or shared directly.
Beyond the B2C mobile app, we delivered a comprehensive web platform giving gym owners and platform administrators full control over member engagement, challenges, rewards, leads, gym content, and business growth.
Gym admins can create and manage active challenges with a dedicated detail view featuring separate Leaderboard and Challengers tabs. Custom leaderboards can be built around weight change, nutrition health score, tasks completed, and workouts completed — each filterable by This Week, This Month, and All Time. Prizes can be attached to any challenge, leaderboard, or group mission using discount codes, credits, or store-based rewards.
Gym admins can create collaborative group missions where all participants contribute toward a shared target. Mission metrics include workouts completed, classes attended, days completed, steps, buddy pushes, meals logged, tasks completed, photos uploaded, sleep score, and weight logged. Targets scale by participant count and challenge duration. Missions progress through Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Rare tiers, with XP and credits distributed to active contributors on completion. The Rewards page consolidates Leaderboards, Group Missions, and Prizes into three clear panels.
The My Gym section gives gym owners full control over their public presence — Google review visibility, public challenge visibility, testimonials, FAQs, equipment lists, room details, and linked media. Starter packages allow gyms to create trial-style membership offers with configurable duration, perks, follow-on offers, and credit discounts. A setup checklist guides gym admins through early activation steps, with a membership discount unlocked on completion.
Gym owners operating multiple facilities can open new facility accounts, switch between them, and view both a global dashboard across all locations and individual local dashboards per facility — making Trainr suitable for gym chains and multi-site fitness businesses.
Platform administrators have access to a global admin layer for managing challenge templates, promo codes, global groups, and reported post moderation. Global challenge templates can be applied across any gym or club on the platform, enabling consistent programme delivery at scale.
The gym admin dashboard supports date filtering with presets for Today, Last Week, and Last Month. Gym owners can track engagement, active challengers, challenge performance, and member participation trends from a single view. Built-in demo users with realistic profiles, XP, badges, streaks, and challenge activity are available to help new gym admins immediately visualise what a live dashboard looks like.
Gym admins can invite challengers individually or in bulk via email. A dedicated Leads & Opportunities tab surfaces GoHighLevel leads and express interest submissions in one place, making it easy to track and act on gym demand from within the platform.
We leverage the latest and most robust technologies to build scalable, high-performance applications.
Frontend library for the Web Dashboard.
Cross-platform framework for the App.
High-level framework for backend dev.
Relational database management system.
In-memory data structure store.
Powers the AI Coach & Insights.
Manage and share fitness and medical data.
Tracking health and activity data.
Authentication and Push Notifications.
Subscription and credit payment processing
Lead management, CRM sync, and campaign attribution
Product analytics and engagement tracking
Frontend library for the Web Dashboard.
Cross-platform framework for the App.
High-level framework for backend dev.
Relational database management system.
In-memory data structure store.
Manage and share fitness and medical data.
Tracking health and activity data.
Authentication and Push Notifications.
Subscription and credit payment processing
Lead management, CRM sync, and campaign attribution
Product analytics and engagement tracking
Powers the AI Coach & Insights.
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