First social sports app for women launched in the Netherlands

SportU is live, a new social sports app where women can meet, motivate and help each other to move together. Working together for something is motivating, challenging and a lot more fun. Figures from the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport show that more than half of the adult women do not exercise enough. Women experience barriers to exercise: 25 percent has difficulty motivating themselves. SportU wants to help these women by connecting them on the online platform, offering work-outs and sharing articles about a healthy lifestyle and personal experiences of users.

The National Sport Research (NSO) of the Mulier Institute shows that Dutch people experience various obstacles to exercise. A quarter of the Dutch have difficulty motivating themselves to exercise. SportU offers a platform where these women can get in contact with each other and help each other by exercising together. A sports buddy is for many women an important stick behind the door. Besides, working out together is a lot more fun and it can make you feel more at ease when you enter a gym for the first time and you don’t know the environment or the class yet,’ says Karin Kwee, co-founder of SportU.

Motivating each other
SportU is not only a social app to find a workout buddy, but also wants to show that any form of exercise is good. Regardless of how you look, how often you exercise or how well you do. ‘In our conversations with women, we regularly come across that their fitness or weight made them insecure and therefore the step to the gym is getting bigger and bigger. By connecting people and sharing useful tips and personal stories, we hope to motivate these women. We want to show that it’s not about being the best, but about having fun, challenging yourself and feeling good about yourself,” Kwee said.

How it works
SportU’s app can be downloaded from all app stores and an account can be created for free. With filters you indicate where your interests lie and what you’re looking for: fitness training, socializing and everything in between. Based on your personal profile and environment you will be linked to other users, after which you can add them. Once the request is accepted it is possible to talk to each other via the encrypted chat functions.

In the app, several female-friendly gyms but also yoga or dance studios in the area are visible. The locations can provide users with special offers, such as a free day pass or discounted strippenkaart. It is also possible as a user to start your own sports event, such as a running or walking club. In this way you can arrange a sports lesson with each other via the app. In case you need to pay for a lesson, you do that at the location in question. No payments or subscriptions are made through SportU.

From hiking to workshops, from yoga to judo and from dance class to dumbbell training; with SportU you decide which sport you do and with whom. Always at a place where you feel comfortable. For more information: www.sportu.eu