The existence of gymnasiums dates back to the Greek Empire, and the business of fitness began around 150 years ago with the first commercial gym in Brussels.

Today, the fitness industry is a lucrative business, worth over $100 billion.

And across the decades, there have been numerous trends.

But one which is continuing to grow is the use of gamification.

Year on year, it's effectiveness and its dynamic and its engagement gets better and better.

When people started playing games and seeing, oh, do I want to get a score or do I want to achieve all three stars in this level?

We're going to add that into our system.

It's not just, you know, a nice-to-have platform or a solution in a gym.

You have to have something like that.

I'm Sean Alsop.

And for Business Daily on the BBC World Service, I'm exploring gamification in the fitness industry.

Growing up, I used to play a lot of video games which incorporated elements of physical exercise,

like the eye toy for the Sony PlayStation, or Wii Sports and Wii fit for the Nintendo

Wii. They were marketed as games first and foremost, but now, more people have

gamification methods built into their fitness routines everywhere. Have you got your steps in? Look

how many rings I've got. Can't break my streak. It's like this for millions of people around the

world, thanks to advanced

technology. But first, what is gamification? And how has it made its way into the fitness industry?

Gamification is the use of game-like elements, like rewards, competitions and progress tracking,

to non-game activities, to increase engagement and motivation.

To understand more, I spoke with Fulas Assembler, professor at the Near East University in Cyprus,

who has written extensively about this subject.

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