Under Armour's MyFitnessPal goes premium for fitness fanatics
Roughly three months ago, Under Armour snatched up Endomondo and MyFitnessPal for about half a billion bucks. Now, the sports apparel company is looking for a return on its investment by rolling out the first paid-for premium version of MyFitnessPal. This is no casual tracking service, to be clear -- this is meant for serious fitness buffs. For either $10 a month or $50 a year, users can build custom nutrition reports and dig through the minutia of their health data without being bothered by ads.
MyFitnessPal Premium tempts you with access to priority customer support, exclusive content (like recipes designed by dietitians) and that aforementioned lack of ads, but it's really the granular data tracking that's the draw. Your calorie and nutrition goals can differ based on the day of the week. There's also custom home screens that put details like your carb or salt intake right up front if you have a specific goal ahead of a big race, like lowering your blood pressure or loading carbs. You can even see which foods are contributing the most sugar to your diet.
This represents an important (if obvious) move from helping people lose weight and count calories to helping people cut that last ounce of body fat off their emerging six-pack. Under Armour isn't interested in tracking what antibiotics you're allergic to, or how much sleep you're getting. This is a company built on high-performance, high-endurance athletics, and its move into the tech space needs to reflect that. While Endomondo and MyFitnessPal will probably maintain their appeal for casual runners and health nuts, you should also expect them to roll out features in the next couple of months that help people train for that next big fight or marathon.
