Best Workout Apps – If You’re Looking to Get Fit Without A Gym Membership
For those of us that aren’t hitting the gym regularly, workout apps can somehow come as a great help if you’re willing to be consistent. I’ve disliked heavy, intensive, data-rich workout apps (like the ones from Runtastic or MyFitnessPal) despite them being popular and effective. The thing about such apps is that you’ve got to be hitting the gym regularly in order for these to be very useful.
What I prefer instead is a super minimal, simple but effective app which needs me to exercise/workout a few minutes a day. That’s about all I can spend on physique and if that sounds like you, dive right in. I checked out a handful of minimal workout apps that get the job done and help you keep fit.
Sworkit
Sworkit is Simply Work It. It’s an app that can be anything – a simple, few-minutes-a-day workout trainer and tracker or a full-fledged, robust workout app. It’s this customization that makes Sworkit a great app to have. There are over 170 workouts you can pick from. The way the workout app works is simple: select the workouts you are going to do, set a time-limit for each of these and start working out. Time limits can go from 5 minutes to 60 minutes and the exercises are all up to your choosing.
7-Minute Workout
This app is based on the popular 7-minute workout philosophy. It has about 13 exercises and each lasts for 30 seconds. Pictures and descriptions help you figure out what each workout is and how it works. With break times, that comes to around 420 seconds – 7 minutes. But that’s not the best part. You can customize the whole thing to match your abilities. You can set how long each session lasts, how many sets you want to repeat (1-3) and also customize audio countdown. If you’re using Google Fit, you can sync the data too.
30-Day Challenge
Up for some high-intensity, consistent workout challenge? Although not really part of a minimal workout plan, the 30-Day Challenge app is quite useful if you’re looking for muscle gain or fitness. The app is segmented into Abs, Push Ups, Squats, Bodyweights etc. A total of 24 challenges exist and you can pick one or many of them – ideally, you’d pick a set of challenges that target many parts of your body. Sure enough, there are break days too. Each day is tracked so you have a bird’s eye view of your progress. The app does not feature a lot of customization which I think is good for challenges.
3-minute Workout
Possibly built along the lines of the 7-minute workout. There’s nothing “3-minute” about workouts so I’m not going to talk about that part of the app. However, with 48 exercises, interesting graphics, and an integration that lets your friend’s log in their workouts, this app can be a motivator to get fit. You can pick your workouts and create your own sets. And the app will track your progress.
8fit
This is the only app on this list that features meal plans alongside videos that teach you workouts. But of course that’s just an icing on the cake. 8fit is a neat workout app that can be a coach, a tracker and a food suggester. It’s minimal and easy to use thanks to preset plans – all you do is select from three options (Muscle Gain, Weight Loss, Fitness). Then, you can either use the plans as they are or customize.
While those were the five apps I could really like, the Play Store is littered with a ton of workout apps. One that almost made it to this list was the 12 Minute Athlete app for high-intensity interval training. If you just want to track your workouts and fitness goals, Google Fit is possibly the best one in town right now.
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