This time of year is tough to find the motivation to fit in a good workout, and especially as we’re all busier planning for the festive period, we seldom have enough time. But smartphone apps are mobile, handy and even better yet for the majority, they’re free.
Whether it’s an intense and quick-paced workout you’re after, or some relaxing yoga or pilates, app stores have something to cater for everyone.
MyFitnessPal
MyFitnessPal is a nice app to estimate your daily recommended calorie intake based on your weight, height and activity levels. The app allows you to track what you’ve eaten throughout the day to monitor your intake, and can alert you as to when you should drink water during the day to keep your system healthy.
Overall, it’s a good app to encourage a healthier lifestyle and to learn how many calories are in what types of meals, but it’s important to keep in mind that it is only estimations and not something to be mentally consumed by.
7 Minute Workout
7 Minute Workout is another good app that allows you to set your target goal from the very beginning. When you first open the app, you’re given three options of goals to pick from – getting fit, losing weight and getting stronger. You can then select the weekdays you aim to workout and a set time you’d like to be alerted to work out. Then you can begin.
Depending on your goal, different days will have different routines already set up for you to participate in. or you can also make your own workout routine to follow depending on different exercise options from the library selection on the app.
It’s a great app that has so many variations of exercises and demonstration videos of animations showing you exactly how to do a certain exercise so you know exactly what to do.
HIIT Workouts
HIIT Workouts is an intense exercise app that ranges from activities for those who want to start at a beginner level and go from there to intermediate and then later to advanced workouts. They’re quick but tough and sometimes gruelling workouts, with very little to no time allotted for a rest.
The workouts range in time from four minutes to 21, so this intensity might put you off, but the great benefit about them is that you’re getting a full workout in such little time.
30 Day Fitness
30 Day Fitness is another app that treats your exercise plan as a monthly target. You can connect your health app and Fitbit to this app to help get a more rounded view of how exactly your routines are helping your body as well as your physical health and diet.
It does a quick quiz where you answer questions on a tailored scale to help determine your activity levels and appropriately apply exercise routines you need personally through the app. From this it determines a set routine for X amounts during the week and for certain amounts of time.
From this, it places routines to do during the week and on set days and monitors these activity levels so you can know how much or little you’ve done. It’s a great way to thoroughly track your benefits of exercising as well as varieties of workouts differing on what part of the body you aim to target, for example, a set to purely target your legs, or abs.
Daily Yoga
Daily Yoga is a sign-up app but doesn’t require any purchase for the exercises, stretches and poses. Again, it’s another fantastic app to keep fit and have a selection of routines with different poses and images to show how they’re done.
PilatesAnytime
PilatesAnytime provides videos of routines and exercises, as well as set challenges to encourage you to keep active and also features popular programmes on the app. It appears to be a type of app that aims to keep people using it purchasing different routines, but the videos are free which is a good enough incentive to give it a go.
Mindbody
Finally, MINDBODY is an amazing overall app that includes so many things to do with exercising and a healthier lifestyle. It offers introduction sets, but does require purchasing further on. It deals with regular gym-like exercises but also has options for yoga programmes and pilates so it covers a broad range of topics in a single app..
With such a broad range of apps available that hit every point of a healthy lifestyle you might want, there’s no reason to let the festive period drag you down into a lack of exercise.