Welcome back to school! It’s a new year and a new semester, so why not add some new things to your workout? My new year’s resolution is to be kind to myself, but that can be quite difficult in the gym. To make it easier, or at least more fun, I found some new apps that can take your fitness to the next level.
1. GymPact
If your new year’s inspiration was to actually make it to the gym, and I know this is a lot of you (I’ve never had to fight this hard for a treadmill before), GymPact is the perfect app for you. Each week, users make a “pact” with themselves, logging how many days they want to go to the gym. Each time they go, they check on their smartphone. What’s the catch? When users make a pact they also set a monetary stake — usually $5 or $10. If a user doesn’t make it the gym, GymPact charges them that money. If they do make it, the fees from lazy members are redistributed to them as a reward! Basically, if you want to get paid to go to the gym (I’m talking a tall Starbucks here, not diamonds), this is all you will ever need.
2. iMapMy
Working off information from mapmyrun.com, this app allows users to find new routes to run around town and download them to their smartphone! Gainesville alone has more than 600 routes. Users can also use the GPS function to keep track of their stats and keep a detailed history of their past workouts.
3. Nike Training Club
Buy this app and you will be on your way to a more intense workout. Described as “your own personal trainer,” Nike Training Club makes it easy to pick out new workout moves as well as target certain areas (abs, please?). The more users work out, the more exclusive celebrity trainer workouts they can unlock, including some from Hope Solo and Rihanna!
4. Food IQ
Whenever I notice myself starting to pile on the snacks after a stressful week, I make myself calorie count for a few days. While organizing the rest of your life around counting calories is a little extreme, keeping track of everything you eat is a great way to see where you need to make an improvement both in eating habits and nutrition. Food IQ allows users to add up everything they eat on their phone along with their exercise habits. Then it compares them to an overall body goal so it is easy to see what needs some extra work. So, there’s no longer an excuse for not recording that brownie.
5. Zombies, Run!
I didn’t believe this when I saw it, but there is a fantastic nerd somewhere in the world who connected zombie stories and videogames to exercising. As users run, a “zombie story” plays, and the farther they run, the more “power-ups” they collect and the more “people” they save in the virtual world. Obviously, the harder you workout, the more games you win. Nerdy? Oh yes. Do I suddenly have the urge to download this and go for a long run? Also yes.