Best Fitness Apps to Get You in Top Shape
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For most people, trying to lose weight, exercise consistently, or gain muscle is a futile battle that they can’t seem to win despite their best efforts. We get it; everyone needs a little help when it comes to getting fit, even if you come across people who claim that it was all down to genetics.
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Can’t Wait? Here Is Our Best Pick!
We know that some people don’t have the time to wait around for the top pick! So, if you’re in a hurry, we’d like to introduce you to our top pick for the best fitness app.
That honor goes to none other than “NOOM,” a health app that is targeted at millennials and is designed by behavioral psychologists to help you lose weight in the long run. You can tell as soon as you visit the website that their main goal is to get you to lose weight and get fit for life.
It focuses on making sustainable and tangible lifestyle shifts instead of encouraging extreme diets. The app only costs around $45 a month and allows you to:
- Stay motivated with interactive quizzes and articles
- Receive in-app, one-on-one health coaching during business hours
- Log exercise, blood pressure, blood sugar, and weight
- Generate a personalized calorie breakdown based on lifestyle questions
- Tracks foods you eat by scanning barcodes or searching databases
- The ideology behind the content and coaching in NOOM has been
- designed by psychologists to ‘trick’ the body into building healthy habits faster and easily
You can try Noom for free here.
Why Do You Need a Fitness App?
Back in the old days, people didn’t have the luxury of technology, and getting fit was all down to gritting your teeth and knuckling down at the gym. This doesn’t seem to work out for everyone, and thanks to technology, the solution for anyone trying to get into top-shape is using fitness apps.
These nifty little apps give you reminders of your goals and prompt you to not give up on them. They also come with all the information and tools you need, whether it is a trainer who plans your workouts and coaches you or a calorie counter.
At YourFitnessRadar, we tested hundreds of the best fitness apps available today and rounded up some of our favorites. During testing, we made sure that these apps were not only great for athletic people but also for people who were starting their fitness journey. Most of these apps work with fitness trackers and heart-rate monitors, so you get detailed data on your workouts.
Best Fitness Apps – Reviewed
In general, all these fitness apps fall into select categories such as free apps, weight loss, beginners, home workouts, and journal apps. We have added the link to the app, where available for both Android Apps and iPhone Apps. So, let’s dive into the best fitness apps:
Best Free Fitness App
In the category of best free fitness apps, Workout Anywhere® is by far the best app we found. It’s a free downloadable app and has been designed by busy parents for busy parents.
Workout Anywhere®
The app was launched in 2012, and since then has been helping busy parents live healthier lifestyles everywhere. Whether it is at the gym, the home, or on-the-go, you can easily access the best daily workouts from the mobile app. It was founded by Jessica and Justin Rundle, both natives of Spokane, WA, and it’s the perfect training app for living a healthy and sustainable lifestyle. They’ve also got some great testimonials on the site, and they get great results.
If you’re searching for a free to use no-nonsense app that is quick, highly effective, smart, and offers support programs for a busy lifestyle, Workout Anywhere® is the best choice for you.
You can try the app out here.
Nike Training Club
The Nike-branded Training Club is marketed to be your ‘ultimate personal trainer’ with its library of over 185 free workouts. The app features a wide variety of workout that include strength and endurance-based routines, mobility workouts, and yoga poses. The app features guidance from Nike Master Trainers, who have a very convincing tagline.
All the options may overwhelm some people, but the app offers daily recommendations. The more workouts you log into the app, the more personalized the picks will become for you. It is available on iOS and Android and free to download but does have in-app purchases.
Aaptiv
If you’re stuck in a fitness rut and want to get back on your feet, the best fitness app out there for you would be Aaptiv with everything that you would ever need.
The audio-based app provides 2,500 trainer-led, music-based workouts in various categories such as stretching, yoga, strength training, rowing, elliptical, running, and more.
If that isn’t enough to get your juices running, you get to enjoy 30 new workouts that are added every week. You won’t be bored because there will be new workouts to mix it up, and you’ll get back into shape and work out like a beast in no time. Click Here to test it out.
AllTrails: Hike, Bike & Run
For people who prefer to get their sweat on in the Great Outdoors, the AllTrails app offers some serious inspiration. This app provides you with more than 100,000 hiking, trail running, and mountain biking maps with reviews and photos crowdsourced from millions of users!
You can even search for raved-about trails that are near you using smart filters such as ‘wheelchair friendly,’ ‘kid-friendly,’ and ‘dog-friendly.’ It’s one of the best free fitness apps out there and is going to be a gamechanger for fitness enthusiasts.
FitOn
Famous personal trainers aren’t only for famous people, and that’s the concept behind FitOn, which promises regular folks complete access to workouts from some of the world’s top trainers. Who wouldn’t want a personal workout routine from big-name personal trainers like Jeanette Jenkins, Casey Ho of Blogilates, and Katie Dunlop of Love Sweat Fitness?
You can also pick your workout du jour from various categories such as Pilates, yoga, dance, HIIT, cardio, strength, and Barre workouts. The app is completely free to download on iOS and Android.
SWEAT: Kayla Itsines Fitness
Kayla Itsines is an Australian fitness influencer who has built a wildly popular exercise program and a community of devout followers with her series of 28-minute high-intensity workouts. This fitness app allows you to access several iterations of Itsine’s beloved BBG program along with workouts from other fitness influencers featuring big names like Chontel Duncan, Stephanie Stanzo, and Kelsey Wells.
Other perks of downloading this fitness app are that you free meal planning help and the option to participate in some amazing exercise challenges with women from all over the world.
8fit Workouts
If you’re tired of working out at home and are looking to crush a specific goal, you must download 8fit, which is a fitness and nutrition-focused app.
It allows you to enter an objective to measure your current fitness level and will give you a customized plan to help you get from point A to point B.
The workouts can be tackled at home easily if you’ve got fancy equipment and are also short on time since their duration is somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes. They also vary in focus, from endurance training and HIIT to bodyweight exercises and strength training.
Daily Workouts Fitness Trainer
If you’re someone who works out sometimes at home, we’ve got the perfect app for you. The Daily Workouts Fitness Trainer is ideal for exercise introverts who prefer to sweat it at home. The app leads users through 100+ simple exercises that you can easily do in the gym.
These workouts feature bicycle crunches, donkey kicks, and tap out planks. You can also choose between ten different 5 to 10-minute targeted workouts, or if you’re up for a challenge, you can opt for a 10 to 30-minute randomized full-body workout as well.
SHRED: Gym Workout & Tracker
If you’re motivated by variety, then you must definitely check out SHRED’s impressive content library of thousands of workouts that cover an extensive range of styles and duration. You can pick from circuit-based gym workouts, bodyweight sessions, HIIT offerings, dumbbell-centric routines, cardio and weight-training combos, and a whole lot more.
This is one of the best free fitness apps that we came across simply because of the range of workouts and fitness sessions that are offered here. If you’re a gym rat and consider fitness to be your lifestyle, you need to download this fitness app on your phone.
Peloton
Peloton is a fancy at-home bike trainer, but they’ve come out with their own fitness app that features some of the most amazing workouts. The app is an online portal that gives you access to thousands of classes taught by dozens of instructors and features workouts that are live-streamed from Peloton’s London and NYC studios.
We’re talking about indoor cycling, HIIT, walking, yoga, meditation, treadmill running, and more! You can also work towards specific fitness goals with the help of guided, 4 to 8-week-long programs.
The app is free to download on iOS and Android; however, there is a 30-day free trial and a monthly membership fee that costs $12.99.
Best Fitness App for Weight Loss
In the category of best fitness app for weight loss, Centr was hands down the best app we reviewed. You can join Centr for £15.49 a month and avail the free seven-day trial first.
Centr
The Chris Hemsworth-fronted fitness app is more of a life coach than a workout app. It also comes with a weekly meal planner and mindfulness sessions as well. Besides this, you also get a 6-days-a-week schedule of workouts with variations that will suit every level.
You get a comprehensive workout plan that was designed by A-list trainers that Hemsworth worked with, featuring yoga, boxing, weights-based gym training, MMA training, and functional bodyweight moves. If you want to workout with world-class trainers to train, eat, and live better, Centr is what you need.
My Fitness Pal
The My Fitness Pal app is a godsend for people trying to lose weight as it features an enormous food database, a recipe importer, and a barcode scanner. All that makes tracking food amazingly simple and fast on the app. It also tracks your nutrients and counts calories, while offering you food insights to help you make healthier eating choices.
You can also log your exercise and steps and find support and motivation from the community. It’s one of the best fitness apps for weight loss around and boasts strong ratings on both iOS and Android.
Check out our list of the best fitness trackers that pair with My Fitness Pal.
Lose it!
For those individuals who’ve got a goal weight in mind, lose, it is one of the best weight loss apps around. The app is designed to make you lose weight easily, and all you have to do is plug in your profile details and goal weight. The app will calculate your daily calorie budget for you.
You can then easily track your weight, food, and activities to reach your weight goal. The app also features barcode scanning and a status bar for counting macros and tracking food by taking a picture with Snap It.
WW (Weight Watchers)
U.S. News has consistently rated WW (Weight Watchers) as the best diet app for weight loss as it provides you access to food and fitness trackers, thousands of recipes, and a supportive community. You can use the barcode scanner and an enormous database to track everything that you eat and monitor your fitness goals with the activity tracker.
The nutritional science-backed system will also guide towards a healthier diet and help you transform your weight significantly.
Fitness Buddy
If your goal is to lose weight fast, Fitness Buddy is an amazing app for that. It is more like having a personal trainer in your pocket and has over 100 gym workouts for all kinds of fitness goals. There are over 1,000 home workouts and no less than eight comprehensive fitness programs, along with exercise videos, instructions, and animations.
Over on the nutrition side, you can browse through over 100 recipes and also make a meal plan test to find the right plan for your weight loss goals.
Best Fitness App for Beginners
In the category for best fitness app for beginners, we have decided to pick Johnson & Johnson Official 7-Minute Workout, which is available for free download on iOS and Android.
Johnson & Johnson Official 7-minutes Workout
This app gets top marks from us because it offers easy-to-follow workouts that can be done at home featuring, jumping jacks, burpees, and push-ups. The routines tend to vary in intensity and duration, and the countdown clocks and short duration keeps you motivated.
The app also helps you control your music folders so that you can easily create heart-pumping playlists that motivate you to workout.
Strava: Run, Ride, Swim
The Strava app is an ideal app that will help you track your urban outdoor expeditions. It features a simple display that is full with data such as distance traveled, running pace, and calories burned. You can also use Bluetooth add-ons for collecting heart-rate and other bio-data as you progress.
The app also helps you find your friends and motivate each other with comments on workout summaries, and explore the best running, swimming, and cycling options for beginners in your city.
CARROT Fit
Working out doesn’t need to be serious. We all need a laugh when we’re starting out on a new fitness regime. That is exactly what CARROT Fit brings with gut-busting hilarity through a 7-minute workout routine that is going to turn you into a beast.
You can power through your workouts with tasks such as Celebrity Face-Punching, and even plank with a new perspective by using the Dragon Mating Dance. The app also does number-crunching for you and easily syncs with Apple’s Health app, so you can easily save your workout data in the HealthKit database.
Fitbit Coach
You have to admit that getting appreciated for working out feels amazing, but there’s more to wearable fitness tech than showing off your new exercise regime. You can use a wireless Fitbit device to wear on your wrist, and the app will recommend walking, running, and bodyweight exercises that are tailored around your daily activity levels.
The workouts can be shared on your smartphone or computer and range from 7 to 60 minutes, depending on how much time you have. There are also step-by-step videos that show you how to perform all the moves and get plenty of easy tips and fun motivation. The Fitbit Radio also offers various music stations for you to groove to while you’re working up a sweat.
Best Workout App for Home
In the category of best workout apps for home, we’ve decided to award first-place to Sworkit, which is also free to download.
Sworkit
A study conducted in 2015 by the University of Florida, found that the app closest aligned to the American College of Sports Medicine’s training guidelines was Sworkit. Therefore, the app’s workout advice is not only amazing but also legit.
The best part about the Sworkit app is that it allows you to mix and match your own schedule of bodyweight workouts to find a routine that works best for you.
The 7-Minute Workout
Most people are poor when it comes to time-keeping, and that’s why they prefer not to waste their time on lengthy workouts. However, all that is changed with the 7-minute workout app, which gives you a whole-body workout routine that lasts for only 7 minutes!
The workouts will consist of a mixture of cardio and strength to maximize the effect on your body during those 7-minutes. This is a perfect workout app for individuals who want to sweat it at home.
Daily Butt Workout
If you’re looking for a perky butt, the Daily Butt Workout is the perfect app as it features workouts that are only designed for the buttocks. The app lets you choose a 5 or 10-minute workout that has a combination of exercises such as donkey kicks and squats.
The best part is that every move has a little video to go along with it, and a description of how you should do it, so you’ll never miss a beat.
Qinetic
If the only reason you go to the gym is for the group classes, then Qinetic is an app that lets you take those classes from your home. You can stream a large number of fitness classes, whether it is a Zumba class, a 10-minute HIIT session, or a morning yoga routine.
This is the perfect workout app for anyone interested in testing themselves with a variety of different fitness styles.
Best Fitness Journal App
In the category of best fitness journal app, we’ve decided to go with Workit, which is free to download for both iOS and Android.
Workit
The Workit app offers you an easy way to enter data for creating routines, analyzing and visualizing your progress, and logging workouts. There are hundreds of exercises with animations, descriptions, and YouTube video links. There is also a useful plate-racking calculator that helps you load with confidence.
You can even get started with popular workout programs like PPL, Starting Strength, and Stronglifts or even make your own. The progress is easily visualized through exercise and body part trained, and Workit also allows individuals to track their cardio sessions as well.
Jefit
The Jefit app helps you manage and track workouts from one place as you get to choose from over 1,000 exercises, add your own, and combine them to form a plan. Jefit provides you with personalized workout routines that are tailored to your needs and allows you to easily record your training logs, track your workout, analyze your data, and start the rest time.
Jefit is more connected and social than other fitness journal apps as you can share routines with friends and even download other’s plans. Apart from that, you can participate in contests, synchronize your data with the web, brag about workout stats, and Jefit on other devices and platforms.
Strong
Another great fitness journal app that we loved is Strong, which is free to download on iOS and Android. This app is amazing for planning and logging workouts. It has everything you need for tracking workouts effectively, including an extensive library of exercises with a functional way to enter data. You can add exercises and sets quickly, and the app fills in previous data with complete records, history, and charts.
Strong also lets you combine exercises into custom routines; however, the free version only lets you save three custom routines at a time.
Google Fit
Google has developed an amazing workout tracker in the form of Google Fit. It uses sensors in a user’s activity tracker or mobile for recording fitness activities and will mark your speed, route, elevate, pace, and show real-time stats of your running, walking, and riding events.
You can also set different goals for your time, distance, steps, and calories burned. This is the perfect exercise app for home workouts and has total integration with WearOS. This activity tracker app can also sync and import data from other fitness monitoring apps.
Calorie Counter
Calorie Counter is one of the best fitness journal apps around today and is ideal for individuals looking to lose weight by tracking everything that you eat throughout the day. The app has an enormous database featuring over 6 million foods that include global cuisines. You can even add food that you eat manually or through a barcode scanner.
The app also has restaurant logging, calorie counter, food insights, and a recipe importer. You can select from nearly 350 exercises and even create your own workouts and activities. It also helps you set goals and see a graph of your step history.
Conclusion
If you’re trying to lose weight, exercise consistently, push yourself, and gain muscle, you should download a fitness app to help remind you of your goals and prompt you to follow through on them. Fitness apps are all the rage nowadays, as they provide you with the tools and information you need, whether it is a calorie counter, a workout planner, or an online coach.
We have only reviewed the top fitness apps that meet a range of needs. Some of them are great for athletic people, while others are ideal for beginners. The best part is that all fitness apps are designed to provide great value to the right person, so before you download a fitness app for your workout goals, don’t forget to read each app’s review and description to determine if it meets your needs.