The new best gym in town is one that you already have a membership to – your smartphone. With popular fitness apps, your phone can be a workout planner, personal trainer, home gym, or simply a workout log. Try some of the fitness apps below to start working towards your fitness goals today!
What to Look for in Fitness Apps
Because they travel with you in your pocket, fitness apps can help keep you motivated to stay healthy wherever you go. Frequent travelers find fitness apps convenient for workouts on the road, and most don’t require investing in any expensive workout equipment. Many offer different levels of exercises so that anyone, from a total beginner to a fitness expert, can find their services useful.
If you’re in an area with limited data, look for a fitness app that offers downloadable content so that you don’t have to burn data to work out. Some have options to integrate your results with Apple Health if you have an iPhone. Many offer versions for Android as well as iPhone. And fitness apps, unlike a gym membership, don’t have to break the bank – many premium or subscription-based apps also have backlogs of free content that you can test out before you commit. Others are entirely free to download and use.
Best Free Workout Apps
- Daily Workouts Fitness Trainer – This free app offers over 100 exercises that can be done at home without fancy equipment or a gym – think crunches, planks, and donkey kicks. Work out in bite-sized segments of 5 to 10 minutes to target specific areas or try a full-body workout session for up to 30 minutes.
- Zombies, Run! – This app has to be one of the best free fitness apps to help you break a sweat creatively. If you love first-person video games or horror stories, try this app from novelist Naomi Alderman on your next run or walk around the block. With headphones in, you’ll hear zombie groans, moans, and audiobook drama to inspire you to get your heart rate up and keep moving.
- Lotus Yoga & Workout – Try the at-home yoga app that one user called “life-defining.” Lotus Yoga & Workout offers free guided yoga classes from 5 to 60 minutes long. They also have the option to browse a catalog of over 450 poses so that you can build your own flow if you don’t find a class that suits your needs. However, one of the best parts of Lotus Yoga & Workout is that it’s geared towards both total beginners as well as experts, meaning that there’s something for every skill level.
- Asana Rebel – Asana Rebel brings mindfulness to your fitness journey, emphasizing the interconnectivity of body and mind. Asana offers workouts that range from high intensity to flow yoga, as well as meditations, playlists, fitness quizzes, and daily articles. Asana bills itself as “fitness in every format,” and it’s free with the option to level up with in-app purchases. If you have app overload, Asana Rebel is one of the best free fitness apps to keep track of your journey to wellness all in one place.
Best Weightlifting Apps
- Fitbod Weight Lifting Workout – Fitbod might be the best weight lifting app – it’s all in the name. Its strength-building workouts come in a variety of categories, from bodybuilding to powerlifting to Olympic weightlifting. Fitbod assesses your past workouts, current strength training routines, and equipment available to develop a customized workout plan.
- Strong – Not just one of the best workout apps for men, but for anyone looking to build muscle, Strong is a workout log app trusted by over 3 million people, making it maybe the best weight training app. In Strong, you can also add customizable categories to track your own personal bests.
- Kettlebell Workouts by Fitify – Fitify advertises itself as “your own personal trainer,” offering over 45 workouts with the kettlebell. The kettlebell can be one of the best ways to increase muscular strength as well as tone and find balance, but learning how to use it can be difficult. Enter Fitify, which is free but still boasts 4.8 stars on the App Store. It offers high-definition videos as well as voice coaching, making it a serious contender for the best strength training app.
Best Personal Training Apps
- FitOn – If you’re looking for a personal trainer app, FitOn gives you free access to personal trainers who celebrities like Mindy Kaling, Alicia Keys, and Pink swear by. The app offers workouts planned by trainers, such as Jeanette Jenkins, Cassey Ho of Blogilates, and Katie Dunlop of Love Sweat Fitness. Try categories like yoga, barre, cardio, strength, and dance all from the comfort of your own home.
- Skimble’s Workout Trainer – Workout Trainer is an app well-suited to your individual needs since it begins with a personalized assessment of your fitness goals. While it offers a slate of free workouts, it also allows users to buy sessions with one-on-one trainers via the app, who can help you focus on working out specific areas. The premium subscription, starting at $6.99 a month, gives expanded access to over 100 workout programs as well as personalized tracking and customizable features.
- Aaptiv – While Aaptiv will set you back $9.99 a month, users swear by its trainer-led audio workouts that also come with accompanying playlists and music suggestions. The best home workout program to train for a marathon, 5k, cycling, or for overall high-intensity training, Aaptiv offers more than 2,500 workouts. All of Aaptiv’s workouts can be filtered by distance, duration, intensity, and calories burned.
Takeaway
Some of the best online workout programs can be found on your smartphone. Most offer free workouts with the option of signing up for in-app purchases, meaning you can try before you commit to an app and find what works best for you. Whether your fitness goals are to lose weight, add muscle, gain flexibility, or just feel good about staying active, there’s an app that can help you along your personal fitness journey.
