Losing that extra flab around your waist and toning your body can feel like a challenge. And when you have little time on your hands to prep yourself up before an occasion, what do you do? Bride-to-be Vaibhavi Gummala was about to hit the panic button when help arrived from a series of fitness apps in her new smartphone Nexus 5. “The days to the wedding are so chaotic that squeezing in time to head to the gym was just not possible. The fitness apps and websites were like the perfect gym buddy,” says Gummala, who works on late duty shifts in a city-based BPO.
Sangeeta Vishwanathan’s morning run is never complete without her Samsung Galaxy Core that monitors her body closely. The fitness instructor knows the distance she has run, the route she is taking and calories she has burnt after the run. All this, thanks to the apps like My Fitness Pal and Fitness Buddy!
When Suresh G, a businessman, goes to the gym after work every day, his Nokia Lumia 1520 stays alert as he exercises on the treadmill. Every few minutes, calorie burner and exercise app Adidas miCoach updates Suresh on the number of steps taken, calories burnt and so on.
Vaibhavi, Sangeeta and Suresh are among the growing number of fitness freaks in the city, who are relying on their fitness apps to track health-related information from calorie count to diabetes management, heart monitoring to checking out stress levels. “Most of the health parameters can be measured if you feed in correct inputs. Calories can be effectively monitored based on a goal of how much one wants to lose in a stipulated time,” says fitness instructor Sangeeta.
She works out six days in a week and the fitness apps she uses keeps her engaged most of the time during the day. “Being a nutritionist and a trainer, I know most things pertaining to a fit body. So I also use apps to see how well my clients could benefit,” she says.
The morning hours on the Beach Road are abuzz with many such health conscious people, who never step out without their jogging shoes and fitness apps.
Rahul Kedia, a DJ and young entrepreneur, says that many of these apps and websites give you a workout schedule depending on your body type. “I rely on bodybuilding.com which I access through its android app. It has a very holistic approach towards fitness. This app is an essential part of my daily fitness regime in the gym that offers me tips about nutrition and supplements apart from various workout techniques,” he says.
This boom in the smartphone fitness apps has given people a chance to be their personal fitness trainer. All you need is a thumb and a smartphone. For instance, the recently launched smartphones like Samsung Galaxy S5 that has a built-in heart monitor and Sony Xperia Z2 with its life-logging app.
New music apps have also come up, pumping in extra doses of energy in the runners. TempoRun and RockMyRun, for iPhone, and DjRun, for Android, are designed to make running more enjoyable by matching the tempo of music to a runner’s pace. While the ones who use fitness apps swear by it, fitness trainer Sangeeta, however, believes that there can never be a substitute for a physical interaction with a trainer.
