By Janet Luhrs, www.simpleliving.com
Are you overwhelmed by fitness wearables? Do these gadgets simplify or complicate your life? I decided to take a look at new tech trends, and found that the new trend is to track your fitness right on your smartphone without having to purchase an additional gadget.
The good thing about fitness apps on your phone is that most of us carry our phones with us anyway, and you are not limited to the fitness tracking options in just one wearable. There are more fitness apps available in 2016 to customize your tracking to those activities that are most important to you.
You can track miles, elevation gain, be entertained while exercising, and learn to sleep better or get a daily motivational message to keep you going. Here are some of the top rated apps available:
Android
- Argus tracks and displays your calories, heart rate, sleep and more. A nifty ability to scan barcodes on food labels makes tracking your calories a breeze as well as keeping track of your nutritional intake, for example if you are trying to get more calcium in your diet. You can build in challenges to your workout plan to push yourself to the limit.
- Strava monitors both runs and cycling routes, provides challenges and achievement recognition, and even makes games out of your cardo workout. All of this can integrate with the leading Android Wear devices.
- Map My Run will give you a great workout summary that charts you pace, distance, counts calories burned, and even gives you elevation gain, which is great for people who hit the trail or stairs workouts. You can control your playlist an also incoming calls without leaving the app or losing your workout data.
- Fitness Builder gives you anytime/anywhere access to a live personal trainer and a ton of workout building, instructional videos, physical therapy tools, and hand-crafted workouts. This one offers a free month then afterwards it is subscription-based per month.
IPhone
- Fitocracy appeals to those who like to work through levels and real life goals in personal trainer style. You are encouraged with game achievements and can share with friends and others in the Fitocracy community.
- NexTrack Exercise and Weight Loss Tracker is for those who gain motivation with activities and prizes and points that can be redeemed for fitness prizes and coupons. It tracks over 200 different activities regardless of what you are doing, you will be rewarded.
- Charity Miles gets you in shape and supports your selected charity at 25 cents per mile on foot and 10 cents per mile on bike. A certain level of accountability occurs as you have to share your activity on Facebook so that the charities can receive the donations.
- Carrot Fit would be more aptly named “Personal Trainer from Hell” as it threatens, ridicules, and bribes you to get your butt moving. Ok, you are inspired and rewarded also as you are given “7 minutes in Hell” workouts for just about every fitness level. Your 7th grade PE teacher must be in this…
There are countless more apps for many other activities – but we don’t have space to tell you about all of them here. If the app idea appeals to you, then just find one that motivates you and go for it. For that matter, try a new app every few weeks and let us know which ones you liked and why.
Featured photo source: Pixabay.com
