This article is a cross-posting, and comes courtesy from Noise Studio. A big thank you to them for allowing us to re-publish this piece! The original article was posted here.
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Digital fitness has elevated the meaning of the home workout. Whether you prefer to exercise at home, have to spend time indoors with limited or no access to your gym, or even when life just gets too busy – there are a lot of great fitness apps to keep you active or to help you switch up your routine. Apps that provide that extra much-needed motivation, a community that cheers you on, a digital nudge to help you stay committed, access to personal training or live classes, or just a variety of exercises to try something new or to enjoy in the comfort of your own home. The options are limitless. Here are some of our favourites that we’ve been using to stay active.
Onyx
Onyx is everything you want in a personal trainer, without the cost, and on your schedule. The app gives you no-equipment workout sessions, complete with guided videos for each exercise. There are workouts for beginner, intermediate and advanced, and you can choose to join a single session or a “challenge” program which is a set of sessions over days or weeks. During the sessions, the app counts your reps, corrects your form, and motivates you at the perfect time. Plus, if you successfully complete your goal and target, you receive badges and awards. This goal-focused, gamified feature helps you stick to it and is key to build good habits (iOS, free).
Runnin’City
Runnin’City is an award-winning app that helps you discover hundreds of cities around the world while running. Designed for runners of all levels, this app gives you the motivation to lace up and get out the door to find new running routes whether at home or abroad. In addition, to live tracking and providing you with the essential stats, Runnin’City guides you through the area with its vocal GPS and comments every point of interest you pass. Open the app to see how many touristic routes are near you, find running loops, training tours, challenges, rewards, and check out it’s featured real-time, localized pollution and allergy levels. The app works offline too, which is handy when you’re traveling or abroad (iOS and Android, free).
PumaTrac
PumaTrac by PUMA offers over 120 free no-equipment workouts you can do everywhere. You’ve got plenty to choose from, including cardio, boxing, pilates, HIIT, strength training and more, with options for everyone from beginner to advanced. What makes this app so great is that you can use PumaTrac at home, indoors and outdoors, including for run tracking. There are several workouts created by athletes and celebrities, too. The app encourages you to take live classes with Cara Delevingne, Kevin-Prince Boateng and others. PumaTrac also offers connections to other users with a leaderboard and a social feed feature. It helps you stay challenged, motivated and committed (iOS and Android, free).
Straffr
Straffr is a smart resistance band with incorporated sensors that makes your workout simple, effective and personalized. The innovative band is completed with an app that offers over 50 exercises designed by personal trainers and physiotherapists. The band is used to track power, velocity and repetitions, while the app gives real-time feedback and exercise guidance, that keeps you motivated and makes sure every workout counts. The app, together with the band, provides post-training analytics which makes it easy to keep track of your progress and keep you motivated. As well as it offers adaptive training plans according to your results and goals (order at Indiegogo).
Fitmoola
Need that extra bit of motivation and accountability to get started? Fitmoola transforms the workout into an exciting game and rewards you for exercises. You set your goals, enter the plan of your choice, place a bet and get started. Fitmoola also gives you no-equipment workouts, complete with guided videos for each workout. And it tracks your exercise and circuits, so if your doing, say, 40 seconds of plank or 20 seconds of push-ups, it’ll give you feedback on your posture, tips for improving and ensure you’re working out safely (free, web).
Cooling-down
Can digital fitness and apps completely replace traditional gyms and fitness studios? Maybe not. But we believe that digital fitness can become a key driver in putting us in charge of our own well being and physical activity levels, and that technology and apps make exercising more available and accessible for everyone and a seamless part of everyday life.
Hopefully inspiring more people to be more active more often.
Noise Studio is a creative agency that specialises in digital strategy, branding and design for Sports, SportsTech and the Outdoors. You can follow them on Instagram, Dribbble, Behance, Linkedin, Medium and Twitter.