While you are the best source of fitness information for your clients, apps may help to keep them motivated when they work out in your absence.
The ARC Research Group reviewed almost 8,000 health and fitness apps to determine which ones users liked the best. The Group narrowed in one the 65 most popular apps in the fitness, nutrition, medical, women’s health, and stress relief categories. The researchers examined apps for both iOS and Android systems.
The Group obtained the ratings by examining millions of app store feedback from 2015.
Overall, the apps got poor ratings. The researchers determined that the overall score for these apps was 66 out of a possible 100. However, several apps stood out as being high performers.
For the fitness apps, users gave the highest rating to StrongLifts. It received an average score of 88. The creators of this app designed it to coach users through muscle-building workouts. It can track how many reps and sets your clients did and tells them which exercise to do for each workout. StrongLifts can be used on an iPhone/iPod or Android device and is free.
Sworkit Lite received the second highest overall rating of fitness apps with an average score of 84.5. According to the Sworkit website, 14 million people have downloaded this app. Sworkit provides personalized video workouts.
Your clients can choose from preprogrammed workouts or ones that you have designed for them. Free features include cardio, yoga, strength, pilates, and stretching and 3 personalized custom workouts. Premium features are free of ads and allow an unlimited number of custom workouts.
Sports Tracker received the third highest rating—an average score of 80. In addition to tracking your clients’ stats, this app ties into social media to let its users connect with friends to share their workouts and training. Sports Tracker uses the phone’s internal GPS to track the user’s distance, speed, time and route. In addition, its free online service automatically backs up all of the workout data.