17 December 2014

MY MOST USED FITNESS APPS


I've used quite a few fitness apps in the past, but recently I've settled on three that I use on a regular basis. I love having apps to track my progress and the exercise I've been doing. I find it really useful to have all my workouts recorded and set out so that I can easily access them again.

Speedo Fit
I really needed an app for swimming and when I saw Speedo had one, I quickly downloaded it. You can add a number of different pools (if you visit more than one), the lengths you have performed, the sets you've completed as well as the duration of your workout. It's a good app that does the job well. The map feature is super useful as it uses your location to find the nearest swimming pools to you. This is incredibly handy if you're away from home and still need a pool to train in. Although I think this a great app dedicated to purely swimming, there are two things I wish they would change. Firstly, I would find it really useful for it to say the average pace of each workout. I'd find improvements to my times a lot easier to measure this way. The other thing is, I wish you could use this app offline. You can't even log a workout without first connecting to the internet. This may not be anything major but it would just be a lot easier to record the swim straight away into the app after a workout, rather than recording it elsewhere and then uploading it later.
If you're looking for an app to record your swims and keep track of your pool workouts, then this is definitely worth a download.
Available free for iOS

Strava
You've probably heard of Strava a lot before. It's a brilliant app that has a pretty big following in both the cycling and running communities. It tracks workouts for both sports using the GPS of your device. Not only are the workouts easy to record on the app but as it syncs to an online account it makes it incredibly easy to review your workouts in detail. One super useful thing about Strava is that you can also manually add workouts. If I do a cycle at the gym I can log onto my account online and add it on there, logging it as a stationary trainer. Used a sports watch to record you run?! You can upload your workouts from Timex, Garmin, Suunto & Tom Tom devices - straight to your account. Strava gives a lot of detail including maximum speed and the average speed - both of which I find really useful to have. You can share your workouts using hasthags and join a community of thousands of people. It rewards you with "medals" following each workout, perfect for if you're a competitive person, and if you have a group of people it can put you in a leader board against each other. This is such a fantastic way of motivating you to push yourself each workout and try to beat the others in the community.
If you're looking for a brilliant app that records both running and cycling, I can't recommend Strave enough. .
Available free on iOS & Android (premium update also available)

Nike+ Running
I've mentioned this Nike app a whole while back now (my mini review) and I still use it everyday. I really like it, although I'm not over keen on the new layout change. With the most recent update they've added in a instant run feature, meaning your just hold for 3 seconds and it will automatically start recording, perfect for if you're in a rush or just want to get going. It now tracks the elevation of your route which I know is a feature that a lot of runners will find very handy. Like with Strava, you are manually able to add runs to your account - meaning if you've ran on treadmill, it won't be forgotten about. On the website version it's incredibly easy to share your runs through Facebook and Twitter and the app allows you to connect to a number social media sites to share your runs on.
This is my go to app for running and I'd seriously recommend it for an all round good running app. Download it and give it a go, it's so easy to use that it's worth trying out!
Available free on iOS & Android 

What are your favourite apps or the ones you use the most? Let me know and tweet me @afloralcrown.

I'm posting everyday as part of my 24 days of Christmas Fitness. Make sure to check back each day for a new post all the way up until Christmas Day!