All posts by mclayton

How Can Fitness Apps Help Us?

space gray iPhone X

Nowadays there is an app for everything, and fitness is no exception. There are hundreds of fitness apps to choose from, free apps, apps you have to pay for, apps that cover everything and apps that specialise in one area. Over all of the apps pretty much every aspect of fitness is covered in some way.

Workouts

woman exercising indoors

Many fitness apps will provide workouts for you to do that focus on specific muscle groups. These are helpful for numerous reasons, perhaps you want to focus on a goal that you haven’t before, such as toning rather than building muscle or maybe you are just starting to get into fitness. These can provide information on what workouts would be best for you based on your goal based on the equipment you have available. Many apps also let you plan your own workouts, allowing you to adjust sets and reps, and what exercises are involved.

Tutorials

One thing covered by fitness apps are tutorials of how to perform certain workouts and exercises. These help you to ensure that your using the correct form to get the most out of the exercises while reducing the risk of injury. There are already numerous tutorials online, but integrating it into the app allows you to quickly and easily learn the technique for a new exercise. This is especially helpful if it is part of a workout found on the app that you haven’t done before.

Nutrition

vegetable and meat on bowl

Nutrition is an extremely important part of fitness that is often overlooked, people instead focussing on the exercising aspect. A lot of the time this is ignored is due to the difficulty and dedication maintaining proper nutrition needs. While they can be used for pre-panning meals, where they really shine is the ability to add unexpected calories on throughout the day using something we always have on us, our phones. This makes it easier to track calories and stick to our daily limits.

Tracking progress

This is one thing that apps can do that can’t be found elsewhere, the ability to track progress. Whilst it’s possible to track weight loss or muscle gain, the ability to track a run or how many steps you’ve done is unique to technology. Apps that do this also usually have information on how many calories these activities have burned, making them invaluable if your goal is to lose weight, especially when combined with the help the nutrition aspect of apps can give.

Tracking sleep

woman sleeping on bed under blankets

We all know how invaluable sleep is to our lives. Poor sleeping habits can lead to declining mental health and wellbeing. What may surprise you is that sleep is actually also important when it comes to fitness. Good sleeping habits helps to lose weight, and can even help build muscle. Apps that track your sleep can help you notice issues in this area you might not have otherwise.

Overall pretty much everything fitness apps can help with is possible, either through the internet or through your own effort. Where the apps shine is consolidating these into one place that is easily accessible at all times, your phone.

Keeping Fit in a Small Space

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused us to be stuck at home, making it difficult to keep fit. Although this has been a struggle for everyone, with the lack of commute and other regular activities that help to keep fit, it has been especially hard on those of us who live in small apartments, limiting the space for equipment and exercise.

Bodyweight exercises

person in blue pants and white socks

Bodyweight exercises are a great way to stay fit when space is limited. All you need is a small area that can accomodate the length of your body, as long as the areas large enough to do press-ups in, its large enough to do a whole bodyweight workout.

Bodyweight exercises have many benefits, including: no monetary cost, little chance of injury, building core strength and more! These mean that they are a great way to start exercising for beginners, or if you’re just not used to exercising at home.

There are so many bodyweight exercises it would be impossible to list them all, but both strength and cardio can be covered in a small space. Some strength exercises include pushups, pull ups and squats. Some cardio exercises being jumping jacks, planks and burpies.

You can get started with our bodyweight exercise plan now!

Fitness accessories

blue and black nike athletic shoes

These are small accessories that can help to customise your workout, whether your working on your arms, legs or back there’s an accessory that can help. These can easily be stored away on a shelf or out of the way to make use of a limited space.

One of the most popular and effective accessories are dumbells. These are incredibly versatile, allowing you to train almost every muscle in your body without needing much space. Some also have adjustable weights, allowing you to change it based on the exercise or intensity. Some examples of dumbell exercises can be found here.

Another great accessory are resistance bands. In terms of storage space these are the best equipment you can get, taking up essentially no space at all. These are a great first equipment to buy, allowing you to increase the difficulty of some of the bodyweight exercises and introduce some new ones.

There are many other types of fitness accessories, check some of these out here.

Foldable equipment

black and grey treadmill and stationary bikes

Foldable equipment are a bigger investment and take up more space when being used, but are gym level equipment great for more experienced people. They will allow you to work out around the level of a normal gym.

These also come with the benefit of allowing you to get in a traditional cardio workout through a treadmill or exercise bike, without having to leave the house. Although they do seem large, they only need the floor space when being used, being easily folded up and stored in a small space.

If this interests you some examples of these can be found here.

Its important to remember that no matter how small the space your limited to there is always a way to keep fit, and to make the most of public spaces aswell!