Feature Articles

App Attack #021: Fitness Apps

By Sidney Wong - 27 Apr 2012

App Attack #021: Fitness Apps

Lace up and Hit the Track with These Apps

You'll be surprised at the features of these fitness apps. Besides the standard feature of timing your exercise, these apps also help to keep track of your progress and share them with your friends for additional motivation. Here's a rundown of each app's unique features:


CardioTrainer

Price: Free
Category: Health & Fitness
Platforms: Google Android

CardioTrainer allows you to plan your weekly workouts in advance, as well as set reminders. It also has one of the most extensive lists of activities you can choose, from running to boxing and kayaking. 

The Trainer tab enables you to set your training goal: time or distance. If you are going for a leisure run, you can just start the workout, plus set a countdown timer for you to warm up before commencing your training. Once you are done with the training, you can share the statistics via Facebook or Twitter.

The app plots the speed of your run on a graph where you can determine whether you've hit your target pace for the workout.

  


Sports Tracker

Price: Free
Category: Health & Fitness
Platforms: Apple iOS / Google Android / Windows Phone 7 / Symbian 

Developed by a team of mobile and outdoor enthusiasts in Finland, Sports Tracker was originally known as Nokia Sports Tracker for Symbian S60 on Nokia's Beta Labs. 

Besides giving you options to set the activity, Sports Tracker has a unique feature called Auto Pause, which will pause the tracking if you fail to hit the minimum speed threshold. This leaves you no room for slacking during your training. 

Sports Tracker also brings social elements into the app via the Explore App by allowing you to see the training sessions by other users. You also can view the individuals training in your neighborhood and make friends. Who knows, you all may end up as training buddies.

 


Endomondo Sports Tracker 

Price: Free 
Category: Health & Fitness
Platforms: Apple iOS / BlackBerry / Google Android / Windows Mobile / Windows Phone 7 / Symbian 

Endomondo is actually made up of a combination of two words: Endo for endorphins, and Mondo for enormous or big. Endomondo Sports Tracker is one of the most web-friendly fitness apps you can find.

It has an easy-to-use interface: launch the app, select the activity, and either start immediately or choose a countdown timer. You also can set up the app to automatically post your workouts on Facebook. 

A key feature of Endomondo is Peptalk, which allows your friends to send messages to motivate you while working out. The text is converted to speech and played through your earphones, or the smartphone's speakers.

 


RunKeeper

Price: Free
Category: Health & Fitness
Platforms: Apple iOS / Google Android / Windows Phone 7 / Symbian

Since its inception in 2008, RunKeeper has become of the more popular fitness apps around, even making it to TIME magazine's list of top 10 apps for the iPhone in 2009.

What's so unique about RunKeeper is the Coaching feature, which allows you to set training intervals. For example, the preset training interval (2 miles with rest) lets you clock one mile at a steady pace, 0.25 miles at slow pace before picking up for another mile, all via the voice guidance of RunKeeper.

You also can customize the app to provide audio cues for a variety of settings such as time, distance and average speed.

 


Runtastic 

Price: Free
Category: Health & Fitness
Platforms: Apple iOS / BlackBerry / Google Android / Windows Phone 7 / Samsung Bada

Redesigned earlier this year, Runtastic sports a modernized look with a more intelligent user interface. 

Runtastic has a new customizable dashboard which allows you to display indicators like pace, average pace, calories, gain, loss and altitude. In addition, the app integrates with the music player app on your phone, making it easier to tune in to your workout playlist. 

Training workouts are mapped out in real-time, recorded and uploaded to the runtastic fitness site where you can access later to manage, analyze and evaluate your performance.

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