We all aspire to live long on earth. Long enough to enjoy the pleasures of the world and the company of our family and friends. To achieve this you need to exercise. Exercising requires a little bit of effort. You have to set time from your schedule to work out. You also have to set a work out regime and stick to it. This, however, is easier said than done. Life and work commitments come in the way and most find it difficult to adhere to strict work out regimes. The technology was then integrated into training and participants were able to effectively set their schedules and plan their regimen. Smartwatches and fitness trackers are some of the devices that were used in training. These devices, however, are costly and not everyone can afford them. But do you need all these expensive devices to stay in shape?
Hell, no! Your mobile phone or tablet is all you need to plan and track your workout. In this post, we highlight the different ways you can use your mobile phone or tablet to stay in shape.
Fitness Tracking
As you work out, it is important that you track your training to figure out your progress. This allows you to figure out how far you have run, walked or cycled. One of the ideal apps for this purpose is Runkeeper. Not only will you be able to track your fitness but also to figure out how much calories you have lost in the process. Apps such as these rely on the GPS feature on your smartphone to track your running or any other workout activities. Another effective app for fitness tracking is Nike Fuel that features an accelerator that you can program to boost your training effectiveness. You can also set your workout targets and the app will notify you when you attain them.
In addition to that, built-in apps like the Apple’s own “Health” app can track your daily routine activities like the number of steps you take, number of flights you climb, distance covered, number of minutes you spend standing or walking or running etc. This is made possible by the differnet sensors that comes integrated with our new gen smartphones.
Calories Tracking
The purpose of training is to attain lean and flexible bodies.This necessitates that you watch what you eat and specifically your calories intake. You need a specific amount of calories to obtain your desired body weight and there is Android and iOS apps such as DailyBurn Tracker to help you with this. All you have to do is to set your desired weight and the app will calculate the amount of calories that you should take to meet this weight. The app will further break down how much calories you should take during the different meals of the day such as lunch, breakfast, and dinner.
The calorie tracking feature can also be used to decide how much more workouts or physical activity you need to do in order to burn a specific amount of calories. For example, a simple 60 minute workout on the Orbitrek Elite, an aerobic elliptical machine can burn 820 calories straight!
Personal Training
You don’t have to head to the gym and hire a personal trainer to keep fit. You can install an app on your phone that will act as your personal trainer. One of these apps is the 7 minute workout app. If you are engaging in weight training, you can program the reps that you intend to do in each set and this appswill time and structure your workout that way. You can also use itfor cardiovascular activities. You can set the distance you intend to run and it will use GPS tracking to track your run. You can also query the app for performance indicators to figure out how you performed in your run. It will indicate your time and running speed. You will also be able to tell how much calories you have burnt in your workout.
If you enable the push-notifications in your smartphone, some of these apps keeps on motivating you with messages like “Time for a Stroll” or “Let’s Run” or “Feed me steps”. Alarms and reminders can be set to disturb you in your most lazy hours of the day. Not just that, if you attain the daily goals, the apps calls for a celebration and shares your achievement with friends and family through social medias. The idea is simply brillinat. All you need to do is to use it properly!
Heart Rate Monitor
Most people tend to overlook their heart rate when working out and this can be quite detrimental. When you train, your heart rate goes up and you need to monitor it to ensure it doesn’t escalate to alarming levels. There are mobile phone apps that you can install for this purpose. One of those apps is Polar Beat. This app will tell you your heart rate at every point in the workout and notify you when you need to rest. There are over 100 training profiles in the app that you can use for your training.
This feature is particularly useful for persons with pacemakers and those suffering from cardiac arrythmias, hypertension, diabetes or other cardiovascular diseases.
Conclusion
Now you know that your mobile phone is more than capable of making calls, enjoying media and games. If you stick to the routines and is serious about your health and fitness, there’s no need to find a fitness coach who can help you out. You can save your valuable time and some hard-earned money if you’re rightly motivated.
Mobile phone apps are helpful as you train. It should be noted, however, that you need to make sure that you are eating right for an effective workout. A well-balanced diet and some supplements are ideal in this regard as well.
So, what are you waiting for? Go find out your smartphone and say “Hello Coach” right away.
This article was written by Daniel Lewis and edited by Dr Prasoon.
