With what seems like an eternity ahead of us in lockdown, it is only fair to feel like our well-planned routines have gone for a toss. This could include your Friday night dates and Sunday morning brunches -- but most importantly, it includes your workout routine. While we're all for whipping up expert excuses, exercise appears to be the need of the hour as we prepare to stay in for the long haul. You could dial your trainer or buzz your gym-buddy to know how they're keeping up, but that really wouldn't be motivating enough, we know.
Fitness apps have been taking the world by storm lately, and it's no surprise that they are. App Annie, mobile data and analytics platform, rolled out a report which noticed a 40 per cent growth in the global usage of these applications. Globally, consumers spent a total of 113 million hours using Health and Fitness apps in the week beginning from March 22.
Numerous applications came up with modifications especially for the lockdown, making sure you leave no scope for procrastination to creep over your plans. So, trash your list of excuses, because we have a list of indoor-exercise apps that you can't say no to. Put those running shoes on and hop onto the app-store for five exercise apps that you should download during this lockdown:
Thunderpod: With over three lakh downloads in three months only, Thunderpod aims at making fitness fun through gamification and unique challenges. An interesting feature about this app is that it allows the users to interact with a friendly pod who gets stronger when you workout, but gets out of shape when you don't!
Gold's Gym App: You didn't think your gym membership would give up on you this easily, did you? Gold's Gym now has an app to encourage its users to continue their fitness routine without any obstacles. The application provides several benefits such as easy access to workout videos, track your daily steps count, rewards via a referral system etc. The workout videos are specially designed by the trainers and experts and Gold's Gym which teaches proper form and technique.
"We at Gold's Gym would like to ensure that everybody stays active, healthy and fit during the lockdown. The Gold's Gym India app will have several benefits and will post workout videos for both our members and non-members as well," says Karan Valecha, Director Gold's Gym, India.
GOQii: The smart-tech-enabled, integrated preventive healthcare platform was quick to come up with the "contact tracking" feature that traced the activities of the affected COVID-19 patients way before Aarogya Setu app came into the picture. Keeping in mind the corona-stress which has been taking a toll on the mental health of people world over, GOQii now offers videos and live shows around mental and emotional health.
Through GOQii Play, an interactive video coaching platform, users can access content related to home workouts, yoga, meditation, nutrition and have access to medical shows by experts and doctors. The app was tweaked to help people deal with stress, anxiety while taking care of their physical health, ensuring a wholesome approach of physical and mental well-being. What's more, is that all the shows are conducted by certified coaches who are experts in their respective fields.
Nike App: Nike was perhaps the first app that waived off its subscription fee after the worldwide lockdown commenced. Apart from that, it also announced that it has added more content on mindset, movement, nutrition, recovery and sleep to its social media channels, website and Nike App. The sportswear giant also announced in their blog post that they dropped their subscription fee for its NTC Premium service that provides streaming workout videos, training programs and expert tips from trainers.
Step Set Go: Better known as 'SSG', the app gained popularity last year with five million installs with a 4.2 rating on Google's Play Store. It encourages you to walk and earn 'SSG coins' which you can later trade to buy goodies off their marketplace. However, with the pandemic upon us, the app has brought on a couple of challenges for those sitting indoors. There are seven types of challenges, including the lockdown challenge, which spread over 21 days to win more SSG coins Within these challenges, users are encouraged to stay fit, be active and burn calories in innovative ways. The app has five levels that the users can attain after walking regularly every day, and it also allows you to keep track of your friends' progress and react if they upgrade/downgrade their level!
Fittr: Providing you with a host of services in one app, Fittr makes sure to stay true to its name and provide you with its holistic training day after day. It assigns you a coach based on your level, curates a diet plan and has a user-friendly interactive interface that is easy to manage. If you think you require a push every now and then, the app is quick to motivate you to indulge in daily fitness challenges that keep your mind and body active during the lockdown. Fittr also provides an array of nutrition and training programs, designed differently for every day. While we're excited about the online store on this app, we're also fans about the unique feature that lets us track our daily progress (and reminds us to drink water!)
