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Published on Monday, 24 September 2012 21:37
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Written by Kelsey Joyce
A Review of Health and Fitness Applications for Mobile Devices!
The popular trend now and probably forever more is technology. Its everywhere, whether we want it to be there or not! However, technology has provided us with many great advances in the world of bodybuilding and he
alth and fitness in general. Being a long time user of the iPhone and many smart phones before it, the applications that are offered are one of many of these types of technology that I am talking about. These applications have provided us with ways of tracking, logging, charting and/or analyzing health and fitness levels. So, that all being said I would like to take the time to review some of the health and fitness apps that I, and many bodybuilders I know, have used!
First up is the MyFitnessPal app. This app allows you to track you food, weight, and exercise (weight training and cardiovascular). The app offers a wide variety of foods in the system. By far, MyFitnessPal has the best database of foods to choose from with all of the caloric values being near perfect. The cardiovascular exercise input has most activities. However, you must note that the estimated caloric expenditures are just that, estimated. So, you must be wary of this and know that the best way to know how many calories that you as an individual have burned is to use a heart rate monitor. The weight training log in this particular app is great for the average gym goer, but if you like to be more specific about your training like I do, this section of the app offers for little improvisation to exercise details. However, if you would like to have all of your food and exercise logged in the same place there is a separate section for “notes”. MyFitnessPal also allows you to network with other users and view their food logs and exercise logs. Overall, this is a fantastic app and, from what I hear, is predominately used to track food and calculate daily intake based on goals. The best part of all, this app is completely free upon registration of an account.
Next up is the app by Lean Bodies Consulting. This app is very unique and I have found it very helpful. While we all know that counting calories is a must during contest preparation it is also nice to have an idea of what you are eating in the off season as well in terms of macronutrients. This app allows you to enter a food and the amount of that food and then pick a substitute for that food. The app then generates a calculation of how much of the alternative food you can have in place of the original food. For example, my meal plan says to have 170g of chicken (about 6 ounces) for dinner but I want tilapia instead. So, I open the app and enter in 170g
and choose chicken tenderloins from the drop down menu for original food and then choose tilapia for the new food. The app then tells me that 170g chicken is 182 calories yielding 1.7g fat, 0g carbs, and 42.5g protein will allow me to have in substitute 142.11g of tilapia that is 182 calories also, which would yield 3.8g fat, 0g carbs, and 37.2g protein. This is totally awesome! The substitutions are based on calories only and as you can see the macronutrients varied slightly. However, the app only allows for proteins to be subbed with proteins, and carbs with carbs and fats with fats. So, you can’t just go subbing in your entire meal plan for peanut butter! But anyways, this app offers for a way to branch out in the variety of foods you may be eating but also make you aware of the quantities of these foods you should be eating based on your meal plan or diet. This app is fantastic!
So, the previous two apps were largely geared towards diet and nutrition as far as their relation to bodybuilding. A different app called Spotter by Gold’s Gym is an app that is more geared to the fitness and lifting side of the coin. This app is great for several different reasons. Although I prefer to write down my workouts and training logs, this app does allow
you to track your training in a somewhat organized way. However, one of the best features of this app is the gym locater! The app has a database of all the Gold’s Gyms across the country and it will find the one nearest to you if you are traveling and need a gym! Another neat aspect of this app is the feature that gives motivational quotes for each day prior to training. Some are helpful and some are just funny, so always nice to have this feature in the app to keep you guessing.
A few more apps just to mention are the apps by Bodybuilding.com and AnabolicMinds.com. These apps offer access to the sites, articles, and forums all in a format that fits your phone! Pandora is another app worth mentioning, because it enables you to listen to music without purchasing music. It is like a radio, however, it will retrieve like music of music that you have indicated that you like. This is great for the gym beca
use you never have to worry about fooling with your playlist and there is so much variety! In terms of apps that create workouts, there are quite a few. However, I advise people to be careful with these apps because the app does not know you as an individual. That being said, all individuals are different and require different training in terms of goals and desired results. Therefore, I did no include any workout creating apps in this review of the applications for mobile devices. I hope you will check out these apps and more importantly I hope they help you with you training, nutrition and goals!
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