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Best fitness apps to hit your New Year's Resolution weight loss (or gain)

January 01, 2018
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Keep fit, have fun, and reach your goals with a little help from these awesome fitness apps.

Fitness is hard, OK? Do I enjoy getting up every morning before the Sun rises, dragging my ass to the gym, and lifting heavy stuff? Actually, I do, but getting there is sometimes really difficult. Which is why some folks need a motivator or a tangible way of tracking their fitness progress.

A great fitness app can go a long way, so check out our favorites!

Zova

Zova is a personal training app that houses Zara, your smart trainer that tracks and evaluates your workouts. Taking your activity into account, Zara then coaches you through walks, runs, and other workouts, pushing you to get fitter, without pushing you so hard that you die (that's bad, mmkay?).

Zova will even kick things off by asking your your Apple Health data, which will end up helping it paint a better picture of your overall fitness, helping to better tailor workouts to your specific needs.

You can enable Siri to start workouts with Zova, and Zova will send you notifications to get moving and stop being a lazy bugger.

There's a lot of content that you'll only be able to access via Zova Premium ($7.99/month, $21.99/quarter, $65.99/year), so before you hate on the app, take a look at what the Premium subscription offers.

FitStar/FitStar Yoga

FitStar is a Fitbit-created app that tailors workouts and helps you progress, while taking your daily life and schedule into account. It tracks progress and formulates workouts based on your overall fitness level.

Fitstar Yoga is basically the same thing, but with yoga. Fitbit teamed up with Tara Stiles to create tailor-made yoga workouts based on your experience and fitness level.

With either of these apps, you'll want to opt for the premium subscription ($7.99/month), since just about every other workout is locked. But if you're serious about fitness, you'll shell out the cost of Netflix each month to achieve your goals.

Many of the available workouts are quick ones that you can do multiple times throughout the day whenever you have time (10 minute abs, that type of thing), but there are longer options for when you're ready to get stuck in and give 'er.

RunKeeper

One of our favorite running apps, RunKeeper is one of the best ways to keep track of your running goals and routes, helping you reach new cardio heights. Of course, there is a premium element, wherein you can subscribe to receive prescribed workouts. Progress insights, live tracking (lets you share your location with family and friends), and weather data (though you can probably just use your favorite weather app…).

You do get a lot without going premium, though, like the Apple Watch app that lets you leave your phone at home, while still tracking your stats. You can also sync the app with your favorite fitness tracker, and share your activities to all your favorite social media platforms.

If you're serious about running and want to track every aspect, every step of the way, then definitely check out RunKeeper.

Zombies, Run!

This is another one of our favorite running apps because it's not just great for motivation — it's entertaining as well. If you like an adrenaline rush when you run, then an audio adventure where you're being chased by zombies should do the trick.

You'll get to play through multiple missions wherein you must gather supplies and build up your base to fight off the zombie horde. Run, and while you do, you'll be chased by the undead. At times, you'll hear them as though they're right behind you, so you'll have to speed up in order to get away. If not, you're zombie food.

If you need a kick in the ass when it comes to jogging and some beefcake personal trainer is only gonna piss you off, then definitely check out Zombies, Run!

Strava

Strava is another wonderful run tracking app that tracks your routes and distance, journaling your progress as you jog your way to good health. You can set personal records and pit yourself against other users on the leaderboards to see how you stack up. You can also join monthly challenges and follow your friends, sending words of motivation, then share your progress on social media.

The Apple Watch app helps you take things a step further by tracking your heart rate, power, and cadence, helping Strava give you a better idea of your overall fitness level. Strava also lets you track your cycling activities, making it a versatile app for cardio lovers.

Going premium gets you a host of other features, like setting weekly goals, a "Suffer Score" (gleaned from heart rate analysis), "Power Zone" and "Pace Distribution" analysis, and lots more.

Fitocracy

Fitocracy is a really cool app that applies the ideas behind RPG games to your fitness goals. You're basically on a quest for better health, and you have to complete challenges and reach certain goals to earn points, unlock achievements, and beat quests.

If you need a boot in your butt for motivation and you love video games, then Fitocracy can help making working out less of a chore and more of a sweet way to level up in real life.

You'll be able to track workouts, rearrange them and add different exercises, save routines, join fitness teams, and immerse yourself in a world of "Fitocrats" — fellow Fitocracy users who are just as committed as you are to losing weight, toning/bulking up, or just being healthy in general.

You can use the app for free, but there are challenges and coaching sessions that you can sign up for that do cost moolah.

Lose It!

An awesome Men's Fitness recommendation that isn't just for men, Lose It! is a fantastic tool that you can use to help you achieve your weight loss goals.

It lets you document the food you eat with a built-in barcode scanner, so it knows the nutritional information of whatever brand you're buying, letting you keep a close watch on caloric intake, protein, carbs, and more (like all the stuff on the label… duh).

You can set weight goals in the app, and you can connect your favorite fitness tracker and other health apps to keep all your fitness goals in sync.

As with most fitness apps (because why would the good stuff actually be free?), there's a premium subscription that gives you a bunch of features, like meal planning, gram and percentage goals, more body metric tracking options, and a feature that figures out which foods are helping you and which are hindering you.

Fitness Buddy

If you're new to weight-lifting or any type of strength training, Fitness Buddy is gonna be your… buddy. Recommended by Heathline features over 2,400 exercises and shows you detailed diagrams, videos, and animations to help you nail your form and perform every exercise safely and effectively. There are over 1,000 videos to show you what to do, using all manner of equipment, like dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, Bosu balls, and more.

You can track your workouts using the simple interface and search to find your favorite exercises or exercises for your favorite muscle group. You can also track your body weight and other metrics, like arm and thigh size.

If you want just about everything about fitness (minus nutrition) all in one app, then Fitness Buddy is certainly the way to go. And, of course, you can go premium, which gets you HD video, motivational audio, workout email summaries, Apple Health integration, and more.

Full Fitness

If you want to just pay for a damn app and not have to subscribe to anything, getting the full experience from day one, then go with Full Fitness. You get it all, right off the hop: hundreds of exercises and how to do them, images and diagrams, video instructions, a calorie tracker featuring 90,000 food items, progress tracking, and much, much more. You'll get a complete picture of your overall fitness level for $2.99.

You get iCloud support with Full Fitness, so you can save your progress and take it with you, no matter the device. The app can even track multiple users, so if you share a phone or are getting into fitness with your young kids, it's perfect.

Full Fitness is a total revamp of the iFitness app, so if you have that, update it to make sure you're still getting the most out of your workouts and the app itself.

BodySpace

Any time I'm looking for weight-lifting tips or information on supplements, I end up on Bodybuilding.com. You have to take everything on there with a grain of salt, but it's a massive forum where real experts give their (mostly) unbiased opinions. You'll also get average joes weighing on in things, and you can usually glean a decent consensus from the sheer volume of posts.

It's a wonderful resource when you're just starting out and a great place to share your experiences and knowledge once you're a seasoned pro. The BodySpace app is Bodybuilding.com's personal trainer and social platform, helping you with training programs or just individual workouts and connecting you to, arguably, the world's largest online fitness community. The programs in this app were created by professional trainers, PhDs, and athletes, who are up-to-date on the latest science and techniques behind fitness.

Once you're ready for supplements (if you end up wanting them), you can shop from right in the app and view trusted brands and formulas.

On the social side, you can manage your friends and followers, engaging and adding to your newsfeed, sharing your fitness journey with the community.

MyFitnessPal

Under Armour's calorie counter and diet tracker is awesome for helping you lose weight and eat right, and the fact that it connects with over 50 fitness trackers and apps means you can build yourself an ecosystem of fitness support, helping you set goals and actually reach them.

The barcode scanner is there to give you the exact nutrition of whatever you're eating, a with a database of over 5 million food items (not even kidding), you can take it all over the world with you and make sure you eat healthily no matter the cuisine.

There's also a built-in step counter, so if you don't want to shell out for the UA Band or a Fitbit, there's no need.

There's of course a premium subscription, which removes the ads, gets you VIP customer support, premium content, like dietitian-approved recipes, and more. Otherwise, it's completely free to use.

Sworkit

Is it worth it? Then let me Sworkit! (Sorry/not sorry).

Sworkit is a series of apps that help you target specific muscle groups, or you can get the overarching app and subscribe to premium content. All in all, it's a means to get targeted workouts for your trouble areas. If you're unsure of how to exercise certain parts of your body or you're just bored with the exercises you're already doing, then Sworkit can help.

You get personalized video workouts and you can time them to fit your schedule, from a quick 5 minutes, if that's all you have, to a full 60-minute sweat sesh. The main Sworkit app lets you fully customize your workouts, hitting only the muscle groups and body parts that you want to hit, kind of like selecting songs from a playlist (that's at least how Sworkit puts it).

Premium features include guided workout plans, pre-built workouts, ad-free content, low impact exercises for beginners and golden oldies, and more.

ACTIVE.com recommends Sworkit, and if a massive online community of active folks digs it, then we and you should too!

What keeps you moving?

Do you use a sweet fitness app that motivates you and helps you with your workouts? If you think it's awesome, let us know about it in the comments below.



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