Can Tech Geeks Get Fit? Appsolutely!

Hands up if you’re a member of a gym. Okay, great. Keep your hand up if you actually go. Okay, not bad. Now, keep your hand up if you go as often as you promised yourself you would at the start of the year. Yeah, thought so. There are some for whom the slightly aggressive, testosterone-infused and needlessly competitive environment of the gym just isn’t the right place to pursue our fitness goals.

There are some men who feel intimidated (it’s okay to admit it) by all the meatheads flexing at each other, calling each other “bruh”, discussing peptides and invading your personal space when you’re on the Smith’s machine. Likewise, there are some women who become exasperated by the petite waifs who turn up to the gym with a full face of makeup, spend 45 minutes reading Grazia on an exercise bike and somehow burn 2000 calories without breaking a sweat. Moreover, unless you fork out for costly overheads like Personal Training sessions it can be hard to really get your money’s worth out of joining the gym. Thus, many of us don’t spend our time at the gym as productively as we could; plodding from the treadmill to bench to machine hoping that nobody points an accusing finger at us and yells “FRAUD!”.

In the digital age, however, it seems like we may be moving towards a post-gym era of fitness. The combination of expert advice freely available on the internet as well as the technology to help us exercise as well as effectively tracking and monitoring our progress has rendered a gym membership useful… but not essential. Indeed, with the right hardware and apps, tech geeks can scratch their technological itch while getting closer than ever to achieving their fitness goals. Here are some essential pieces of hardware and apps that could be more productive than slogging away aimlessly at the gym…

Smart shoes

Dave Lister once predicted the rise of the smart shoe in an early episode of Red Dwarf but while he envisaged a shoe that would successfully navigate their way home no matter how squiffy their wearer got, today’s smart shoes allow their wearers to track their fitness without the risk of losing strapped on wearable technology.

Under Armour’s Gemini 3 smart shoes are not only great looking running shoes, but they also have a fitness tracker built right into the sole. They record all your running metrics then save it all to a companion app via Bluetooth.

Heart rate Headphones

Sick of doubling up on your wearable fitness technology? No problem! Under Armour have teamed with audio brand JBL to create a pair of headphones with their own built-in heart rate monitor. While the pair isn’t the first to offer heart monitoring technology in their headphones (Jabra and Bose have also tried their hand at it), few manufacturers are able to get the synthesis this right. The UA Sport Wireless Heart Rate Headphones allow you to track your progress by keeping insanely detailed workout data via their free companion app. These puppies even give you audio updates of your distance, pace and heart rate zones to allow you to improve on previous workouts.

The Apple watch / Fitbit debate

While there are now many smartwatches on the market with fitness applications it usually tends to come down to these two titans. The debate over which is actually better continues to rage. Both Fitbit and Apple watch bands offer opportunities for customisation (and plenty of options so that your bands don’t get all sweaty-yuk!). Both now offer a range of functionality without your needing to needing to carry your smartphone around with you. Both offer great heart rate monitoring by monitoring blood volume and capillary size changes under pressure. Both offer user-friendly solutions to track your fitness progress and both have a huge range of compatible apps, although the Apple watch has more options in terms of third-party apps. Ultimately while the Fitbit has a slight edge purely in terms of fitness applications, the Apple watch has a broader range of functions.

But of course, even the best hardware cannot achieve its full potential without the right software behind it. Here are some of the best apps for health and fitness…

My Fitness Pal

Everyone knows that you can’t out-exercise a bad diet, and one of the hardest elements of any health and fitness regimen is tracking your consumption of calories and micro and macronutrients to achieve your goals. Tracking your daily intake of food and drink is essential in making sure you’re on target every day for every meal. My Fitness Pal makes this insanely easy. Its interface is intuitive and user-friendly enabling you to scan the barcodes of the foods you eat in order to accurately measure your intake of calories and nutrients.

Workout Trainer

Oh to have a free personal trainer who sits quietly in your pocket when not immediately of use. Fortunately, Workout Trainer allows you to do exactly that. What’s great about Workout Trainer is its versatility. It offers detailed video and audio instructions on an incredible range of exercises to enable you to piece together your own routine in order to achieve your own personal fitness goals. Best of all, it’s completely free!

JEFIT

The proliferation of heart monitoring technology has understandably skewed fitness hardware and apps towards cardiovascular activities. While most of us can always stand to do more cardiovascular exercise, JEFIT offers something special for those who want to rely exclusively on strength training. It has an exhaustive database of thousands of exercises which users can navigate by searching by body part, enabling you to create a workout that’s uniquely tailored to your goals. If you have your own weights, JEFIT can be the only personal trainer you ever need. If you can tolerate the presence of adverts there is a free version or you can upgrade to an advert free version that offers slightly more exercises.

In today’s technologically led era where the kind of consumer tech that would have been the stuff of science fiction just a couple of decades ago is readily available and affordable, getting in shape is easier and more enjoyable than ever!