Can a smartphone really get you fit? A new range of apps, gadgets and 'appcessories' - gadgets that work with a smartphone - could help shake off the pounds this spring, offering easy-to-use fitness plans, graphs and electronic nags to keep you in the gym.
As well as the huge number of fitness and dietary apps available, there are numerous accessories that sync and work seamlessly with your smartphone to maximise your athletic efforts.
We’ve picked our favourites to make sure you start 2013 with your best foot forward - and your spare tyre behind you!
Nike+ FuelBand
£129
Works with: iPhone
Working alongside the dedicated iOS free app, Nike’s FuelBand is a wrist mount accessory (and digital watch) that tracks your daily movements using a sports-tested accelerometer to tell you how many calories you burn.
You can set daily goals with a simple LED traffic light system informing you of your progress at a glance. The app lets you visualise your activity with a daily, weekly and yearly progress tracker that helps motivate you, while integrated Facebook and Twitter updates mean you can post your progress online, compete with friends or generally show off how fit you’re getting.
FitBit
Price: Varies
Works with: Android/iOS
A free app for Android and iOS that works with a series of activity tracking devices, FitBit tracks your food consumption, activity, weight, water intake and sleep patterns so you get a complete overview of how your lifestyle affects your health.
Just install the free app and then choose one or all of the accessories that wirelessly sync with your smartphone. The Zip (£50) tracks distance covered and counts steps and calories burned. The One (£80) adds a stair counter and sleep tracker that measures your sleep cycle and time and wakes you in the morning with a silent vibrating wrist alarm. The Aria WiFi Smart Scale (£100) measures your weight, body fat percentage and BMI.
All the accessories sync wirelessly with your smartphone and give you a comprehensive view of your life and can post direct to social networks so you can track friends and compete. It can also send push notifications to give you not-so-subtle nudges to help achieve your goals and congratulate you when you do. Virtual high five!
Pocket Yoga
£1.99
Works with: iPhone
A daily yoga routine can aid fitness, improve core strength and offer an opportunity to relax mind and soul. The Pocket Yoga app for iOS serves up 27 different yoga sessions with a range of practices, difficulty levels and durations depending on your skill and dedication.
Just set up your phone at the end of your yoga mat and detailed voice and visual instructions take you through 150 pose images with specific attention to inhaling and exhaling at the right times. The app keeps a log of your progress to promote consistency, and has some nifty features like AirPlay and TV out support so you can play it through your TV, and the ability to play your own music instead of the default tunes.
Adidas miCoach
Price: Varies
Works with: Android/iOS
The Adidas miCoach is one of the most complete and advanced fitness platforms available with a variety of accessories that work with the free app for Android and iOS to promote and track your exercise.
Alongside more than 400 strength and flexibility exercises, it uses GPS and real-time voice coaching to guide you through your workout with training plans dedicated to specific sports to build speed and endurance. Track your pace and distance covered, calories burned, time spent working out and then get feedback on how you get on.
Accessories include the Pacer Bundle (£100) heart rate monitor and stride sensor with digital coaching, interactive training and post-workout analysis. The Speed Cell (£60) fits invisibly into compatible shoes or can be clipped to others and measures speed, acceleration, distance and pace with wireless syncing direct from the pitch.
iTreadmill
Price: £1.49
Works with: iPhone
Lauded for its accuracy, iTreadmill is perfect if you can’t get to (or face) the gym and don’t want a giant treadmill cluttering up your house. Just fire up the app, put your phone in your pocket and it uses PocketStep technology to measure step count, distance covered, calories burned, strike rate (steps per minute), current and average speed and the amount of time you’ve been walking or running.
You can set distance goals and see graphs of your progress to keep motivation up and use the Distance Correction tech to calculate and use your specific stride length rather than using a rough estimation.
Fleetly Fitness
Price: Free
Works with: Android/iOS/PC
Exercising can be boring and tough to stick to if you’re doing it alone. Fleetly brings a social side to getting fit, inviting you to join virtual teams, compete in challenges, earn points for logging your workouts and create personalised training regimes you can share with friends.
Fleetly works with a range of other fitness apps including RunKeeper and Nike+, and supports pretty much every sport and activity you can think of, from weightlifting to table tennis, with a built-in coach there to guide you based on your ability, progress and even how you feel on that particular day.
A training log then analyses your body and progress and gives you a physical fitness number that goes on a leader board to show how you’re getting on against your competitors. Which should be more than enough motivation to put down that last mince pie and get off the sofa.
Source: Yahoo News
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