19% of smartphone owners use fitness training applications to get in shape. And the way things have been in recent months, this number is soon going to increase significantly.
Do you want to get the best out of this opportunity? Are you planning to build a fitness training solution to supplement this ever-growing demand?
Let's get started.
With the fitness boom after the launch of Apple Watch in 2015, a large chunk of the population has got more conscious about their health and lifestyle.
Since then, a lot of startups and enterprises have been investing heavily in fitness applications. As a result, there are a lot of apps available in the fitness app market, aiming at different aspects of our everyday life. From eating healthier food to working out, it is possible to do all with the touch of technology.
While there are many competitors, the niche of fitness app development remains promising.
A fitness app is a great startup idea, especially for people who have expertise in the field. So, in this article, we will help you understand the types of fitness apps and give tips to build your own.
Pro Tip: Building a mobile app is a costly affair. Therefore, it is advisable to go offshore and hire a team of remote app developers, that can fulfill your business objectives, without making a hole in your pocket.
Statistics that Prove the Demand for Fitness Apps
- In the first quarter of 2020, the number of downloads of health and fitness apps reached 593 million.
- Health and fitness app statistics project that by the end of 2020 apps from this category will have been downloaded 656 million times.
- According to a Statista Survey, the number of fitness app users grew from 62.7 million in 2018 to 87.4 million users in 2020. It is projected that in 2022, the overall number of users will equal 86.3 million.
- In 2019, the number of Fitbit devices sold worldwide constituted 16 million.
What are the Different Types of Fitness Apps?
1. Workout and Exercise Apps
Workout apps can be a suitable way for people who don’t have the time or desire to go to the gym or for group fitness sessions. According to research by Flurry Analytics, workout and weight loss apps account for 73 percent of all health and fitness app sessions.
These fitness workout apps not only allow the user to take live or recorded fitness classes but also plan their own regime. Users can customize their own plan on the basis of their current health needs, their medical history, and requirements and end goals.
Most modern fitness apps sync with fitness trackers. Such as those by Fitbit and Garmin, to collect a user’s health- and activity-related data and provide personalized health recommendations.
When outlining your fitness app, concentrate on the comfort of use. Classifying workouts on different themes like fitness levels, stamina, etc is always a great idea. It simplifies the search, allowing users to find what they are looking for.
For example, Nike Training Club allows users to choose from a variety of workouts with different focuses, including strength, endurance, and mobility. Users can choose training plans according to their needs and change or adapt them if necessary.
For those who need more than ready-made plans and classes, there are personal trainer apps. A fitness app developer draws together fitness coaches and people who want a more individual approach on a single platform and enables them to train as per specific needs.
These apps basically offer a personal trainer on a smartphone. Users can pick a coach who matches their goals and start their fitness journey.
You just need to hire mobile app developers with prior experience in developing fitness solutions. As these apps are complex, building several modules and APIs for connecting them requires excellent coding experience.
2. Fitness Tracking Apps
The purpose of fitness tracking apps is to accumulate data about the user’s activities and functionalities. This data helps a user track its goals and progress they have made on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
Tracking activities like the number of steps taken, stairs climbed, distance run, and other fitness metrics. To make it easy for users, create a fitness app that monitors progress.
Fitness tracking apps provide calendars and charts and save routes. These apps also create comparison reports for users and help them access their growth on a timely basis.
But, the compatibility depends on the connectivity of the devices which enables the tracking.
Another important feature is geolocation for tracking and saving routes on a map. This is not only convenient for tracking progress but also motivates users as they can see the routes they’ve run or cycled.
There are applications that let users set goals they want to reach, for example getting ready for a marathon, and providing training plans. To keep users on top of the game, they are allowed to participate in challenges and get rewards at every win.
3. Nutrition and Diet Apps
As a Statista survey shows, 26% of 18 to 29-year-olds use apps to track nutrition frequently, while 23% in the same age category use them occasionally. Nutrition and diet apps help users track calories they consume and burn and control water balance.
With nutrition apps, users can set goals they want to reach, such as losing, gaining, or maintaining weight. To let users observe their consumption habits, create a fitness app of a nature that should have a food logging feature.
To make your app successful, motivational and reminder message notification is a key feature to incorporate. Study shows that most of the users leave their regime midway due to laid back attitude and lack of motivation.
To reduce dropouts, the engagement feature is a must-have. This can be done by telling users how they can achieve goals, showing progress, sending push notifications, and using gamification elements like competitions.
One of the most popular apps for counting calories is MyFitnessPal. The app gives suggestions on the number of calories to consume, taking into account a user’s goals and fitness profile.
You can self add the meals and items you have consumed or scan the barcode of products you are eating. On that basis, the app will calculate the number of calories consumed and the remaining level of calories.
You can set your aims and goals and get an optimized level of micronutrition and calories to consume.
Features to Incorporate While Building a Fitness App
Often, creators ask for advice on how to create a workout app that users will immediately attract users' attention. The best way to achieve this goal is to include a lot of useful features. The best fitness and nutrition apps rely on a number of basic features and have one or two unique ones.
Let’s take a look at the fitness application features:
1. Easy Sign-Up Process
It is very important to cut down the registration process and ensure you have different login options. For example, registration with an email address and fast sign up with social media like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
However, to get the best out of your mobile app, working with a team of dedicated offshore developers is the right approach.
2. Personalized User Account
While creating a fitness tracking app, you can include different options into a personal account. Like the ability to use an app on multiple devices with the information stored in the cloud.
Among other options that users will appreciate the capacity to add their photos, modify interface design, add their weight, height, and other physical and health conditions that will be used during the creation of personalized workout plans.
3. Adding Social Integration
With the ever-increasing usage of social media, users want to share every detail of their life on social platforms. May it be their travel information, their eating or their fitness journey.
To increase the worth and popularity of your app, your fitness app developer must give users an option to share their personal fitness results with their friends over social media.
4. Providing Device Connectivity
To develop an ultra-successful fitness tracking app, a feature as device connectivity is a must. There should not be any roadblock when a user connects its external fitness devices with your app to track its performance and health metrics should be defined with precision.
Your app should be developed while keeping in mind that the user will be retained if your fitness reports are highly accurate.
5. Activity Tracking
If you check out how to create a workout app, you will find this option among key fitness app features. This functionality is directly connected with the previous point as it entails the collection of information on user activity, which is best to do with wearables.
However, it is also possible to use built-in smartphone sensors, like GPS.
You can build a fitness tracking app that will count the number of steps made, calculate calories burned, miles covered, etc.
6. Geolocation Sensors
Running and cycling fitness applications usually rely massively on this feature. With the help of integrated Google or Apple maps and built-in GPS sensors, users can create routes for running, tacking, hiking, walking, etc, and burn the most calories.
You must also pay attention to details like distance covered and left to motivate users.
7. Calorie Counting Tool
In most cases, people use workout apps to lose weight or to gain some muscles. Thus, it is important for your team of offshore developers to allow the users to count how many calories they consume and burn on everyday tasks, and during workouts and the level, they need to attain to reach their goal.
8. Push Notifications
Push notifications are a must-have for all fitness app development. Your users always appreciate being informed and updated about the workouts they have completed, planned, and need to work on.
In addition, you must allow the user to take control of the frequency of notifications if at all they want it.
Recommended Read: Guide to Outsource Fintech Software Development
9. Goal Setting Clarity
Nothing motivates users more than seeing their personal goals being achieved. If you give them the ability to set personal goals and share them with friends over social media platforms it becomes a bonus.
That’s how to create a fitness app that will create a constant challenge for users and motivate them to work out more and according to their personal plans. Don’t forget about this feature if you decide to build a workout plan app.
10. Variety of Workouts
There are different ways to implement this feature to create a fitness app. The way you develop your fitness app depends on the types of fitness apps you are considering.
You can provide users with standard workouts. Allow them to create personal ones by themselves, or get professional consultation and workout plan creation by a professional fitness coach.
11. Inbuilt Settings
When looking for an answer on how to create a workout app, it is important to not neglect this functionality. Give users an option to make minor changes to the interface (like white and dark themes), configure notifications, and set up other parameters to have a better and customized experience.
12. Provide Online Knowledge Content
Not everyone is aware of the path to choose while beginning their fitness journey. The best approach on how to create a fitness app is to educate your users about a healthy lifestyle, workouts, diets, and other topics that might interest them.
You can sync third-party apps and provide useful content in different forms, e.g. checklists on how to be fit, videos with the best workout exercises, etc.
Conclusion
Today’s technologies are evolving rapidly. And you should not wait to take advantage of them to enter the fitness market and grow your business capacities.
The fitness industry is booming despite the pandemic and is expected to have a growing curve in the near future.
With the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning, developers can create the best performing and highly engaging fitness app for you with multiple fitness options.
For a free consultation, get in touch now.
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