How to Stay Fit Using a Smartphone?
With the novel coronavirus still threatening the lives of people worldwide, you are advised to stay and do your work at home. This means, your time out of your house will be limited to going on essential errands.
It is best for you to avoid going to gyms to avoid the risk of contracting the Covid-19. This means, you will have to do your workouts
The pandemic has made people transform their bedrooms or empty rooms into yoga studios, offices doubled as cycling spaces, or personal gyms or fitness studios. For others who don’t have the budget to purchase exercise equipment, you can still stay fit using your smartphone.
How to use your smartphone to stay fit
Your smartphone, be it an iPhone, an Android or even refurbished iPhones from here, can help you stay healthy not just physically but also mentally.
Here’s how you can use your smartphone to stay fit and healthy.
● Fitness trackers. You can use your smartphone as fitness trackers by downloading apps or using built-in tools such as GPS and accelerometer. These tools can be used to track your physical activity, steps walked, and calories burned.
● Find a home workout videos series. You can use your smartphone to look for home workout tutorials on YouTube, where there’s no shortage of these. You can even find videos of no-equipment workouts if you don’t have weights or machinery at home. You can also use your device to follow some live via streaming services such as Zoom.
● Keeps you motivated. While using your smartphone can be distracting, you can also use your device to keep yourself motivated. Your phone can give you access to thousands of inspirational quotes, healthy recipes, and home workout routines.
● Workout log. If you are one of the people who prefers to keep a log of the exercises you perform, your smartphone is a great device you can use as your workout log. Having a workout log can help you see how many reps you completed and what you should focus on more of next time.
You can download a gym workout log app that you can use to mark how much weight certain equipment held and how many reps you completed each. There are also apps you can utilize to create a graph detailing the average number of repetitions completed for a particular exercise over time.
● Keep your eating clean. A smartphone is one tool that gives you an advantage when it comes to eating clean. Your mobile phone can help grade your food and show you the benefits of eating whole foods versus processed. You can download an app on your phone that shows calories and other nutritional information on the food you eat.
● Help your diet plans. There are mobile apps that can help you discover meals which are tasty and low on calories at the same time. You can even get the nutritional value of a food item or the calories it contains by taking a photo. This is because some apps use deep learning technology to run an image analysis of the food item by utilizing the existing logs in their database.
You can use your mobile phone to monitor your weight. You can download an app that not only provides you customized diet plans and weight loss programs, but allows you to chat directly with professional nutritionists and share feedback.
● Combat stress. You can find mobile apps you can download on your smartphone to help you combat stress through medication based exercises. These apps can keep track of your heart and quality of sleep.
There are apps that can teach you the art of slow breathing and check your heart rate by putting your finger on your device’s rear camera which, like an Oximeter, tracks color changes on the fingertip which are linked to the pulse.
There’s also an app you can utilize so you can overcome tiredness, anxiety, and insomnia using simple medication based exercises.
● Keep you mentally healthy. There are studies which indicate that playing video games improve cognitive skills, and combat depression. have various health benefits. Believe it or not, playing video games can boost attention,
According to a study by Open University of Catalonia, Spain, brain regions involved in visual memory and attention were more efficient in regular gamers than non-gamers. A study published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry in April 2015 also suggests that puzzle games can improve your reasoning, spatial working memory and episodic memory.
● Health tips. You can use your smartphone to go online and visit health websites. You can get health tips from these websites involving medical concerns and how to cure an illness using home remedies.
What are the best workout apps for your iPhone?
If you don’t have a gym in your neighborhood, you can use mobile apps which can offer you work out programs as well as provide you videos and audios with step-by-step instructions on different types of fitness programs.
The following are the best free workout apps for iPhone you can use to keep yourself fit and healthy.
● RunKeeper. This app tracks walks, runs and other physical activity. Using the RunKeeper allows you to build, save, and discover new routes with GPS to keep your workout stimulating.
RunKeeper can help you plan your route to get to your goal. You can also join challenges to push yourself, win rewards for your workouts, and share your progress with friends.
● C25K Pro. This is one of the best iPhone fitness apps for beginners. The C25K Pro app consists of various cardio workouts that change weekly. If you follow the app’s schedule, you will be completing a series of 30-minute cardio workouts three times a week for eight weeks.
● Strava. This app is one of the top pick apps for social training. Strava has a tracking ability as well as motivating and competitive community. In Strava’s community, you will find millions of cyclists, runners, active adventurers, and pros that record their activities.
The activity tracking of Strava provides you with key statistics such as speed, pace, distance, elevation gained, and calories burned during and after exercise.
● Map My Run. This free app has features that are perfect if you are a casual runner. The Map My Run enables you to track your runs by measuring your distance, pace, calorie burn and elevation. You can also join in challenges with other runners as well as record your workouts and explore preloaded routines.
● Sworkit. This app was rated number one by the American College of Sports Medicine for quality of instructional exercise standards. Sworkit is a simple and customizable app that delivers more than 40 million workouts to people of all levels of fitness.
By using this app, you can select your motives and goals after entering your personal data. This is to make sure every second of your workout counts. You can choose workout plans to become leaner, fitter, or stronger. These three categories contain workouts for beginner, intermediate, and advanced.
● Nike Run Club. If you are an experienced runner, you can use the Nike Run Club which has the tools you need to run better. This app’s features include audio guided runs, weekly, monthly and custom distance challenges, customized coaching plans and nonstop motivation from your friends.
● Yoga For Beginners. Just like its namesake, this app is best for beginners. The Yoga For Beginners offers a selection of yoga routines. The classes on this app range from 7 to 14 minutes, which makes this app great for a quick workout for those new to yoga practice. Yoga For Beginners has 16 free yoga classes. Apart from that, the app enables you to track your previous workouts and daily weight.
● J&J Official 7 Minute Workout. This app is a science-based workout method designed by Chris Jordan. If you don’t know, Chris Jordan is the director of exercise physiology at the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute.
The J&J Official 7 Minute Workout app is centered around research on HIIT and circuit training that shows that short bursts of hard exercise with short recoveries can improve aerobic fitness quickly. You can do a 7-minute workout or browse through the video tutorials that teach you how to perform each of the 72 exercises safely and effectively.
● Zombies, Run! This app is an immersive running game and audio adventure. After you install this app, you are presented with a story detailing that you are a runner en route to one of humanity’s last remaining outposts after the zombie epidemic. In the scenario, your job is to gather supplies, rescue survivors, and defend their homes.
So how can this fun app be beneficial and help you on your fitness goal? This app has missions and interval training that can get your heart racing and have an adrenaline rush.
● FitOn. This app has the best collection of free workouts. FitOn creates a personalized schedule of classes for you. You can also browse the available free workouts by target area, length of intensity. FitOn also has a meals tab if you want to keep track of your nutrition.
● Map My Fitness. This app is best for fitness professionals. The Map My Fitness app enables you to track a variety of activity types which include cardio, gym workouts, dog walking, hiking, sports, total body, yoga and more. It’s simple to use. Just select the activity type, then click “Start workout” to track your duration, distance, calories, among others.
● Dance Fitness Lite. You can dance your way to fitness using this app. The Dance Fitness Lite has a vast range of different dance types, including salsa, cheerleading, street and Zumba. Using this app allows you to enjoy yourself while you get into shape.
You spend hours out of your day on your phone. Instead of scrolling through your social media for hours, you can use your smartphone to your advantage and keep track of your health. Smartphones are transforming the way you work out. Working out at home has never been easier with access to free video exercise tutorials and custom workout routines.
However, staying active and eating clean are much easier said than done, even with the help of your mobile phone. That’s why, you should not forget to use your device to connect with your support network of friends and family to keep you accountable.
