10 reasons for installing health and fitness apps

Most of us have one common resolution for the New Year. Not to be surprised but it is usually about us being fit for the rest of the year. A lot of us hit gyms, some overenthusiastic ones even take the year long membership because it would make more sense in the long run. Some smarter, more self aware ones, who think that going to the gym would be tough, install fitness apps. Now, most of those who installed these fitness apps would definitely go for a paid plan to balance their lifestyle. Some of the others who downloaded one such health and fitness app would go for the trial plans first.

At the end of the day, say 15th of January, most of the gym goers would have realised that it is tough to go to the gym and hence would have started bailing out. The mobile app downloaders however would still be somewhat sticking to their regime; not blatantly setting it aside because, well there are 10 big reasons for it. This blog further explains those ten reasons.

1. It is the first Practical step towards your resolve to stay healthy

Just like anyone who goes to the gym, only installing a fitness app is a stronger and more practical resolution. Going to the gym is a really big commitment. First, that is too much physical effort and hence the inertia to bypass is equally great too.

Secondly, a gym membership comes really expensive, a health and fitness app on the other hand comes really within budget. Plus, even if one of these apps sort of touches close to a gym fee, they give back so many reward points or benefits that it eventually zeroes out.

2. Keep Track of your daily progress and Calories

A lot of fitness experts tell that fitness isn’t always about exercising, it is also about eating right. A good health and fitness mobile app solves that for you. A lot of the fitness apps in the market help you track the number of steps taken, the active minutes, tell you when to stand up, track the amount of water intake and even help you count the calories taken. All these things help one to manage their daily routine better and strive towards a healthier one.

3. Easy Workout Ideas

Do not like running, maybe you could stretch. Do not like stretching- maybe you could dance. Do not know how to dance, well simply follow some video on the app or follow an instructor and they would guide you through the process. 

Working out through the assistance of a fitness app is easy because literally the internet exists there. All one needs to do is to choose the option of their liking and there you go.

4. Constant Nudges/notifications

Imagine an app nudging you about how you are feeling stressed and hence need to take deep breaths. Or, a message about how you are usually active around that time of the day but are being more sedentary today.

There can be nudges about your performance too or about how doing something like walking for 40 minutes can help you close your exercise ring.

Nudges like these can definitely help a person be on track for their goal and feel motivated to finish it off. Believe us when we say, it is super regretful to ignore these nudges because the guilt really lingers on.

5. Mobile app as your personal trainer

A fitness app comes with innumerable options to choose from. Also, because it helps you to track your daily routine, the suggestions it provides are pretty personal too. One can say that this is akin to having a personal trainer in place. A personal trainer comes at exorbitant costs and in addition to that, they do not monitor you daily. The health regime with a personal trainer is usually restricted to a few days a week. While on a fitness app, the same coaching and nudging is with you around the clock.

6. Set Goals and work towards

An obvious corollary to the points mentioned above. A health and fitness mobile app allows you to plan your day and hence goals accordingly. While the app would state for you an ideal regime to follow, yet you can always alter it to suit your lifestyle, For instance, if you have to travel for a week and finding your usual health food would be difficult, you can easily put down the points in your app and your regime would be then defined to accommodate those changes.

7. Monitor diet/calories

Always, without a doubt. Whatever you eat, just have to put in the details on the fitness portal and it would count the calories for you. This task can be overwhelming for a lot of people and hence if you feel like you do not want to do that, just avoid it and select another better plan to suit your needs. The advantage is that such a monitoring helps you know where your areas of focus should lie and if you can see an extra rasgulla messing with your diet daily, a notification about it will definitely shame you into avoiding it.

8. No major monetary commitment

The fitness apps are free to download and even though there are in app purchases, there is hardly any significant amount that needs to be paid.

9. Consultation on the go

Let us assume that you are going for an outing to an Italian restaurant. An app can readily tell you what kind of food would suit your diet and fitness plan. A personal trainer or health consultant might not be always available, but the fitness app would always be there.

10. You can always see and experiment if it works for you

A fitness app comes with a plethora of options in it. You can choose any of the ones which suit you or which you prefer.  If something doesn’t work, choose something else. Also, this continuous change in routines prevents you from getting bored. So, while you can be on a fruit diet a week, the next could be soups and salads with a day or so thrown in as a cheat day every once in a while. And still, you would end up benefiting. Check out one of my personal favorite app My Perfect Day.

Fitness app global landscape

One can say that the Indian market is still developing to the concept of fitness apps or fitness influencers. While one would like their pictures or like the ads of these health and fitness apps for their innovation and creativity, yet the implementation that comes out of it isn’t as well followed.

The international markets however are very conducive for such a fitness app because people are aware. The Indian populace is still struggling with a lot of third world or developing country problems to be aware enough of these fitness apps.But that does not mean that the market for fitness apps doesn’t exist in India. It is and for that matter the fitness app market is touted to be amongst the highest growth market in the country among all the other variety of apps other than social media ones.

India as a country still has a long way to go when it comes to the domain of health and fitness mobile apps. While some apps such as Healthifyme are coming up and a lot of exercise based apps have started doing the rounds, the market is still developing. 

One can say that the market is still in the phase where any app can have the first mover’s advantage. HealthifyMe and now Cure.fit app are pretty close to that sphere. 

There is even an app by the Aditya Birla group (Activ Health) which works on the model whereby a user get monetary rewards in proportion to the amount of calories burnt by the user. However, the execution of the same wasn’t as well in the app interface and experience and hence this fitness app failed to do well.

At Vibeosys Software, we feel that if one wants to launch a good and productive health and fitness mobile app for the Indian market, there is a lot to be learnt from the International ones. One example of how the international apps have built stickiness for them lies in analysis of the kind of reward system that they have. Some of these apps give discount coupons for superstores such as Walmart, Costco, Target etc. Also, these reward points are given for milestones which are achievable. The difficulty level is increased gradually and so is the quality of reward being given. The incentive of getting a good reward makes people workout and hence they get themselves fit in the process.

At Vibeosys, we have vast experience in the domain of developing fitness apps. Not only do we develop an app but also research well and strategies well enough to ensure that your app eventually solves a long impending consumer problem thus becoming a sure shot success