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If you like practicing in the park, garden, or living room, I’d give Gaia some consideration. The video descriptions make the decision-making process very easy. Each class gives a summary of the difficulty level, focus, style, and intensity. After nominating many winners, we’ve selected a diverse range of fitness trends from many categories to help you choose what’s right for you. Rounding out the mind/body connection, they also include a library of mental health resources, guided meditation, and sleep visualizations.
As we all adjust our lives to help stop the spread of the new coronavirus, our fitness routines need to adjust too—mostly to incorporate social distancing. With businesses closing and people hunkering down, it’s pretty much impossible to stick to your regular workout routine if it involved the gym, fitness studio, or a group workout. This app has more than 45 different exercises and 5 workout programs to get your kettlebell on.
Australian fitness influencer Kayla Itsines built a wildly popular exercise program—and a community of devout followers—with a series of 28-minute high-intensity workouts. Access several iterations of Itsines’s much beloved BBG program, plus workouts from other fitness influences, like Kelsey Wells, Stephanie Stanzo, and Chontel Duncan, on this app. Other perks of downloading include meal-planning help and the option to participate in exercise challenges with women around the globe. Your core is essentially the powerhouse of your body, and with this core-centric app, you can show your midsection the love it deserves. Pick from among three different workout types, each with a slightly different focus (back, abs, and overall core), and follow along as personal trainers give video demos of each move. Amana Lee is a certified personal trainer, fitness model, and social media influencer.
As the name would suggest, Burpee Be Stronger is entirely centered on the classic bodyweight move, offering burpee challenges of varying length and difficulty. Well, just keep scrolling for more no equipment home workouts, please. Analis Cruz is a popular social media influencer, fitness inspiration, and fitness coach born in Puerto Rico in 1999. She built a significant following across platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube by sharing her personal fitness journey, which began at age 20 when she started going to the gym with no prior experience.
Your personal metrics are incredibly easy to track, according to our tester, and the app connects to your personal fitness watch to offer as much accuracy as possible. We also gave the user interface a 5 out of 5, as accessing this data is incredibly simple. For beginner and experienced yogis alike, Alo Moves can be an excellent download offering over 170 flows and sessions across a wide range of yoga categories. Additionally, the app has other programming for pilates, barre, HIIT, and strength training with new modules being added daily. Personally, I love the filter in the search tab for this app, allowing you to pick and choose your preferred workout modality, available equipment, length, etc. The app is generally easy to use and follow, including easy-to-follow exercise videos for the non-live workouts.
Unfortunately, that can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Most apps also have some sort of trial period to try the workouts before you have to start paying into a membership. You can choose from more than 3,700 Pilates classes (wowza!), with new classes added weekly.
In addition to using the app on your iPhone, you can stream the content on your computer or smart TV. Michelle Ditto, VP of training and technique at Pure Barre, suggests experimenting. The app categorizes the workouts by duration, intensity and format — yes, there are video classes, too. There are also programs like “Walk to Run With Confidence,” “Pilates for Healthy Hips” and “Train Like a Boxer” to teach specific skills in an easy-to-follow schedule. Lia also mixes in elements of yoga and dance, creating a well-rounded movement library that feels anything but rigid. The prenatal and postpartum program doesn’t just tweak workouts for pregnancy, it supports birth prep and recovery from the ground up.
You don’t have to get the accessories bundle to still get a satisfying workout, but Tonal is definitely a product for those who have a little extra spending room. Tonal is the ideal in-home solution for people who like the range of machines at the gym, but don’t like sharing them. Instead of taking up a bunch of space in your garage or basement, Tonal provides everything in a compact touchscreen display (plus a few extra items). A set of dumbbells is required to take advantage of Beach Body’s programs.
Obe Fitness has a huge library of 80s-inspired workouts led by bubbly instructors. While the app offers a huge variety of classes (including trampoline classes?! So fun), we picked it for the barre app because it has waaaay more available classes than popular competitors. The app is designed to make it easier to track your progress at the gym — rather than tracking your weights and workouts in an old notebook. The app lets you customize your workouts based on your goal (getting fit, losing weight, or getting strong) and fitness level.
If you love the structure of Pilates but want something that feels more fluid and adaptable, B the Method might just be your new go-to. Created by Lia Bartha, this platform reimagines classical Pilates with a fresh, modern twist, anchored by mindful movement that has garnered a raving fan base. Another plus is the app’s intuitive design, which makes it simple to save your favorite classes in the “My Practice” tab or stream sessions from your phone, desktop or TV. Learn calisthenics skills step by step with structured plans that adapt to your progress.
Aaptiv workouts can be done anywhere — at home, at the gym, outside on a ridiculously sunny day — because all you need is your phone and some headphones. With a membership you get access to more than 2,500 guided workouts, with more than 40 new classes added each week. I used this app plenty over lockdown and have kept up my weekly habit ever since. I’ve found probably almost 100 classes in mad muscles reviews that time that I love and keep going back to, with pre-uploaded sessions to choose from as well as live classes.
Some of the following are always free; others are being offered for free right now. Since there’s no cost, I’d suggest trying a couple of different ones so you can figure out which you like best and what’s ideal for the equipment setup you have (or don’t have) at home. If you feel excited about a new workout every day, you may be more likely to stick with your exercise routine. Access strength, yoga, HIIT, and cardio classes with almost any equipment available to you. You can also get healthy recipes, nutrition advice, and mindfulness videos. Reviewers say this app has a personal trainer feel that’s great for beginners or people jumping back into fitness.
Because the apps on our list all offer free versions with access to a selection of workouts and other fitness-focused features, the best app for you largely comes down to your workout preferences and goals. The right workout app should act like a personal trainer in your pocket. It should provide a program tailored to your fitness goals, track your progress, motivate you, keep workouts engaging, and flatten your fitness learning curve.
