Originally posted by kevin low on June 22, 2018
With thousands of different fitness apps on the IOS and Android platform available to users, which one do you choose? Where would you even begin to start? There is no definitive answer to this question, as there might be those who just started into fitness with no experience and those workout addicts who are looking for something new. One may also be looking to simply use an app to keep track of fitness goals and caloric intake (Fitbit, Lose it) or might be an aspiring trainer who would like to share their workouts online to other users (Fitocracy). With the various aspects of fitness that any user of an app may ask about, it might be impossible to track down just one app that fits all these descriptions.
With the growing trend of personal fitness all over the world, people are looking to technology and mobile apps as listed above for motivation, education, and monitoring. As seen below the trend of fitness has grown incredibly over the past years and will continue to do so as the world becomes healthier. There is a growing market for these applications and I think I may have found a great app that would fit any user of almost any level!
As a user of mobile apps for physical education and a moderate athlete, I found many online apps one dimensional and would result in having up to four fitness apps running throughout the day. Then one day, a cousin of mine introduced me to Jefit, a mobile fitness app that has almost 8 million users in the free online version and millions of paid registered users of the app. This app is on the IOS and the Android system and accessible through the computer as well. With the easy to use interface and great introduction system there is no wonder that Jefit has been dominating the fitness app market lately. The app for starters can allow users to select any muscle group in the body and will pull up hundreds of exercises that use no equipment or any equipment in the gym. Jefit allows users of any experience level to reap the multitude of benefits from the endless database of workouts/exercises to the workout logging system and monitoring to the motivational online community of sharing workout plans and goals. You can invite friends and monitor their workouts, what they have logged, and motivate them via the app anywhere in the world! By sharing workouts Jefit has created a living directory for endless amounts of resources that are sports related such as those specifically to hockey, to those done for events such as marathons. This may be one of the only apps that brings in cardio exercises as well as weights exercises which span an impressive 1300 exercises in the Jefit directory with thousands more through other users.
Jefit allows users to log absolutely everything into the app and saves this into the calendar and sends you reminders if you haven’t worked out in a while. You may also log weekly workout routines that lists off all 8 exercises of each day of the week as well as a rest day. Additionally, you may monitor your BMI, weight, body size (chest, waist, calf, etc), and can earn points when you achieve goals that you set for yourself in the app which brings in the motivational factor.
What is the cost to you for these 1300 exercises and access to the online community? Absolutely free as long as you are okay with a few advertisements here and there. The workouts and exercises give you a detailed description of the workout and short videos that will allow novice weightlifters to understand the exercise. With the upgraded memberships you get more in depth videos, as well as workouts from elite trainers online. This has great educational value to all levels of gym goers and never peaks as you continue to navigate and challenge yourself through these endless workouts! This would be great for online fitness training or physical education teachers to monitor their students progress in regards to logging workouts, sets and repetitions, and amount of physical activity through the week. Last but not least, you can sync the app to your fitbit which can work together to monitor heart rate and full amount of calories burned in the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLAEfbjiQYg
As you can see in the video, the app is very easy to navigate and I would recommend this to any person who is looking to get into weight lifting, running, or being part of a fitness community. Thanks for looking into my analysis of Jefit and hope you get to give it a try!
Jefit sounds like it has been very well thought out, and seems quite immersive. As a grades 4-8 teacher, I could see this being quite a valuable resource. When teaching daily physical activity, I like to regularly integrate short 10-15 minute workouts that focus on a range of exercises focusing on full body workouts. This would be a useful addition, as it offers descriptions of many different exercises. I think this would also be valuable for students that are not comfortable exercising alongside their classmates (this happens for various reasons, and is a common occurrence with at least 1-2 students in every class I’ve done workouts with sitting out). Having a resource that students could use at home that visually shows how to complete the exercises may encourage them to try out the exercises on their own.
It would also be fun to log class workouts, and track how often we are exercising as a class. Adding gamification elements never seems to hurt! Although this app is clearly not designed with student/teacher workouts in mind, I can definitely see potential, and will likely give this a try with my current students.
Jefit sounds like it has been very well thought out, and seems quite immersive. As a grades 4-8 teacher, I could see this being quite a valuable resource. When teaching daily physical activity, I like to regularly integrate short 10-15 minute workouts that focus on a range of exercises focusing on full body workouts. This would be a useful addition, as it offers descriptions of many different exercises. I think this would also be valuable for students that are not comfortable exercising alongside their classmates (this happens for various reasons, and is a common occurence with at least 1-2 students in every class I’ve done workouts with sitting out). Having a resource that students could use at home that visually shows how to complete the exercises may encourage them to try out the exercises on their own.
It would also be fun to log class workouts, and track how often we are exercising as a class. Adding gamification elements never seems to hurt! Although this app is clearly not designed with student/teacher workouts in mind, I can definitely see potential, and will likely give this a try with my current students.
My review here will incorporate ideas from this re-post as well as the “Biometrics in the Classroom” I re-posted, as well as “Wireless Sensors” re-posted by Carla.
I really enjoy a few sports like mountain biking, bike touring, skiing and ultimate. For health reasons, fitness is something I really try to emphasize with my students. There exist so many apps to track fitness and also to motivate. This app sounds great for my own personal use, but even to lightly introduce with my students. My bigger focus which this inspired is the possibility to use the myriad of sensors already available to pair with our devices like heart-rate monitors to improve health and fitness education in schools. Even infrared sensors can be attached to phones to be used as an infrared camera to measure heat (body heat from exercise?).
Other sensors could be used in science labs to get real-time measurements.
What a neat and fun way to personalize the content, especially since so many of my students even struggle just to find their own pulse (still super valuable to know how the old fashion way).