The 12 Best Workout Apps Of 2025: Fitness Apps Trainers Actually Use

However, the price and value scores aren’t as high as with other apps. Although the free version should work well for many users, upgrading to the premium version may be worth it. After all, you only have to pay $5.99 per month or $29.99 per year to unlock all the features mentioned above. As a result, we rate the price and value at a perfect 5 out of 5. While the paid subscription unlocks a ton of features, the free one is nothing to sneeze at.

Exercise Accountability

  • This AI-powered app earned high scores for its workout variety, easy-to-use interface, and customization options.
  • Jetfit is one of the good apps like Strong because both apps can be used for tracking gym workouts and logs systematically, and you can see accuracy being in-point.
  • To find out how reliable Fitbit trackers are compared with those from other brands, see our guide to the most reliable fitness tracker brands.
  • MyFitnessPal is one of the popular calorie counters, helping you track your healthy diet.
  • If you want to bring your walking workout to great heights, you need AllTrails.
  • That is a mistake — your workout data, location, heart rate, and body metrics are among the most sensitive categories of personal information you can share.

Our team researched the most notable ones, and a few came close to making our list but ultimately did not make the cut. “It can help you prepare for a big cycling event by helping you understand when you’re progressing, maintaining, peaking, or overtraining,” she told me. If you’re looking for a platform that encourages more engagement, we recommend Zwift, which earned a 4-out-of-5 rating for interactive features. In addition, this app is not designed to hold you accountable—especially if you stick with the free version.

APP USERS

fitness app alternatives for workout tracking

The app makes progressive overload tracking effortless regardless of your methodology. Caliber bridges the gap between a self-directed app and a personal trainer. The app itself is a capable strength tracker, but the real differentiator is the optional coaching layer — a real human coach reviews your actual workout logs and adjusts your plan based on what you’re doing. If you’re all in on bodyweight training, BetterMe is one of the best options around. Not only is it one of our best workout apps for beginners, but it’s packed with an array of equipment-free training plans that are geared toward just about anyone.

Data Privacy and Smartwatch Compatibility

If you are serious about tracking your lifts, MFP has always been the wrong tool for the job. Jefit, Hevy, and Setgraph all let you log workouts and track progress without paying. Boostcamp is the exception — it offers a free trial but requires a subscription for ongoing use. Additionally, paid tiers unlock AI features, advanced analytics, and in some cases larger exercise libraries. You’ll pick your preferred training style and stay in that track for 5 to 6 week blocks, which gradually get more challenging.

Future Pro: Personal Training

It’s much more comfortable to wear during sleep than any full smartwatch I’ve ever tried (and I have tried a lot), or even the Whoop. The route-planning capabilities available on cycling apps enables you not only to plan new bike routes but to search ones that others have ridden, filtering by distance, elevation, intensity, type, and more. A 3-out-of-5 reflects minor discrepancies compared to known distances. Apps earn higher marks when their GPS is highly precise and consistent, ensuring accurate navigation and performance data.

Choosing the Right Alternative for Your Training Style

Whether you want a gym logger, a cardio app, or something geared more toward general fitness, we’ve got you covered. As well as having all the performance-analysis charts you could ever dream of, Intervals.ICU also offers a solid training calendar and workout builder. You can craft your ideal training plan and sync it with your calendar of choice for an easy overview of your training sessions. Garmin has hopped on the paywall bandwagon, but less severely than Strava. Done paying $19.99/month for workout tracking that barely tracks your workouts?

How Many Steps Do You Need to Walk to Lose Weight?

We had no issues in our testing, however, and more recent reviews seem generally more positive. Read our Caliber App review to learn more about this premium fitness app. Caliber received above-average scores in most categories, but the personal coaching plan isn’t cheap, so we gave this 3.5 out of 5 for pricing.

Best Low-Calorie Meals for Easy, Satisfying Dinners

fitness app alternatives for workout tracking

Fitbit fitness trackers tend to be quite reasonably priced – expect to pay under £100 depending on the model and range of features it offers. You can browse all our Fitbit fitness tracker reviews to see the latest prices. Our testers rate each one for how it feels to wear during everyday life and intense exercise sessions. While ClassPass primarily offers paid memberships for in‑studio and on‑demand classes, you can explore their free trial to see what’s available. For truly free workouts at home, there are plenty of apps that let you stream or follow classes without entering any payment info. What’s more, the app offers 72 weeks of meal plans with custom portion recommendations according to your daily calorie needs, plus access to more than 300 recipes to create your own meal plan.

Best free indoor cycling apps: 6 free alternatives to Zwift

While Bojana is a big fan of Zwift, she also pointed out a few drawbacks. First, unlike some other popular workout apps, Zwift doesn’t have any trainer instruction built into the program. If you need that extra push or someone to hold you accountable, don’t expect that from Strava. Unlike some other popular workout apps, there’s not much in the form of accountability, which is why we gave it a 3-out-of-5 rating in the category. While you can join community challenges and track your progress on a leaderboard with a paid account, that’s about it.

Several have been banned from sale, while for others, availability is patchy while the legal process continues. So, realistically, your best bet is the market leader; the Oura Ring 4. The company kickstarted the whole smart ring market, and it is the most comprehensive, multi-platform option you can buy at the moment. It’s a good product, but there’s another reason I say “at the moment.” Our weekly newsletter is expertly crafted to immerse you in the world of streaming.

After her first daughter was born six years ago, she became especially passionate about prenatal and postnatal fitness, teaching stroller bootcamp classes and working with expecting moms as clients. Post-journalism school, Nicole worked in print media as a magazine editor for eight years, then learn tai chi at home went freelance for a while, writing for fitness websites and manufacturers in the industry. Now, as director of content at GGR, she brings her expertise in fitness to writing and editing honest reviews on everything you might need for your home gym. There are a ton of free workouts and features for you to use, so you don’t get bored.

Nike Training Club — Best for Guided Home Workouts

In addition to heart-pounding audio storylines and narrated adventures, there are also virtual races, stat tracking, GPS-enabled maps, and the ability to connect with your Apple Watch or Google Pixel Watch. I have no doubt it’s effective—I burned at least 5 to 10 calories just listening in fear to the YouTube trailer. Even at the basic free level, a slim screenless band to record all your metrics makes for a nice fitness tracking experience. The app also has access to Fitbit’s library of workout and meditation content, including individual moves, which you can use to build your own workout. For example, if you had a stressful week or poor recovery, adaptive programs may reduce workout intensity for this time, instead of offering too hard sessions. Don’t you think that a simple workout completed four times every week is more effective than an intense program followed for only ten days?

mHealth Apps Using Behavior Change Techniques to Self-report Data: Systematic Review

A focus group was then conducted to gain more in-depth information and feedback on the prototype design to ensure that the Health4Life app was appropriate and tailored to the needs of adolescents. This project underscores how a well-designed, user-centered app can transform health insights into action, driving behavior change that leads to healthier, happier lives. By combining innovative technology, behavioral science, and personal coaching, this app is poised to make a significant impact in the health and wellness sector. In one 2021 review study of apps to track symptoms in people with cancer, Bearable was one of the top three highest-scoring apps. While this is encouraging, it’s good to keep in mind that research specifically on whether the app is beneficial for people with mental health conditions is lacking. Firstly, there exists the possibility that we missed some strategies due to the short timeframe of subsample applications.

healthy behavior change through apps

Behavior Plan: Comprehensive Guide for Supporting Students with Behavioral…

The popularity and ubiquity of mobile apps have rapidly expanded in the past decade. With a growing focus on patient interaction with health management, mobile apps are increasingly used to monitor health and deliver behavioral interventions. The considerable variation in these mobile health apps, from their target patient group to their health behavior, and their behavioral change strategy, has resulted in a large but incohesive body of literature.

Lifestyle Improvement

We extend existing work by focusing on persuasive strategies in mental health apps and employing both the BCTs and the PSD framework in our review. First, we identify distinct persuasive strategies incorporated in mental health apps and classify the persuasive strategies based on the type of mental health issues the app is focused on. Second, we reveal the various ways that the persuasive strategies are implemented/operationalized in mental health applications to achieve their intended objectives.

5 Regular review and adjustment

  • However, previous results indicated that unstructured self-affirmation exercises such as a values essay may be effective in Web-based contexts [30].
  • This consistency suggests a steady behavior pattern, though the mode values again vary, pointing towards certain predominant behaviors on different days.
  • To our knowledge, no previous study has completed a comprehensive thematic literature review of mobile phone apps for health behavior change.
  • To ensure that the mobile health apps that patients are using are achieving their promises of health behavior change, it is essential to have a clear understanding of what is currently being used and whether it is working.
  • They can track their feeling, thoughts, and behaviors which in turn increases self-awareness and improve mental health outcomes.
  • Besides, smartphones have become an essential tool in our daily lives, impacting 7.2 billion users worldwide with more than 70% of them in low- and middle-income countries [3].

However, with the increasing body of research identifying limitations in current apps, there is a potential for the creation of apps to more likely encourage behavior change. To this end, this research is complemented by a set of guidelines for app developers to assist them in developing apps that can effectively support lifestyle behavior change [43]. Life expectancies across many developed countries have steadily increased over the past century. Newborns in developed countries can expect to live for 80 years or more, with an average increase of 3 years per decade [1]. At the same time, death rates in developed countries continue to fall, with the leading underlying causes of death being age-related diseases, including coronary heart and Alzheimer disease and cancers [1]. Although these overall patterns are encouraging and suggest that activities to improve health are working, areas of concern remain.

With regard to mad muscles reviews bias of selective outcome reporting, insufficient information was present in 1 study [36] and a high risk of bias was present in 5 studies [30,37,38,40,44]. The quality assessment of the reviewed studies is presented in Multimedia Appendix 4. Certain strategies revealed in our study liken those identified in reviewed applications of other health domains. For example, self-monitoring strategies were similarly highlighted in reviewed applications of medication management apps for consumers (Win et al., 2017), chronic arthritis apps (Geuens et al., 2016), and promoting physical activities (Matthews et al., 2016).

Behavioral Needs of Students: Strategies for Effective Support and Intervention

In addition, the study sought to test a wide range of apps using a new scale, the App Behavior Change Scale (ABACUS). To check if the search had missed any relevant articles, the full citation list was compared with the list of studies included in the two previous systematic reviews [12,15]. Of the 20 articles examined in Han and Lee’s [12] review, 11 were already included in the citation list, and none of the other 9 were eligible for inclusion [12].

Engagement and Adherence

The Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias tool will be used to assess the randomized controlled trials included in the review and assign low, unclear, or high risk to the studies for each of the potential biases [21]. MM conducted the data extraction and risk of bias assessment, which were validated by CC. Data were extracted by one reviewer and key data points from the studies that were specified in the protocol were recorded in a spreadsheet (see Table 1). This process was validated by the second reviewer, and disagreements were discussed with a third reviewer. The broad scope of the review meant that there were a wide variety of specific health and behavior change outcomes, so a meta-analysis could not be performed. Besides, smartphones have become an essential tool in our daily lives, impacting 7.2 billion users worldwide with more than 70% of them in low- and middle-income countries [3].

Adolescents and the Need to Belong

healthy behavior change through apps

Here’s what the science actually says about which tools work, why, and what to watch out for. Green foods are great to eat freely, yellow in moderation, and red occasionally. Example of focus group participants’ suggestions for displaying tracked behaviors in the app.

Quasi-Experimental Designs Provide Flexibility for Proof-of-Concept Studies

Qualitative analysis of the free text for the question regarding the explanation of the participants’ choice was performed, and common themes extracted. To identify participants’ gamer profiles, we chose the Hexad Scale, created and validated by Tondello [18]. The internal scale reliability is good with Cronbach alpha coefficient for each dimension ranging from .70 to .89 [18].

Literature Search

Two authors independently screened and selected studies according to the eligibility criteria. Data were extracted and the risk of bias was assessed by one reviewer and validated by a second reviewer. There is now a proliferation of mobile health interventions for physical activity, healthy eating, smoking and alcohol cessation or reduction, and improved mental well-being. However, the strength or potential of these apps to lead to behavior change remains uncertain. However, designing an approach that combines the BCTs most effective for adherence (feedback and monitoring, goals and planning, associations, and personalization), previously identified in RQ2, could be helpful to improve data reporting in mHealth apps.

#1. Life7 – Best for All-in-one Mental Wellness

Smartphone sensor technology has significantly improved and become more stable for collecting real-time data, which can be saved and processed for multiple analyses, making it possible to monitor our health through mobile health (mHealth) apps [4,5]. We performed a systematic review of studies published between 2010 and 2021 in relevant scientific databases to identify and analyze mHealth interventions using BCTs that evaluated their effectiveness in terms of user adherence. Search terms included a mix of general (eg, data, information, and adherence), computer science (eg, mHealth and BCTs), and medicine (eg, personalized medicine) terms. Only two studies explicitly discussed multi-faceted conceptualizations of engagement (Nurmi et al., 2020; Szinay et al., 2021). 21 studies included measures of engagement with sufficient description to code various components, most of which captured some form of behavioral engagement (16/21), either with the intervention (12/21) or with the target behavior (11/21).