Fitness Apps For Travel: SWORKIT Review (Earn Loyalty Points For Workouts!)

I love variety when it comes to health and fitness, who doesn’t? The problem is when you’re on the road traveling your variety may only be a handful of equipment at your hotel gym. Getting a quality workout that isn’t boring can be challenge. Add a couple of kids it’s out of the question.

Recently I decided to give the smart phone fitness apps a try.  The first one that I reviewed was SWORKIT (http://sworkit.com/).  Here are a few screenshots:

It seems to be reliable, helpful and fun for any fitness level.  Here are some quick observations after using it for a few weeks:

• A new favorite for mixing things up and offering a lots of variety for a beginner to professional athlete (I can’t confirm professional level, but the workouts challenge me).
• Circuit training set to your ability level and type of workout (Cardio, Strength Train, and Stretch and Yoga)
• It even includes the 7 minute workout for those of you familiar with the term. If not, here is a good article that explains the scientific research in laymen’s terms.
• Available in 13 languages, including the audio coaching.
• A workout for kids! My 4 and 9-year old joined in and we had so much fun. With the 30/10-second transition it moves fast enough that they don’t get bored. There were exercise they were familiar with or laughed at when they heard the names (frog jumps, supermans, and steam engine to name a few)
• Allows you to customize your own workout by fitness level and time. Only have 10 minutes?  No problem. A little is better than nothing.
• No equipment required and can be done in the privacy of your hotel room and uses your own body weight. Don’t think wall pushups will push your hard enough? Try it for 30 seconds, twice!
• They use real people to demonstrate exercises, but could do better explaining form of the exercise verbally. Pilates exercises are a variation of the classical exercises, this is a negative for me since I am a trained Pilates instructor. Don’t expect it to be the classical version. But I do have another app for that!
• Negative: The verbal cue simply tell you the exercise and when to start and stop.
• Set up alerts to get your butt off the couch and workout. It’s your health conscious alter-ego chiming in daily telling you to workout.
• Positive: Challenge friends and share through all social media outlets. Come on, I need a few challengers!
• For all you loyalty junkies, The best part is the app rewards you alongside helping get you healthy.  by collecting mPOINTS. Points can be used to buy things or donate to many different charities like some of my favorites (LIVESTRONG, Make a Wish Foundation, or The Humane Society).
• Choose SWORKIT lite to try for free and then bump to SWORKIT Pro for $3.99 (Ad free, adjustable interval lengths, access workout history, extra reward points, enable and disable rewards and sync with MyFitnessPal and HealthKit. Available on the Apple Store, Google Play, and Amazon (of course!)

Questions?

Stay tuned for more fitness app reviews!