Finally! The second Weight Loss App blog review, I know you were all just diiiiieing for this! 😉 lol
This app is so much fun it makes me want to go to the gym just so I have an excuse to use it, talk about weird motivation to work out lol This app is:
Gym Goal
Because you’re wondering, it is free. I’m pretty sure there is an upgrade option so you can get it without ads but that would undoubtedly involve money and I am cheap…and poor… 😛
When you open it up the home screen gives you options to look at your workout routines, your history, a list of exercises for cardio and strength training, a body map, your measurements (eek!) and tools. There is a 4 step process that the main page tells you to follow, which I have partly done…hey, I said it made me want to go to the gym and workout not that I’d had time or the ability to get to the gym and workout lol It wants you to enter your workout routine (you can custom make one or tell the app what you want to focus on and accomplish and it will create a routine for you), place the routine into the front page schedule, log your workout and use the history button to track your progress. Fairly simple.
At first you might be all, so what? I can put in my measurements and it can help me design and track a workout, big deal, I could do that!
Here is the fun part!
It has videos showing you how to do all the different exercises, er, the weight exercises that is, not the cardio…if you can’t figure out how to run by now, well, I worry for you and not about your fitness level…
Soooo, if you hit Body Map it brings up a picture of a guy but it’s a muscle view, not a look-he-has-skin view, then you pick a body part and it brings up a list of exercises for that muscle. It gives multiple options for the same exercise, by that I mean for arm curls it gives you the option to choose arm curls with: barbell, cable, cable one arm, dumbbell incline, dumbbell seated, dumbbell standing…it continues on with different types of curls (ex. concentration, preacher etc) but I’m sure you get the point. 🙂 From there, I can select any of the versions of the exercise I am interested in and it will take me to a video that shows a guy (with skin and clothes this time!) performing the exercise you chose. The video plays in a loop until you tell it to stop and the dude moves decently slow so you can really see the form, there is also a written description of what you should do which will also help you get the right form.
There are also little things like daily tips, one is a Fit Tip, one is a Muscle Tip (well, today anyways, I can’t remember if the tips are the same topics daily, guess I’ll find out tomorrow lol) todays tips are both things I already know but having knowledge re-enforced can’t be a bad thing, right?
In the tools section you can do all your backing up to server stuff but you can also read articles on how to work out to build muscle, how to work out to rid yourself of fat and information about protein…all good types of info to have access too. 🙂
In the measurements section you (obviously) can put in your measurements, not just for the normally measured body parts but also things like your neck, shoulder, forearm, wrist, calf…probably more important if you are looking to build muscle but also good if you are looking to lose weight cause if you are tracking not just via a number on a scale but by inches lost this will give you a better picture of where you are losing. There is also a lil camera icon so I’m thinking you can take a pic of each body part to help with the tracking of progress. A little lower down that screen you can put in your One Repetition Max, Target Heart Rate, Body Mass Index, Basal Metabolic Rate, Total Daily Energy Expenditure and Body Fat Percentage. Some of these provide you with information on how to officially get the data, like the target heart rate it says to get the Max Heart Rate you should ask your doc for a cardiac stress test, it also says if you want to do it yourself get a doctor’s ok first (I’m thinking because you’re kinda killing yourself to get this info and I guess if you fall off the treadmill cause you’re having a heart attack they don’t want to be liable lol). Some of them you just have to enter info and it will calculate for you, so, for your BMI you put in your height, weight and age OR your weight and body fat percentage and boom! BMI right there on your screen. Easy peasy!
This app is a lot of fun to play with, and when I discovered the videos showing the different exercises I was psyched, that was when I got all I wanna go to the gym now! The reason? Simple, my form when using free weights is always something I worry about so having the written description and the video to help me with that makes me want to go to the gym with my phone and see if I can perform the various exercises the way the information says too lol. I guess I want to compare myself to the dude on the screen, *rolls eyes* go ahead, call me a geek, see if I care lol 😉
I tried the option of letting the app pick a work out routine for me, I told the app I wanted a full body workout, intermediate level, with free weights and I liked what it came up with. Most of the exercises it picked I know how to do and I agree they are what I need to be getting back to doing. There are a couple I am not familiar with but that’s good I think, I get to learn something new and I’ll be working muscles that I was possibly overlooking before…ok, to be honest I don’t think I was overlooking them cause the exercises it chose that I haven’t done work out muscles that I work out using different exercises, but like I said, change is good. 🙂
This app has a lot to play with and I’d recommend fiddling around with it for a couple hours or so to fully understand it and be able to utilize it to its full ability, or as full of an ability as you want to lol. I know there is a timer in there so when you’re working out it can let you know how long to rest between sets, I’m thinking I’ll find that when I actually you know, work out and tell it I am working out lol
There we have it, the two apps I am going to be using in an effort to get myself back on track with my weight loss and physical fitness. They are both fairly easy to use, informative, fun-ish and if you actually work out and use the apps I bet they will both be helpful…I can’t claim that yet though since I haven’t ya know, been using them all that much yet…oops? 😉
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 
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