5 cool exercise & wellbeing apps to help you stay healthy

Technology has transformed our lives – and our fitness routines. Even those who don’t consider themselves particularly athletic might now have a Fitbit strapped to their wrist, or track their diet and daily workouts with an app on their smartphone.

Many exercise apps also double as social networks – you can sign up, find local clubs, meet fellow enthusiasts and high-five one another’s progress (or spur each other on with some healthy competition.)

Here are five apps that we recommend for getting active, staying fit and meeting people in your community.

With both free and paid options, Strava is great for cycling, running and swimming. You can register your local club, make friends and share your profile with others, making it a great way to find a local exercise buddy. This app also tracks your progress over time so you can be motivated by your increasing fitness, and it will generate detailed routes for you and suggest the best ones based on your location and preferences, such as elevation and road surface.

The fact that it’s a social network adds an element of competition, which is always great to give you a nudge to beat that colleague or neighbour!

The Nike Run Club app is free and has lots of features that suit both new and experienced runners. You can set up your run based on distance, time and speed, and you’ll have access to music from Spotify or Apple to keep you going. This app also lets you know when you hit milestones and will pause if you stop running for some reason.

Like Strava, it’s also a social network, so you can meet running buddies and notify them when you’re on a run. Post-run metrics will give you lots of information about your performance, including your heart rate, calories burned, distance, speed and more. Fantastic for motivation and guidance to help you improve your running and fitness.

Worn as a watch, Fitbit is primarily a step counter, but you can also use it to monitor your heart rate, time yourself, and track other exercises such as swimming. It will tell you how many hours of active movement you’ve racked up and will track your progress over time, alongside friends in your network.

Fantastic to get you up and off the couch if you’ve had an inactive day – pair it with a Spotify playlist, an audiobook or a favourite podcast and hitting that 10,000 steps a day (or whatever your target is) will be a breeze.

A weight-loss app is great to use alongside an exercise one, such as FitBit, if you need to lose a few kilos. My Fitness Pal lets you enter your current and target weight, and then gives you a calorie limit for the day to reach that goal within a set time period.

You enter all your food, divided up into meals and snacks, and it calculates the calories for you and deducts it from your daily limit. You can also input any exercise you do ie. 20 minutes of brisk walking, to ‘earn’ calories back again. A fantastic way to learn more about how much food you need to maintain a healthy weight or lose a few kilos, and to get you back on track after a holiday or the festive season. Another great feature is that it ‘remembers’ your most common food items, so you can enter these quickly from a list of frequently eaten favourites.

Staying focused on your goals and motivated to stay fit and healthy is much easier if you meditate regularly. Headspace is a popular smartphone based app that you can use to learn simple meditation techniques. Easy to use, it offers you meditations for various times of day, such as a three-minute morning meditation, an afternoon reset or a night-time meditation to help you wind down. Headspace offers a free trial, followed by an annual subscription. If you don’t want a paid subscription, Australian app Smiling Mind can be downloaded for free.

Any we’ve missed? Let us know your favourite exercise apps!