The fitness market flourishes day by day, and the demand for this type of app will continue to grow. Soon, they might become great substitutes for gyms as people can achieve their goals simply by using their smartphones. Thus, the question of how to create a fitness app occurs more and more often. This article will teach you the basic steps of this process and let you win in this crowded market. Keep reading!
Fitness apps market and trends
How big is the fitness app market? According to Statista, the number of downloads of fitness apps reached 656 million during the second quarter of 2020. Moreover, the latest IHRSA report estimates this market at $96.7 billion in 2019 and is predicted to hit $102 billion this year.
North America, particularly the U.S., has dominated the fitness app market. However, the surge is expected in the Asia Pacific region and Europe, too, is embracing the trend.
Today, billions of smartphone users across the world can do whatever they want with the help of numerous useful mobile apps. The lack of free time to go to a gym is no longer an obstacle to achieving a healthy and fit body. Numerous fitness apps, including those that focus on workouts or dietary needs, accompany users in their fitness pursuits 24 hours per week.
Millennials seem to be the most fitness-oriented: A Nielsen survey states that 81% of them either do exercises already or would like to start. Moreover, around half of them want to receive as much data about their health as possible and buy a health device.
The recent boom of fitness apps can be easily explained as traditional health equipment, such as glucose meters and scales, are being replaced by all sorts of fitness apps installed on mobile devices. Indeed, it is much more convenient to carry out scales within a mobile app instead of using traditional scales for body measurements.
We can readily see how important technology and functionality are to the fitness-app market segment, but there's always room for improvement. So, why not build a fitness app worth millions of dollars and transform the industry?
Types of fitness apps
Prior to moving on to the basic steps of fitness-app development, let’s look at the most common types of fitness apps, which include activity trackers, nutrition apps, workout apps, meditation apps, and personal trainer apps.
- Activity trackers are equipped with motion sensors in order to track various kinds of physical activity, such as cycling or jogging. Such apps show accurate numbers of burned calories and/or covered distance in kilometers and miles.
- Nutrition apps calculate consumed calories based on the user's data. Typically, people provide such apps with their current height, weight as well as daily rations. Nutrition apps in turn give recommendations or issue warnings depending on the user's daily food portions and dietary goals.
- Workout apps mostly substitute gym instructors, as they teach users how to perform different fitness activities. By downloading a typical “workout” app, people learn how to do push-ups and sit-ups in a correct way, determine their own fitness pace, track their performance with timers and monitor progress by calculating weight loss.
- Meditation apps mostly comprise tutorials where users can learn about different yoga practices and meditations as well as select their own complexity level. Additionally, several apps, such as Daily Yoga, offer their subscribers online sessions with professional instructors.
Features for your fitness application
We can divide all of the possible features of a mobile fitness app into three main categories: features for an MVP, for a standard app and for level updates.
MVP features
- Personal profile: Although not as crucially important as a personal account, a profile containing a user’s photo should bring additional personalization and motivation to succeed with fitness goals.
- Some workout programs: It’s good to start with two or three programs and, for example, divide them into difficulty levels.
- Simple nutrition plans: They can be done as articles about useful advice on food and a healthy lifestyle. Don’t forget to prove them by scientific studies and facts, it will build a good rapport with your audience.
- Feedback forms: The main purpose of an MVP is to collect feedback from users and adjust the subsequent updates. So, don’t forget to ask each user about their experience.
Standard features
- Personal account: This option is a must for highly personalized fitness apps. By using personal accounts, users might store their personal information such as age, height and weight so that they can monitor their fitness.
- Advanced workouts and nutrition plans: In addition to workouts with difficulty levels, you can add workouts targeted at specific muscles or workouts for people with some medical conditions. Moreover, you can implement a nutrition advisor based on the data users provide for the app.
- Push notifications and reminders: Let users set reminders for their training (days of the week, time and repeating). Don’t forget to implement push notifications so they can see when it’s time to work out.
- Cloud sync: Some users will want to save their data in the event they lose their phone or change the device. The best way to transfer the data to a new account is to enable cloud synchronization.
Read more via the article: https://yellow.systems/blog/how-to-develop-the-best-fitness-app
