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Anecdata: I have always wanted to do a full body exercise routine, gravitating toward body weight exercise. I _never_ wanted to deal with personal trainers and
by site-packages1 6y ago
Anecdata: I have always wanted to do a full body exercise routine, gravitating toward body weight exercise. I _never_ wanted to deal with personal trainers and didn't really know where to start. I tried a few step-by-step guides over the years and always lost motivation. Always, sometimes relatively quickly. I'm healthy, skinny and do a lot of aerobic exercise and outdoor activities (soccer, frisbee, etc.), but I always wanted to have better all around fitness.
I used the pandemic as an excuse to start an at-home routine. Purchased a workout mat and an app subscription. The app tells me what to do, when to do it, and increases/decreases the difficulty of the next workout based on how long any given set of exercises took me. (As an aside, it's pretty cool. I took too long to do a particular exercise, like squats? They'll backpedal a little and build up my ability to do squats with a range of other exercises, then back to be able to do what I couldn't before). Anyways, long story short, I'm going on five months straight of workouts three times a week and have noticeable increase in general strength and flexibility.
Previously I hadn't ever considered an app to be in place of a human personal trainer. And really being able to workout at whatever time is convenient for the day (as long as I do 3 days a week) really makes it flexible.
Sorry, long post, but the article is a bit devoid of any information so thought I would throw my relevant experience in there.
- shwoopdiwoop 6y agoApps are great to recommend a training and exercise plan, showing you different ways of working out etc. However I found that without having a professional by my side, especially in the beginning stages, it was impossible for me to know if I'm making mistakes in the way I carry out the exercises, wrong postures, incorrect movements or alignment of limbs. Once you learned to do them incorrectly, it can be very hard to correct this and have bad consequences for your health to a point where you can seriously hurt yourself. No app can do that for you.
- site-packages1 6y agoDefinitely, I mentioned this in a comment below. The example videos/instructions are very good. But that only goes so far when you have to self assess how you're doing. But to be fair, I think your comment sounds a bit dire given we're talking about body weight exercises. It's pretty easy to tell that I'm doing, for example, squats or push ups correctly with the way the app and workouts are set up.
- taude 6y agoI found getting a big mirror at Home Depot so I can watch myself do the movement helps a lot. You can just tell when something looks way off...
- iakov 6y agoThis app sounds really cool and smart for what it is trying to do. Do you mind sharing the name?
- site-packages1 6y agoSure, this one's called Freeletics. It was reasonably priced for a year (and you can find discount codes on Google). The feedback loop is _okay_ because although they have really stellar example videos on how to do the exercises, you still have to self-assess how closely you're matching the videos (there's no person that watches you or critiques). That's the only downside to the "AI" driven workout progressions.
- watwut 6y agoFreeletics is great, but sometimes it pushes you too much. The whole no excuses thing is great and motivating, untill you injure yourself by overtraining and not having enough rest. I know, cause I injured myself like that and could not exercise properly for a year. Just something to be cautious about.
- site-packages1 6y agoThat's good to know and interesting. Honestly I've felt the opposite, like it's not pushing me hard enough. But my experience so far has been on the Starting Strength and Fit For Life routines, so maybe those are designed to work out a bunch of muscle groups but not super push you. Once I'm done with this cycle I'm planning to move to one of the more serious ones and will keep your caution in mind.
- watwut 6y agoIt will ramp up difficulty over time. I think that part of issue was that the algorithm assumed I will be progressing despite me being over-trained and not progressing anymore. I used it for two years before it got to that point. The real trap is that it feels really good to finish super hard session. Endorphins flow and you feel like a hero, so it is hard to make yourself stop. It is sort of addictive. I mean, it is good app and I liked the experience, except for how it ended and how frustrating it was to not be able to exercise anymore.
- vladvasiliu 6y agoThat sounds interesting. I've also been contemplating getting a personal trainer. Would you mind sharing the app's name?
- site-packages1 6y agoFreeletics, there are some discount codes online as well, I guess from personal trainers with partnerships.
- randomfitnessq 6y agoI've been looking for something exactly like that. Could you share the name of the app?
- LukeJT 6y agoNot the parent, but I recently released my own workout app that does mostly the same kind of thing they describe [0]. I've been using it personally since COVID started (Same period of time that I developed it from a simple "May as well learn Flutter" app to something decent) and I've made good strength progress. The website has only been up since yesterday, and some of the info is still placeholder (like the review from my Mum, haha). Any feedback appreciated. [0] https://repfiniti.com https://repfiniti.com
- site-packages1 6y agoIf course, I should have mentioned it in the original post. See above ^^^