Advantages & Disadvantages Of Health Applications

Health is important to all people. So people should take care of their health but we are as human, are not aware of every single thing in the world. So, most people would go to visit a doctor to get an advice about their health. But, some people cannot visit a doctor due to many personal reasons thus health applications are very useful for them. In future, all people should access to a group of health applications and services that support everything related to their health. In addition, these applications will enhance our knowledge of health. One example of health applications is workout applications.

Advantages and Disadvantages

• No need to be forced to have a specific date and meeting with a coach.
• Inability of the trainer to ask questions. Other coaches will not answer because they don’t know his condition and the plan he follows. Downloading an application is cheaper than reserving a course to follow at the gym.
• Some exercises need dedicated tools that are not provided for free by the apps such as dumbbells. Trainers can keep track of their progress easily.
• Workout apps could be dangerous because new trainers may do some movement incorrectly and cause injuries. Trainers can set the goals they can achieve. Not everyone can do what the coach does.
• Mobile dependability and consuming much battery. Trainers can reach limitless trainers and opportunities.
• Workout applications are not too accurate.

Health applications offer health-related advises such as workout, nutritious food etc. It is an application that can be downloaded on any potable device and used anywhere to get fit. Workout applications offer short videos of sport coach doing different types of workout such as aerobic exercises, strength exercises, balance exercises, and flexibility exercises. They also provide different plans with different levels such as primary, intermediate, advanced plans. Each plan has a set of exercises that have its own timer. The trainers should follow the couch with his exercises and stop when the timer stops. They can train whenever and wherever with whomever they want for a good health. It also gives a lot of workout advises to trainers. It may offer chat services with real life trainers.

Workout applications have many tools that are useful such as:

1. GPS: it is used in order to track the start and end point of the runners, walkers and cyclists. In other words, it is used to calculate the kilometers went through. One of the best applications that use this tool is RunKeeper.
2. Sensors: It is the tool that records the heart rate by sensing the heart rhythm of the trainer.
3. Internet: to provide activity reports, feedback and communicate with real coaches.
4. Smart wearables such as smart watch from Apple co: it is comfortable for trainers to wear a smart watch, that records the distance and heart rate, than holding the mobile phone all the time.

There are important guidelines every developer should think about in order to build a good workout application such as:

• The type of workout application: activity tracking applications, diet and nutrition applications and workout and exercise applications.
• Features that should be included in a workout applications: weight tracker, distance tracker, recording heart rate, instructions about the exercises that are suitable for different ages and many other features.
• The cost of developing the workout application.
• The ability of the application to pair with devices: it is difficult for trainers to hold their phone every single moment of their day so, paring it to smart watch or any smart wearables would be a nice and comfortable.
• Leveraging from best practices of objective setting theory in order to help trainers to identify and plan their fitness goal.
• Make the objectives public to support follow through.
• Make use of positive reinforcement in order to give rewards to positive behaviors.
• Put in mind the individual needs to control the presentation of self in everyday life.
• Gather and view data in an inconspicuous style that is available whenever and wherever the user needs it.
• Establish meaning and support the user to reflect on how behavior relates to his/her objectives.
• Allow users to manipulate their tracking information.
• Offer data about the users past behavior because it is related to his/her objectives.
• Individual devices, products and spaces should engage users and deliver on comfort and style.
• Make sure that the service or device can measure the complete domain of behaviors that may have essential effect on the final objective.

There are multiple existing workout applications currently such as Sworkit, MapMyRun, and Yoga Studio.

Sworkit

It is a good workout application that works as playlists for exercise, whether you want to do bodyweight strength exercises, stretches, cardio, or yoga. But it has some drawbacks such as the transition between the workouts moves are a little bit fast. And you do not actually reach the minimal amount of activity using this application unless you exercise intensely for many hours. Its strong point is that it has a vary good interface. The color of icons and the way they are arranged is very attractive. It also provides the trainers their activity reports and compatible with heart rate monitors.

MapMyRun

It offers an audio feedback for all GPS tracked running, with voice feedback for statistics like speed, path, distance, calories, and elevation. It is a good application because it tracks the trainer’s weight, integrate with social networks, has a food diary. Unlike Sworkit application, it does not provide activity report to the trainers and is not compatible with heart rate monitors. It also does not have music playback. Many people listen to music while training.

Yoga Studio

It contains a library of 100+ premium ready-made video classes organized and arranged into collections such as yoga for back pain, yoga for runners, yoga for mental health, hip hop yoga and more. Each heath application has its own pros and cons.

In my opinion, Sworkit is better because it has multiple types of exercises unlike the MapMyRun application that is dedicated to only running. There are some points that MapMyRun surpass Sworkit such as counting the calories burnt, tracking distance, measuring speed but still it is for only runners. Number of users is less than Sworkit.