Fitness has recently become a new religion for most people all around the world. Thus, fitness apps are now a standard necessity on practically every smartphone as consumers pay more attention to their health and fitness. This innovation came into limelight due to COVID-19. People are turning to virtual training to stay in shape and motivated because there is less access to gyms and in-person training now.
These apps offer an incredible opportunity for businesses in the health and fitness industry to present their products and services to potential audiences and to grow and make money. Knowing the best way is by a user-friendly fitness app development that might help them maintain a commanding market share.
This article will delve into essentials to learn about creating a fitness app, from the process and features to cost and trends; we will cover everything here.
Importance of A Fitness App
A primary goal of a fitness app is to give the user guidance on exercises, dietary plans, physical activities, or other fitness-related topics. You can download a ton of fitness apps from the internet. Some are intended for calorie counting, while others keep track of workout statistics or gather information on the bike, run, and walk distances.
Some fitness applications link the user to a personal trainer or nutritionist to assist with specific fitness challenges or just fundamental workout issues.
Additionally, several fitness applications offer an organized playlist of tunes with the same beat for activities like running and exercise lessons. These applications are considered essential for anyone who aims to stay fit and maintained.
Benefits of Fitness Apps
Fitness or workout apps bring several benefits to users. These apps help maintain dietary plans, monitor processes, keep steps and calorie counts, and more. Here we have highlighted some of the advantages of fitness apps.
1. Footsteps Tracking
Users using pedometers in apps like Google Fit and Fitbit can monitor the number of steps necessary for managing their weight, blood sugar levels, and other factors. These can increase the number of steps taken each day and encourage users to reach their fitness objectives conveniently.
2. Set Objectives
With these apps, users can customize the focused factors to meet their own fitness objectives, such as target weight, foods to avoid, calorie intake, proportion, etc. Writing down such objectives motivates people to work towards them.
3. Diet Monitoring
Fitness apps like Waterlogged, Carrot Fit, etc., support users with weight loss or gain programs by assessing their daily calorie consumption, water intake, fat content, and carbohydrate content in their meals.
4. AI-Powered Personal Trainer
Most fitness applications have AI-enabled coaches that can advise you to perform your routines correctly. These trainers take on the role of human trainers and can also offer advice on how to increase your strength and endurance.
5. Workout Anytime
Thanks to this invention, you have the freedom to exercise whenever it’s convenient. You no longer have to rely on your dietician’s availability, go to the gym, or wait for a professional visit. Everything is now handy!
Additionally, as most home workout programs are geared towards at-home workouts, they develop exercises that don’t call for the purchase of special equipment. Therefore, you have no excuse to skip your workout, regardless of whether you are traveling for work, a family vacation, or any other cause.
6. Free Health Counseling and Suggestions
You can utilize your fitness app features to get unlimited, cost-free health advice to keep you active. Health apps may also suggest changes to your exercise routine and dietary habits based on your progress to achieve better outcomes.
7. Drives Users’ Motivation
Users are encouraged to maintain their fitness regimens through daily notifications, active reminders, and sharing success stories globally.
8. Availability of Numerous Nutritionists/Trainers
Finding a qualified health expert has been made easier due to online fitness apps, which have gathered a variety of dieticians, trainers, and fitness gurus in one location. Through the app, users can opt to receive assistance from these professionals whenever and wherever they are.
9. All-In-One Medical Tool
Fitness apps offer a convenient way to track various health indicators, including water intake, blood sugar levels, calories consumed, heart rate, BMR, and steps taken. Users are not required to keep separate logs.
Critical Steps in the Fitness App Development Process
People often think it’s challenging to create a fitness app; it actually is! But when divided into multiple steps, it becomes less intimidating. So, let’s run through the fitness app development process for a better understanding.
1. Identify the Niche
You should first focus on your fitness app idea because there are numerous ways that fitness app development can take place. Whether they offer guided meditations or on-demand workouts, each of these apps has distinctive features that affect the entire development process.
Find a pressing issue to address, assess the market’s viability, and quickly scan the top-grossing apps in the market. You are better prepared to choose wisely with these insights.
2. Discovery Phase
For the discovery phase, a business analyst is needed to conduct the competition analysis, target audience research, product concept refinement, and fitness industry technology. Based on the use cases, the business analyst will also produce the technical specifications for your featured fitness app. You should also specify the features of the MVP version at this time, choose a revenue strategy, and create your UI kit.
3. Pick A Suitable Tech Stack
Choosing the right technology helps in terms of performance. If you aim for a cross-platform app, it’s better to go for Flutter – as Flutter is considered best because of its performance, development time, and cost.
In case you don’t understand which tech stack is suitable to build a fitness app and find it challenging to come up with the right architecture, you can always pick a mobile app development company for better consultation and maybe for the creation of your dream app.
4. Construct the Concept and Specify the Feature List
It’s time to dissect your business concept and turn it into a proven proposition. Your development team will enhance your business analysis with new, valuable insights and give it a new perspective.
The vision of your development team at this point complements your first research. You and your coworkers will develop and finalize user personas, customer path maps, and essential app functionalities. Your value proposition will then be further developed based on this collaboration.
Finally, the entire research procedure is condensed into a quick summary of the audience and competition study. The primary goals of your solution are also described in this step.
5. Prototype And UI/UX
It’s time to shape the look and feel of your digital product now that pre-planning is complete. Your UI/UX designers will develop a few prototypes based on user personas and market research, then test them with a focus group of potential customers.
A prototype is an early version of your app’s interface that lacks any code but imitates the intended user flow. The final draught of your future interface is the prototype that receives the most favorable feedback. The development team is then provided with the final layout screens.
In general, your interface design should be very user-friendly and free of any extraneous panels or elements, such as a drawn-out sign-in procedure. For instance, the app should launch the user into the workout right away and support their navigation with screens for registration, onboarding, timetable, goals, and other crucial information.
6. Build and Test MVP
The initial version of your fitness app is a Minimal Viable Product (MVP). Since it simply includes the essential app functionalities, you may test your product hypothesis without investing much time or energy in the complete feature set.
The QA team verifies your MVP at this stage to ensure it meets both the technical and early business criteria—keep in mind to pick the right software testing services. Once your MVP is complete, developers release it to the App Store or Google Play Store to gather user feedback.
7. Track and Maintain
Once you get the feedback from the users, you can use it to decide which features are most in demand and to design a roadmap for future app development. To make your app viral, you should also begin marketing your product, initiate advertising campaigns, and examine user behavior.
However, you should consistently update and maintain your product to keep the bar high and guarantee long-term app success. Your solution will remain updated with new platform iterations, changing user needs, and intense competition with long-term application support.
Additionally, you should see user reviews for problem reports and update suggestions and keep tabs on your product’s performance using a built-in mobile analytics solution.
Essential Functionality and Features to Drive Engagement
There are some features and functionalities of these workout apps that drive engagement and get you the best results. So, let’s know about them.
1. User Registration and Profiles
The first thing a user does when accessing a fitness application creates a user profile. It is where they can personalize their exercise path. User registration or profiling includes the user’s details, including gender, weight, height, age, workout preferences, and fitness level, for customized workout and nutrition plans.
In addition, you may add a feature that allows users to upload photos showing the transformation before and after to make the app more engaging.
2. Integration with Wearable Devices
Gadgets like smartwatches, smart scales, fitness trackers, heart rate monitors, and more can give statistical data for your application. You can build workout-tracking apps for wearable devices to make it convenient for users to leave their smartphones at home and get the same features on their smartwatches or other trackers.
3. Personalized Workout Plans
Users sometimes require various training programs created by qualified trainers, whether you create a fitness app primarily for workouts or tracking purposes. This feature provides various options that can be tailored to different activities or difficulty levels.
Not all bodies respond to one plan. Therefore, it’s crucial that your health and fitness apps analyze each user’s preferences and goals and then provide personalized diet and exercise recommendations in line with those examinations. Users should have quick access to these at all times. Personalized workout plans are typically essential for the development of the user.
4. Social and Community Features
Sharing achievements always feels good, no? You can use social channel integration tools to create your own fitness app with features for social interaction. They enable people to post instantly about their athletic advancement and achievements. Users can create a post to their profile by combining the words and experiences from the app with an eye-catching image.
You can also make this feature advantageous and enhance user engagement in fitness apps. Just include the app’s name or a link to it. Users will do so to give it free social media promotion.
5. Progress Tracking and Analytics
Without tracking your progress, you cannot adequately attain your fitness goals. Everything can be counted, including repetitions, sets, calories, hours, miles, kilograms, and pounds.
The software users can monitor their progress in the aforementioned measurable units, get inspired by this knowledge, and keep using the tool to accomplish more.
In order to prevent data overload, fitness apps must not track excessive amounts of information. The user can easily and quickly get the full summary of their fitness regimen, including a route map with color-coded portions that represent the most active ones.
6. Gamification Elements
Everybody has performed five pushups or crunches when their favorite song is playing in the gym. Furthermore, anytime there is a goal to achieve, we prefer to push ourselves harder. Just consider what would happen if you achieve these goals and receive prizes as part of a game on your fitness app.
You must fulfill several tasks in this game. Penalties would apply if these chores weren’t finished. The penalties could take the shape of an activity, such as 250 burpees or money.
7. Push Notifications and Reminders
Push notifications play a crucial role in a workout plan app. When you think about how to create a fitness app, you imagine a variety of notifications about when to eat or work out. Reminders can assist users in knowing when to start or stop an exercise session.
However, when considering how to make fitness software simple to use, allowing users to pick their reminder frequency is crucial.
8. Challenges and Competitions
You can provide some competition to get people interested in sports and encourage them to utilize the app. Make a fitness app with competitive user leagues. Depending on their progress, they will compete with one another to join a more advanced league.
Users get points for completing training sessions and exercises; at the end of the season, the users with the most points progress to the successive league. They can be rewarded with distinctive badges or even a monthly premium subscription.
Moreover, gamification also results in the development of a strong user community. Therefore, it makes sense to establish a forum where accomplished athletes share their knowledge on how to maintain motivation, carry out workouts, and select sporting goods.
Best Practices for Successful Fitness App Development
The best practices you should be mindful of during app development for fitness:
- Prioritizing simplicity and user-friendly design
- Ensuring seamless data synchronization and security
- Incorporating gamification and social sharing features
- Integrating motivational elements and progress tracking
- Providing easy communication feature
- Offering personalized workout plans and recommendations
Emerging Trends in Fitness App Development
Now that you know all the essentials, it’s time to learn about the emerging fitness app trends. So, here are some:
o Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Future health and fitness apps are anticipated to make increasingly more precise and customized suggestions using AI and machine learning. Apps that can analyze user behavior predict the possibility of specific health disorders based on user data and offer personalized guidance on achieving particular fitness goals.
o Virtual Reality (VR) And Augmented Reality (AR)
Many people find it challenging to start a new diet or exercise routine. By offering virtual coaching and support, health and fitness apps are starting to address this problem and assist users in staying motivated and on track. Fitness apps that use VR and AR will offer immersive experiences to users who want to work out at home and make them more fun.
o Wearable Technology
With real-time data on users’ physical activity, heart rate, and sleep patterns, wearable technology has revolutionized the health and fitness industry. In order to provide users with a smooth user experience and allow them to track their progress and monitor their health in real-time, health and fitness apps are now beginning to interface with wearables.
The new wearables are expected to assess physiological data, like:
- Pulse Oxygen
- Blood pressure
- Respiratory rate
- Temperature
- Blood sugar level
As you work towards specific goals, you may use this technology to monitor your health and fitness. The information you gather may also be helpful in the diagnosis and treatment of disease.
o Telemedicine
In the healthcare industry, telemedicine is one of the fitness app trends that has made significant strides by allowing patients to consult with doctors virtually through video chats and other means. Telemedicine and health and fitness applications are beginning to work together to offer users more complete and integrated healthcare options.
Applications that let users arrange virtual consultations with medical specialists or those that employ machine learning algorithms to analyze user data and spot potential health issues that need medical attention fall under this category.
How Much Does It Cost for Fitness App Development?
The cost of the fitness app development process depends on the complexity of the features and functionality, the technological stack, duration, design, and more. According to the scope, the estimated cost to develop an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) fitness app with essential features ranges from $10,000 to $50,000 or more.
If you aim to build a highly-functional fitness app, keep a budget upwards of $100K or more. The development cost also varies based on whether you choose to hire an in-house development team like Codment or outsource your project.
Over To You!
People now understand the value of physical fitness, and this understanding has evolved into a modern trend or craze that will last for years to come. With technologically advanced equipment like developing sensors, switch controls, and digital atmospheric pressure meters, this industry has a bright future.
As a forward-thinking entrepreneur, you must seize this chance. The fitness app is an excellent approach for businesses to attract more clients and boost interest in their products and services.
Get in touch with Codment today to develop the ideal fitness app for your business.
