Listen, your girl loves a solid workout just as much as anyone else. But given the option to exercise or to sleep in an additional 45-ish minutes, I’m obviously opting for the snooze button. The answer to my sleeping-yet-still-want-to-sweat qualm: fitness apps.
If you want to do a quick 15-minute workout in the middle of the night because that’s when it’s most convenient for you, there’s an app for that. No signups or gymtimidation here, ya’ll.
Plus, with all the free time we have now, lots of fitness apps are running special promos, deals, and free trials to provide some ~extra~ endorphins. Whether you’re an athlete or just looking for an extra butt plump, we’ve sifted through the best apps out there. Behold our favorites.
Table of Contents
If you want to be apart of a community:
Fit Body App
Sculpt
Anna Victoria is one of the leading Instagram “influencers” who wants to make it as easy as possible for you to workout. She offers three different kinds of workouts through her app: Tone, which features strength and cardio, Shred, which focuses on high-intensity body-weight only exercises, and Sculpt, which is designed for gaining strength at the gym.
She also offers members-only Facebook pages and newsletters for FBG girls to connect with other FBG girls as an option to trudge through the workouts and meal plans together.
$17/month or $120/year on iTunes
If you’re new to this whole fitness thing:
FIT
FIT
Emily Skye, an Australian-based fitness model turned personal trainer created plans that allow you to work out from home or venture to a gym. Each plan is comprised of five new workouts a week. Bonus fact: After Emily’s first pregnancy, she actually used her own app to start working out again—and documented it all on her Instagram here.
$20/month or $120/year on iTunes
If the main reason you don’t workout is because you have zero time:
Seven
Seven
The rumors are true: These workouts only take seven—yes, seven!!!—minutes. But in the words of my savior Britney Spears, you gotta work, b*tch… even if it’s only seven minutes. The app’s creators say each workout is meant to provide the maximum benefit in the shortest time possible (so yeah, it won’t be easy—but it will be over soon). Set your goal and fitness level to optimize results for the quickest, most effective workout you could ask for.
Free on iTunes
If you want to pretend like you’re at the gym without ever going to the gym:
GOLD’s Amp Fitness and Training
GOLD’s Amp
Yup, this app is brought to you exclusively by Gold’s Gym. It has over 600 indoor and outdoor workouts. You’ll find bodyweight strength training routines, core workouts, outdoor running coaches, stretching, meditation, and more. Oh, and they have a DJ-curated playlist for every workout, based on whatever you like to jam to when you’re doin’ burpees.
Free until May 31st, 2020 with promo code on iTunes
If you like lots of options:
All Out Studio
All Out
Sometimes you want to start a real fitness program with guidelines and rules—and sometimes you just want to take a cardio dance class in your underwear and call it a day. Welp, All Out Studio is pretty awesome for both of those situations. The app has more than 100 on-demand workout videos you can stream anytime (including a few from yours truly) taught by certified trainers.
You can choose from strength sessions, yoga and stretching workouts, dance cardio classes, each ranging from 10 to 60 minutes. If you want an actual regimen, the app also has plans you can follow along with created by Insta-famous trainers. Who says being indecisive is a bad thing?,
$15/month or $99/year on iTunes and Google Play
If you want to level-up your belfie game:
Tammy Fit
Tammy Fit
Kardashian-adjacent model and fitness influencer Tammy Hembrow created her strength-based fitness app to help people get a “piece of the Tammy Hembrow lifestyle.” And, just guessing here, I think they mean her butt. Sign up for the app, enter info about your fitness goals and your current activity level, and the app suggests a plan, like a beginner booty workout, an advanced version of that plan, a post-pregnancy regimen, plus an at-home and at-the-gym full body workout plans.
Each plan features three to five workouts a week, focusing on resistance and weight training. There’s something for everyone here, but judging by the before and after pics on the app’s Instagram page, booty gains are definitely included.
$15/month or $74/year on iTunes and Google Play
If you love you a Fitbit:
Fitbit Coach
Fitbit
If you want your fitness app to know your life, this is your jam. The Fitbit Coach uses data collected from your wearable, like the Fitbit Versa, to recommend exercises specifically for you and your fitness level. From there, you’ll follow equipment-free workouts via video demonstration on the app or follow along as the app audio coaches you through a run or walk. During the workouts, which range from 6 to 60 minutes, the coach suggests modifications, gives tips on form, and cheers you on (you’re doing great, sweetie!). If you upgrade to premium, you’ll get custom workouts based on your fitness goals, like gaining muscle or improving your strength, rather than your current fitness status.
Free on iTunes and Google Play or $5/month or $50/year for Fitbit Coach Premium
If you’re all about aesthetic:
Obé Fitness
Obe
We’re not giving out superlatives here, but if we were, this would be named “prettiest in the class,” thanks to the rainbow-colored room each workout is shot in. But she’s not all about looks. The app features live classes (15 per day!) and streaming workouts, like strength and resistance training, yoga, and cardio. Although Obé suggests you do three strength training and two cardio classes per week, you can totally choose your own adventure here. And with boutique-style classes like Dance HIIT and Pilates, your short attention span will be very entertained.
$27/month or $200/year on iTunes
If challenges get you psyched to work out:
30 Day Fitness Challenge
30 Day Fitness Challenge
Download the app, create your profile, and enter how many pushups you can do, how long you can run, and how often you exercise and the app will put together weekly equipment-free workout routines. That’s cool and all, but the 30-day challenge feature will get you even more pumped about going after your fitness goals. Select a challenge like Cardio Blast or Sexy Legs and Butt and tune in daily for your workout vid, which range from 14 to 26 minutes each.
$5/week on iTunes and Google Play
If you want to make this fitness thing a habit:
8fit Workout and Meal Planner
8Fit
You out here just trying to move more than you normally do? Then, a custom workout routine by 8fit could be clutch. The app chooses a workout plan for you based on your weight, goals, and criteria like how many pushups you can do in a row. From there, you can expect a body weight workout from 8fit three to five days a week. Plus, the app can also track your steps, encouraging you to walk it out more frequently when you’re not sweating it out. And if that 10- to 20-minute sweat sesh isn’t enough for you, throw in one of their “classes” like yoga and core strength.
$60/year or $30/3 months on iTunes and Google Play
If you don’t own a single fitness prop:
Freeletics Bodyweight
Freeletics GmbH/ iTunes
The free version of this app includes 900 equipment-free workouts based on time rather than a set number of reps. Chose between high-intensity interval training and strength-building workouts, which last between 5 and 30 minutes.
For a fitness assessment and custom plan to help you reach specific fitness goals, like building muscle or increasing your endurance, you can opt into a 12-week coaching plan beginning at $35.
Free on iTunes and Google Play
If you’re new to working out:
Aaptiv
Aaptiv/iTunes
Aaptiv has more than 2,500 on-demand workouts lasting as few as seven minutes for different fitness levels, including beginner. Each sweat session is led by a trainer who talks you through a treadmill or outdoor run, elliptical session, race training, cycling, strength training, stretching, or yoga. Even better: Each is set to a playlist made of popular songs you might actually know, as opposed to lame stock music.
$15/month, $100/year (with 30-day free trial) on iTunes and Google Play
If you’re ready to start running:
C25K 5K Trainer
Zen Labs/ iTunes
Set your sights on a mini goal of running a 5K (just over 3 miles) in two months with the app that literally talks you through three 30- to 40-minute runs (including a five-minute warm-up and cooldown) per week. Don’t worry: Each session alternates between walking and running so you can build up your endurance and includes an optional playlist keep you in the zone.
$5/month or $50/year on iTunes and Google Play
If you can’t handle long workouts:
Workout for Women
Fast Builder Limited
If you like your workouts quick and dirty, this totally free (!!!) app exclusively offers seven-minute workouts—no equipment needed. Featuring a mix of strength-building and cardio moves like butt kicks, squat jumps, donkey kicks, and planks, each workout includes video and audio instructions to keep you motivated and your form on point.
Free on iTunes
If you’re training for a race:
Nike + Run Club
Nike
Whether your goal is to simply survive or hit a new personal record, you need a training plan to get you across the finish line. The Nike + Run Club app customizes its 5K-, 10K-, 15K-, half-marathon-, or full-marathon-training plans based on your current pace, the furthest distance you can run, and how often you’re willing to get out there. Then, it adapts based on your progress (and all those runs you inevitably skip) so your goal remains in reach.
Free on iTunes and Google Play
If you love yoga but prefer not to pay per class:
Daily Yoga
Daily Yoga
For the price of one hella bougie yoga class, you get 12 months of access to more than 100 guided beginner- to master-level yoga and meditation videos with audio instructions. The app also features yoga workout plans for various goals such as becoming more mindful or getting toned, which include a series of classes and individual poses. Or if you want to master one specific pose, like a headstand, you can choose from more than 500 moves and follow the video instructions.
$10/month or $40/year on iTunes and Google Play
If you live for variety:
Studio Tone It Up
Tone It Up
From Instagram-famous Tone It Up trainers Karena Dawn and Katrina Scott, this app offers a fresh GIF-based workout every day—for free. If you’re feeling extra, you can purchase a Studio membership, which offers access to 40 on-demand workout videos, including yoga, kickboxing, cardio, toning, kettlebell, and strength-training. The upgrade also features new live-streaming classes every week, which you can join via your phone.
$13/month or $84/year on iTunes
If you want to break a sweat without running:
Nike Training Club
Nike
Cardio is hard, but you don’t have to jump on a treadmill to get it done. Nike Training Club has more than 160 mostly fast-paced 15- to 45-minute workouts (including circuit training, bodyweight training, and weight training) that get your heart rate up fast. Filter workouts based on body part, required equipment, or goal, like building endurance or strength. You can then follow an instructional video, or once you’ve mastered your form (or your phone’s battery is low), refer to a simple list of moves. The app also has yoga and stretching exercises for when you need a breather.
Free on iTunes and Google Play
If you love Spin but hate the pricey classes:
Peloton Cycling and Workouts
Peloton
This app brings live Spin classes and on-demand cycling workouts to your phone for a fraction of the cost of most cycling studios. The monthly membership gets you 14 live-streaming rides per day (lol, good luck). When you need a break from the bike, tune into one of 8,000 on-demand exercise videos, which also include classes like yoga, strength training, and stretching.
$13/month on iTunes
If you want a little guidance in the weight room:
SWEAT
SWEAT
Intrigued but unexperienced? Learn the basics of lifting with SWEAT’s four-week PWR program for beginners, which entails three weight-training sessions plus three cardio workouts per week. Led by Instagram fitness star Kelsey Wells, it preps you for the app’s 12-week strength-building program, which involves heavy-weight, low-rep exercises performed with free weights or weight machines.
Each workout lasts 45 minutes to an hour and includes an eight-minute warm-up; three to four sets of three different strength-training moves; two sets of circuit training; and a five-minute cool down. Around week five, expect an extra two minutes of burnout exercises designed to push you to the limit at the end of your workout.
Bonus: The app also provides access to Kayla Itsines’s BBG program, a fitness plan based on bodyweight exercises to keep your strength up on days you can’t get to the gym.
$20/month on iTunes and Google Play
If you want to lift your butt:
30-Day Squat Challenge
Jozic Productions Pty Ltd
You don’t have to do squats for booty gains, but they sure don’t hurt. Depending on your fitness level, daily workouts include as few as 10 basic squats (in the beginner level one program) or as many as 50 wide squats and 50 sumo squats (in the advanced level two program). From there, the app gradually turns up the intensity by increasing reps and incorporating more difficult squat variations over the course of 30 days. Each week includes one rest day to help your muscles recover.
Free on iTunes and Google Play
If you want to sculpt your core:
Sworkit Abs and Core
Sworkit
This mini, free version of the subscription-based Sworkit app features three core workouts: one for your abs, one for your back, and one that targets both. Once you pick your routine, select how much time you have (between 5 and 55 minutes), and the app puts together a series of challenging but easy-to-follow exercises. Each move is demonstrated via video and an audio voiceover, which calls out the next move when it’s time to switch. Over time, as you get stronger, you can lengthen workouts to challenge yourself even more.
Free on iTunes and Google Play
If your body is sore AF:
Stretching and Flexibility Plans
Gabriel Lupu
When everything hurts, this app will guide you through 50 stretching routines sorted by fitness level and workout time via instructional video to improve your flexibility and (hopefully) ease your pain a little. Or if you want to go rogue, you can browse through 300 different stretches or create your own stretching routine to follow.
$10/six months or $18/year on iTunes
