Dial up your fitness with a phone app

YOU must have grown bored of the novelty of sitting around in your pyjamas all day by now. It’s time to start thinking about how to stay fit during the lockdown, and we’ve got five apps to help you do that from the comfort of your own home...

DOWN DOG

(iOS and Android) With Down Dog you get a brand new yoga practice every time you come to your mat. Unlike following pre-recorded videos, Down Dog won’t make you do the same workout over and over again. With more than 60,000 different configurations, Down Dog lets you build a yoga practice you love! Down Dog has made access to all its apps free until May 1 to help people stay active during the lockdown (the free period is much longer for teachers, students and health workers). It’s essentially a simple but very effective yoga app, based on the ashtanga vinyasa yoga tradition, which features a more vigorous aerobic workout than yoga is usually known for. There’s a useful three-day starter programme for beginners and then all you do is select the kind of yoga you want to do and for how long, and the app chooses a workout for you – and it’s never the same twice. Down Dog also offers a few other apps worth noting – a yoga beginners app, a seven-minute workout app, a fully-featured HIIT app, and an app with workouts based on ballet barre work. They are all excellent. Free until May 1, then £7.99/ month or £48.99/ year)

STREAKS WORKOUT NIKE TRAINING CLUB

(iOS and Android)

Nike Training Club is your Ultimate Personal Trainer. Get fit with 185+ free workouts, from strength and endurance, to mobility and yoga – featuring our world-class Nike Master Trainers in every drill.

If you need structure, our personalised training plans adapt to you and your schedule for a one-way ticket to the body you want.

A colossal collection of guided workouts provided by some of Nike’s expert training partners, this

(iOS) The personal trainer that you actually want to use. Exercise at home, in the park, at the gym, anywhere! You don’t need any equipment – just need a few minutes and a floor.

You can customise exercises, making it great for all ages and abilities. There are 30 equipment-free exercises to choose from, four different workout lengths (approx. 6, 12, 18 or 30 minutes), and it syncs your data across iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV. £3.99 app could be the only one you need.

There are some routines that require equipment, but you can also tell the app you want to do bodyweight workouts only.

If you want something with structure, the app will even set up a training schedule for you to follow, and will adapt to your strengths and weaknesses as you progress.

And if you want to add running into the schedule, you can link up with the Nike Running Club app for a complete system.

Free

SEZZY TIMER

(iOS and Android)

The Sezzy Timer app not only shows you visually on the screen where you are up to in your workout, but it also provides you with auditory cues, through headphones or phone to tell you what’s coming up next.

In your longer intervals and workouts, it will also give you half way cues and countdown until you get a rest!

Sezzy is an incredibly successful YouTuber, hosting the Sarah’s Day channel, which has almost 1.4million subscribers and brings them lifestyle, health and fitness advice.

This app is not a workout app as such, but a timer that allows you to make sure you’re working out for the right amount of time. You can use it in conjunction with Sezzy’s ebook of workout sessions, which you can buy from her website, or you can use it with your own workout sessions.

It has the advantage of audio cues – which means you can set the timer, get on with your workout, and follow the cues without having to look at your phone.

£1.99 £4.99

Now we can chat for longer ALL the major fixed-line broadband providers in the UK have agreed to remove the data-caps on their services during the coronavirus pandemic. The move is part of an agreement the companies have made with the Government, which also includes help and support for those who are temporarily unable to pay their bills because of the virus lockdown. New packages with more “generous” data allowances are also in the offing to help people stay connected digitally while they must be apart physically. Among the providers signing up to the new agreement are BT, EE, Virgin Media, Sky, Talk Talk, O2, Vodafone and Three.

FACEBOOK is launching new tools to help more people get into live-streaming during the lockdown. Facebook Live will add the ability to stream audio only, and provide automatic closed captions to streaming video over the next couple of weeks. It’s also allowing people to tune into content even if they don’t have a Facebook account. For people who create content, Facebook is also expanding its Stars function to include musicians and cultural institutions to allow them to make money from their streaming work. This is aimed at helping those who have lost their income due to the lockdown switch to online productions.

they all have “personality”. Which means they can be irreverent, and sometimes downright rude. If you like that sort of thing, their Fit app might just be the one to get you motivated – it will not hesitate to insult you, if it thinks you’re not working hard enough.

Streaks Workout is a high intensity interval training app that aims to get you working out every day. It logs when you complete a session. Do two in a row and you’ve started a streak – and the longer it goes on, the less likely you will be to break it. It’s a habit forming app of the best kind. It’s customisable, too – you can choose from a vast selection of exercises, or even add your own. The built-in routines are basic, but you can create your own sessions from scratch.