Let’s get physical
YOU DON’T NEED AN EXPENSIVE GYM MEMBERSHIP OR PRICEY SPORTS GADGETS; HERE’S HOW TO GET FIT FOR FREE.
THE QUEST FOR physical fitness can often seem too difficult. Leaving aside the requisite determination and tenacity required, there are all the financial requirements that make it too easy to put it into the ‘too hard’ basket, between the costly monthly gym membership, the even costlier personal trainer sessions, and the various fitness gadgets that help you keep track of your progress and stay motivated.
However, the smartphone you already have in your pocket is more than capable in assisting you improve your fitness. Here’s how you can track steps, log workouts and follow exercise routines for free via your mobile.
APPLE iPHONE
iPhones as old as the 5S have a built-in motion co-processor that independently tracks your daily steps — even when the device is asleep. Essentially, it’s like a Fitbit or other fitness tracker, and if all you want is something to track steps, you can stick with the function built into your iPhone. (Note, fitness bands typically offer additional features like sleep tracking and heart-rate monitoring.)
To access the step count data, open the iPhone’s native Health app and tap on the Today tab at the bottom of the screen. This will show the activity data for the current day, including walking and running distance, number of steps and number of flights of stairs climbed. You can see a graph that depicts the hours of the day that you accomplished those steps, and tapping on the week, month and year tabs at the top lets you compare your daily step count across different time periods. It also gives you an average weekly, monthly and yearly step count, and you can add steps manually by pressing the ‘+’ button on the right.
SAMSUNG
The latest Samsung devices come with a sophisticated Samsung Health app that not only track your steps in the background, but can automatically log workouts and gives you daily and weekly insights into your progress. The trick with Samsung Health is that it doesn’t automatically start doing this from the get-go (unlike the iPhone). To get started, you need to open the app and enter all of your info, after which point, it can start gathering your fitness data automatically.
The Samsung Health app is incredibly comprehensive. It tracks a broad spectrum of physical activities in surprising detail, and is smart enough to automatically detect when you’re running, tracking everything from duration, distance and calories, through to average speed, pace and elevation. It also offers various features to bring out your competitive streak, with both community-and friend-based step challenges.
One of the best things about the Samsung Health app is that it doesn’t simply log your fitness metrics. After you’ve been using the app for a few days, it takes the fitness data that it’s collected and spits out detailed insights and recommendations that encourage you to improve your performance, with personalised daily and weekly reports that compare your current stats with earlier performance and also benchmarks you against other Samsung
Health users that match your demographics. On newer devices like the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8, you can even measure your current heart-rate, stress level and SpO2 level (the amount of oxygen in your blood) using the rear-mounted heart-rate sensor.
HUAWEI
The latest Huawei phones automatically track your steps without any additional intervention on your part. Even better, this data isn’t hidden away in an app — a quick swipe right across the screen, which produces the system-wide search function — also reveals a basic step counter, along with calories burnt and distance travelled.
If you want more detail and additional functions, however, you’ll need to log into the pre-installed Huawei Health app, and this is definitely a worthwhile endeavour given the extra features on offer. While the Samsung Health app crams in almost every fitnessrelated feature possible, Huawei Health goes for a more pared-down approach, displaying a daily tally of steps and calories burnt, along with a progress indicator that quickly shows your tracking against your daily step goal. These steps can be benchmarked against weekly, monthly and yearly performance, and you can also log a handful of cardio exercises (outdoor and indoor runs, walking and cycling) with live GPS tracking.
The Huawei Health app also comes with useful training plans that are designed to help you achieve running goals, whether you’re aiming for your first 5km or going all-out on a full 42.2km marathon.