Remember when everyone was talking about how millennials do not want to own stuff, as long as they can access it? Those were the days. The days when we did not need a house on the French Riviera as long as we had an AirBnb account; the days of who needs a car when you can call an Uber; the days when the size of your flat was not germane to your physical fitness because at any time you could zoom out to a nearby 24-hour gym and pump iron while chasing wrought-iron abs.
Well, those days are no more. At least for the foreseeable future. The coronavirus crisis has us restricted to supermarkets, pharmacies and, largely, our humble abodes. That is bad in several ways. One of these is that, unless you have a place with a garden, or a home gym (or both, if you own an outdoor gym, like farmer-cum-personal-trainer Tom Kemp), exercising properly is now a lot harder.
Judging from the procession of gaudily clad joggers gracing the view from my window, some of those property-spurning millennials have taken up running. But for those who do not like running, or who think that exercising should be about more than inanely hopping along the street while listening to old Talking Politics episodes, the other option is the home workout.
Now, you could – theoretically – draft a workout plan by yourself, striking the right balance of planks and squats, push-ups and pulses. But if ever there was a time when people might turn en masse to workout apps for advice, this is it. And the apps themselves are rising to the challenge: while most of them had been designed and marketed as aids for gym-goers, they are now beefing up their offers of home workouts and routines requiring no equipment.
Over the past three weeks, I decided to test four of the most popular apps, ranking them for effectiveness, interface, convenience and, importantly, compatibility with living in a relatively small flat.
Before we start, two caveats. First: I ignored the nutrition plans featured in most of these apps – as sticking to a rigid eating routine would have required more trips to the supermarket than advisable under present circumstances (see my review of Centr to give you some idea of the commitment required). Second: I worked out in my bedroom, a pitiable 4m by 3m affair taken up for the most part by a squeaky single bed. I decided against using my living room, as doing burpees and jump-squats in front of my Netflix-bingeing housemate would have not been conducive to a peaceable atmosphere.
Aaptiv
Aaptiv’s proposition is to lodge a happy-go-lucky personal trainer in your pocket. The app creates a weekly plan based on your settings, and every day you can pick from a range of workouts – all aiming for the same fitness goal (cardio, strength training, stretching), but each MC’d by a different trainer and accompanied by a different type of music.
The routines boil down to an audio file of the trainer soothingly giving (or frantically barking) instructions. While that might sound discomfiting on paper, I found it a breath of fresh air amid the current apocalyptic zeitgeist. More importantly: it works. It is genuinely energising. Once, during an intense training session with a trainer of clear Californian origin, I kept mishearing his “great job!” encouragements as “great Gian!” Now, that is ridiculous, but the point is that Aaptiv is effective at coaxing you into buying into its method.
The workouts are rewarding: a 30-minute full-body session feels like a proper workout for all the main muscle groups, which leads into breaking a sweat if done properly. Even better, whether by sheer luck or by design, most of these workouts can be completed without spreading your legs, rocking left and right, or side-shuffling – a trait that made them eminently suitable for my small bedroom.
The one real downside is also Aaptiv’s main strength: it is too audio led. When doing some of the most complex movements and exercises, I felt that a video element to supplement the trainers’ instructions would have greatly helped. Granted, you can access an archive of clips showing how to do certain movements – but that is not possible for every workout, nor for all the exercises.
Effectiveness: Aaptiv definitely feels like a workout
App: the UI is simple and solid
Cost: about £79 a year
Small-flat friendly: Extremely (I never had to skip an exercise for lack of space)
Score: 8/10
Fiit
I wish I lived in a bigger flat to take full advantage of Fiit. This app was clearly designed with storybook lovebirds cavorting on their sun-soaked verandas firmly in mind rather than quarantined millennial housemates vying for a right of way through their dining rooms. Think Harry and Meghan in California rather than housemates in Peckham.
Fiit works best when the app is linked to your TV, showing the video workouts on a big screen. The reason is that sessions can get complicated, and understanding how to make a movement correctly can become hard if you have to peer at your phone’s screen mid-squat. The trainers also tend to be of the show-don’t-tell type: often they’ll simply perform a movement rather than verbally explaining what you’re supposed to do. That is further complicated by the fact there is no way to rewind a video to check a movement.
That said, it would be unfair to dismiss it as a bad app. The workouts are challenging and rewarding, the trainers are charming and top-notch, the music and ambience in the videos are appropriate and distinctive. And although I struggled with keeping track of what was happening on my phone’s screen, I never had any significant problem with working out in my bedroom. If you have a normal-sized living room and a TV you can use without disrupting your housemate’s Red Dead Redemption marathon, go for Fiit. (It also features a Bluetooth-connected chest strap that kept malfunctioning because my chest wasn’t moist enough.)
Effectiveness: workouts are challenging; the trainers are likeable
App: lack of a rewind button is a misstep; best used on your TV
Cost: between £10 and £20 a month
Small-flat friendly: bedroom flat workouts possible, but best for a normal house
Score: 7/10
Freeletics
Now is as good a time as any to talk about jumps. If you live in a flat, chances are that you live above someone else. Jumps, burpees, and anything else involving hard-landing on your floor is something you want to avoid. Sadly, many workout apps actively encourage you to jump and bound about. Freeletics is not the only offender in this regard, but it was certainly the worst of this particular quartet – featuring up to a whole minute of jumps in certain sessions.
Other than that, though, I liked Freeletics. It is no-frill, spartan, almost blunt in its effectiveness. Based on your level of fitness, it creates a weekly plan with varied and articulated daily sessions – usually around 40 minutes each. Each movement is shown in a handy video clip, and each exercise features a timer that lets you know when you have to proceed to the next series. There is no trainer persona – only a raspy, no-nonsense voice counting down before you start – but that is absolutely on-brand.
Other than the fixation with jumps, one of Freeletics’s blemishes is a pushiness when it comes to sharing your results. Every time you finish a workout, the app will try and coax you into telling the world – i.e. Instagram – about your achievements. I found it a bit annoying.
Effectiveness: Intense workout, but too many jumps
App: the utilitarian aesthetics will grow on you
Cost: between £5.76 and £10.16 a month (higher if you also opt in for the nutrition feature)
Small-flat friendly: Jumps apart, there are plenty of workouts that are doable in smaller flats here
Score: 8/10
Nike Training Club
Nike Training Club is by far the most challenging app I tried. I had trouble finishing a full work-out session almost every time. Whether that is down to my poor physical fitness, or to the app being too unforgiving, I am not sure. What is certain is that, if you go for Nike Training Club, you will notice it. And – here we go again – so will whoever lives below you. (There is so much jumping and burpeeing.)
The app features a slightly more cheerful version of the kind of interface adopted by Freeletics. Each session is broken down into timed clips showing exactly how to do each exercise and for how long. Leaps and bounds apart, most of the exercises can be done in a small room with no difficulty.
The only clear flaw is that many sessions will be structured as rotations of three or four routines, done over and over again at varying intensity. There is certainly some merit to that method, but it can feel a touch repetitive or, at worst, outright tedious. However, we can cut Nike some slack about this. Why?Because the app is absolutely free of charge. Bargain.
Effectiveness: intense (maybe too much?); but at times repetitive
App: sleek
Cost: free
Small-flat friendly: generally good, although too much jumping
Score: 9/10
Gian Volpicelli is WIRED’s politics editor. He tweets from @Gmvolpi
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