feel good [ HEALTH ]
THE BIG THREE FITNESS APPS
Boca Raton asked Rio Santana, who manages the Institute of Human Performance (1950 N.W. Boca Raton Blvd., Boca Raton), which fitness apps the local gym’s personal trainers recommend to their clients. Santana says these are their top three.
Put down that phone! Bogus blood pressure readings
Using your smartphone to measure blood pressure might not be smart, according to recent research. Sales were stopped last year for Instant Blood Pressure, a mobile blood pressure app by AuraLife, when Johns Hopkins’ researchers concluded the app gave inaccurate readings in four of every five people. Researchers estimated that about 148,000 versions of the app had been sold in a year’s time. Scary thing is, the app was known to dangerously underestimate blood pressure readings. Yikes!
and eating times. It’s cool stuff, Santana says. • Fitbit’s app (fitbit.com/app) is designed to work with Fitbit activity trackers and smart scales. It counts your steps. IHP trainers recommend that people use Fitbit to track activity on off-exercise days to see how many calories they burn, how many steps they take and how far they’ve gone, as well as their average heart rates, when they’re not working out. There are Apple and Android versions of the free app. This fitness app tracks daily goals and progress in steps, distance and calories burned. It also logs food intake. • FullFitness, downloadable from iTunes, is an exercise workout trainer. This one isn’t free. The day we checked, it was on sale for $2.99 a month. But you plug in what you’re looking for, like weight loss. It offers nearly 30,000 exercises, and you can customize and time workouts. So if you say you want to work out three days a week and only target your lower body, back and chest, FullFitness will give you a plan, according to Santana. The app offers videos and pictures, including a skeleton to show you which muscle groups you’re working. Santana believes it’s a good jumpstart to fitness. And as a local addition to these fit-friendly apps, Miami-based Spafinder Wellness AARON BRISTOL
• MyFitnessPal (myfitnesspal.com) is a free mobile calorie counter that tracks your food intake. You can add to your food diary with just a few clicks from anywhere with an Internet connection. With more than 5 million foods in its database, MyFitnessPal gives you calorie counts on just about everything you eat and drink. You can also look up calories burned with specific exercises. The coaches at IHP love it because clients can email their trainers what they ate on any given day, in a PDF or Excel spreadsheet. The trainers can see clients’ calorie consumptions, food intakes
Rio Santana
launched The Wellness App for iOS and Android this past March. The free app allows users to find, book, pay for and earn rewards points when they use a global network of more than 25,000 wellness businesses, including yoga studios, spas, fitness clubs and wellness travel destinations. Other features include notifications of nearby deals, descriptions of businesses and reviews. It’s available in Apple’s App Store and on Google Play. Visit spafinder.com/thewellnessapp.
The American Heart Association gives its thumbs up to these mobile health apps: Fitocracy • Strava • Nike Training Club • Runkeeper • Daily Yoga • Charity Miles For more about each of these, visit heart.org. 42
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BOCAMAG.COM july/august 2016
feelgood 0716.indd 42
5/31/16 10:55 AM