In the 21st century, digitization is at its peak in the majority of fields and domains. The Fitness world is one of those domains. To attain a peak in the Fitness App Development domain, launching a fitness app is the best idea.
Nowadays, you don’t need a personal fitness trainer, you can also avoid visiting a gym, yoga center, or aerobics. Fitness is within your grasp i.e. with a few taps on a fitness app you will have every fitness training exercise available at your convenience.
Many fitness enthusiasts still believe that there is no alternative to a fitness trainer. But, many fitness apps built on emerging technologies such as Machine learning, Artificial Intelligence, and so on have a lot more to offer to this domain.
In fact, Nike’s –Nike Training club app saw a substantial rise in user count during the pandemic. This evidently drove online sales for Nike.
If you are thinking how do I create my own fitness app? Then you are in for a treat! Settle down and don’t set your eyes off this article.
Market Summary: Reasons to create a Fitness App
Revenue and growth
- The global fitness app market size was $1.1 billion in 2021 and further estimation predicts it to be $20.76 billion by 2028.
- The growth of health and fitness apps was 46% worldwide
- With the ongoing pandemic, the fitness app industry is going to be worth around $5.85 billion in 2022.
Users and downloads
- There were around 84 million fitness app users in 2021, which is a 22.7% increase in growth from the pre-pandemic count of 62.7 million in 2018, by the end of 2022 this number will eventually cross 86.3 million i.e. 2.73 % growth.
- Daily active users of fitness apps around the world moved up by 24% in the first half of 2021.
- There were a total of 656 million fitness apps downloads by the start of 2021
- Here is a graph that shows the growth of fitness wearables such as smartwatches, bands, and applications in the past few years
So what do you think? Are you ready to take the next step toward creating your own fitness app? If not we get it.
You are probably concerned about, how to create a fitness app or how much does it cost to create a fitness app? If so, keep reading the article and learn how to build a fitness app, and make your mark in the market.
But, before we go deep into the details of custom fitness app development, let’s understand the types of fitness apps.
Types of fitness apps
In today’s times, the best health and fitness apps are a major booster for healthcare or sports organizations. Not only it can work as a great platform for different organizations but also, help in advertising brands through the fitness app. No wonder businesses and organizations emphasize fitness app development.
The types of fitness apps shown in the image are trending amongst the users. Let’s explore them one by one.
1. Smart Fitness apps (Workout apps)
A workout application provides you with a personal fitness trainer on a smartphone. You are able to carry this personal fitness trainer anytime, anywhere for exercise.
The key features of these smart fitness apps are to help you with a perfect workout plan, precise exercising techniques, and managing your diet balance.
Workout and weight-loss apps cover 73% share of health and fitness apps.
These apps also allow users to track their progress and provide reports for analytical purposes. Further, a user can also integrate these applications with fitness wearables, and hence it will work as a custom workout app.
Keep in mind, these apps are further subcategorized into different types so, you can either choose to create a fitness app that contains all the categories or a specific one.
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✦ Personal trainer app
The personal trainer app takes distance out of the equation because; clients have access to the virtual personal trainer app. So, any trainer can use an online personal trainer app to train their clients via streaming, videos or give live training through an application to reach a maximum number of people worldwide.
A few examples are Sworkit, Fitmo, Handstand, Mycoach, Fitbit coach, etc.
✦ Gym Workout app
The gym workout app, allows users to create their personal gym workout. Further, users can also use the app to record gym workouts and save videos of different exercises of any gym trainer.
In short, you can develop a customized gym routine workout plan and track the progress for the same.
Best gym workout apps: ProGym workout, Gym Workout Planner, Gym WP, etc.
✦ Yoga and exercise apps
This app provides yoga services at the user’s convenience, for beginners, intermediate and experienced ones. The apps offer daily yoga activities with pre-loaded videos and also live streams, or 3D effects visuals of different yoga poses.
List of top yoga apps: Yoga 360, Down dog, Alo Moves, My fitness pal, etc.
Here are some uncommon features you must consider for your workout app development.
- Workout screens: Share the knowledge with users by creating a fitness app that explains each exercise in precise detail.
- Workout levels: Give an option to the user for selecting the level of exercise
- Workout identifying algorithms: Based on user activity, suggest the type of exercise that is best suitable for a user.
2. Fitness tracker App
The fitness tracker app is one of the most trending apps you can go for while you decide to create a fitness app.
These apps are specifically built for tracking user activity. While it tracks the user movements, it also generates reports for assessment.
✦ Running tracker App
It lets the users to track the routes, also enables options to choose between running, walking, and jogging. The run tracker app collects user information about the number of steps taken, stairs climbed, sleep hours, distance and speed run, also calories burned.
Some of the best running distance tracker apps: Human pacer, Set go, Run Keeper, Nike Run Club, and more.
✦ Cycling tracking app
In this tracker app, users can build their own routes, track the routes, record the rides, and also know about the free roads. This helps users to finish their cycling routine without any delay.
Above all, users can get a daily weekly, or monthly report on calories burnt or track down their progress.
Best cycle tracking apps: Strava App, Map My Ride App, koomot App, etc.
✦ Gym tracker app
Here, a progress report is built on the basis of wearables, sensors, and NFC tags for the gym-goers. With all these details a daily report will be generated, this determines your daily gym progress.
Here are some apps to track gym progress: FitNotes, Gym Workout planner, and more.
When you decide to build your own fitness app, check out these must-have features in your fitness tracking apps.
- Third-party integration apps integration: This allows the app to sync with other fitness apps and smart wearables.
- Workout database: Add more valuable data during the fitness app development.
- Workout notes: let users add their workout notes to your fitness app.
3. Nutrition and Diet apps
A balanced diet keeps a person healthy. This is the reason why many people choose to go with nutrition or diet apps. That being said, it is always good to keep an eye on calorie intake.
Diet and nutrition apps are specifically designed with the purpose of planning food and simplifying the entire diet process. It allows users to peek into microelements consumed by them and that too with an exact amount.
You can choose to go with a fitness app alongside the diet app; this will lure many customers towards using your fitness application.
While nutrition and diet app development keep two categories in mind:
✦ Weight loss apps
This category is for the ones, who are looking forward to staying fit and taking an extra mile in order to lose extra weight off their body. The list of such subcategory apps include- my plate Calorie Counter, 8fit, My Net Diary, Lose it, and so on.
✦ Apps for gym
The user may fall into this category if they are finding tips on food for muscle gain. This type of app specifically focuses on gaining appropriate weight.
Few examples of such applications: Dr.muscle, MyFitnesspal, etc.
Following are the must-have features while nutrition and diet app development.
- Large database of a variety of Food: This is the main feature of your diet app. Collect as much information you can for your application database.
- Advanced Filters have an advanced filter in order to retrieve a single recipe from a huge database.
- Add custom Food or recipe: Allow a user to add his/he own food or recipe.
So, these were all types of fitness apps, and how you can make your fitness app a better version using all the apps from the categories mentioned above.
Finally, it’s time to answer the question- How to create a fitness app?
How to create a Fitness App?
We can definitely say out loud that the mobile app development process is a part of building any mobile application but,
If you are under the false pretence that fitness app development falls under the mobile app development process then you are making a mistake. The reality is completely different.
Let’s have a look at some important points to make your fitness app stand apart from others:
✦ Know your audience & Choose a Type of Fitness App
It’s a no-brainer that, market analysis is the most important factor of consideration while you are planning to create a fitness app. Find out the best type of fitness app with a wide user base. Check if your idea falls into the same category and start the analysis.
To have a better chance of success perform a SWOT analysis to get an idea regarding Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats of your competitors.
Further, you can also keep the following aspects in mind while targeting your audience.
- Conduct polls to present your idea to more and more people around you. You can also reach out to these people either online or offline (GYM, park,etc.)
- Analyze the reviews and build documents for better understanding.
- After reviews and documentation, build or rethink your fitness app idea
- Test and again analyze your idea by sharing it within your in-house team or with an app development company.
- By following these steps, you will be able to know your target audience and also get a rough idea about, who are your early adopters.
Summary,
Keep in mind the two core aspects:
- The weakness and strengths of competitors’ fitness app
- Who are the early adopters of your fitness app?
✦ Proper market research and Unique value proposition
Once you have chosen the type of fitness app, it’s necessary to know what the market scenario is, the latest trends, and the services that your competitors offer to the end-user.
How to begin?
Basically, you need to find a common issue faced by users in your niche. Once you do that, come up with a feasible solution to that issue via your fitness application. This is the best way to draw the attention of users.
In short, be aware of what are the pressing needs of your early adopters.
Moving on,
Unique Value proposition
You can decide the USP (Unique selling point) of your fitness app by following the formula.
“The formula- X for Y substitute”
For a better understanding, consider the following example- you like the concept and features of a FitOn app. You will know the pros and cons of the app as well, so just frame your idea around what feature will you include in your fitness app and also, how to pull one over FitOn to avoid any copyright issues.
You can also define USP by getting answers to the questions like- “What?” , “How?”, “Who?” and “Do what?”
Further, you can also finalize your strategy via a fitness app business model canvas. Every important aspect revolving around your business app is covered under the business canvas model. Have a look at an example of a business canvas that might come in handy while developing a fitness app:
✦ Decide on the key features of Fitness App Development
The best fitness app is feature-rich. So, never think about compromising the features because they are the primary source to get user attention.
Earlier in the article, we have seen some important features in different app categories, let’s have a glance at some other features which require more attention.
- User login: Allows users to log in via social media and also, manual login.
- Onboarding: It is useful when you need to provide a quick summary of your app to your first-time users.
- User Profile: Collect user information such as name, birth date, age, weight, and so on.
- Set goals: Allow users to set goals for their workouts and diet practice.
- Activity tracking: Permits users to keep track of their workout via daily reports.
- Live Streaming: Provide users to attend live sessions with fitness coaches, and share their reviews.
- Push Notifications: Receive new notifications for events, workouts, recipes, etc.
- Advance filters: Provide users with advanced filters to easily navigate your app and find the relevant content.
- Join the community: let users share their point of view and also, acquire knowledge from community groups.
- Workout plans: A user can plan his/her workout and diet through the fitness app.
- Third-party integration: Synchronize with wearables and other third-party apps.
- Social Media sharing: Enables users to share the progress reports on social media.
- Calorie count: whether you create a fitness app or diet app, calorie count works well in both conditions.
- Geolocation: Allows users to track the routes for cycling, walking, running, and also record the current distance.
- Help & Support: Connect to the customer team in case of any queries or issues.
- Reviews and feedback: Allow users to share their reviews on the video, recipe, and other such content.
✦ Choose an app development company
To start with app development, along with researching niche and domain, it is important to choose the application development company wisely. A company with prior experience in the same domain can boost your business with its fitness app development service.
So, we suggest you decide on the region of the app development firm and then proceed with the quest to hire one.
Once you have worked on the region part, it’s time to comprise a list of top 10 app development companies. Later, choose the top 3 which meet your fitness development requirements.
Interview the developers of all three companies, and look at their solutions or proposal for your workout app. So, if a company fits your budget, needs, and demand without any compromise in your fitness app product, hire them.
Why don’t you hire us! We have a brilliant team who dedicate their passion to transforming an idea into reality. Don’t think! Hit us with your fitness app idea.
By now you know how to create a fitness app, you may be curious to know the steps to create a fitness app. So, keep reading and get a detailed insight.
Steps to Create a Fitness App
✦ Analysis and discovery
The clients share their fitness app development idea; our BA (Business Analysis) team conducts an analysis of the idea and discusses the necessary output and suggestions with the clients.
Every important decision right from the app development platforms to the technology stack and a project timeline is covered under this stage. In the later phases, we get approval from the client.
This way our app development team kick starts the process of building a fitness app.
✦ UI/ UX design process
It is the first stage where your fitness app development is actually transformed into reality i.e. the app idea is sketched in the form of wireframes.
Wireframing is the first step, which is further followed by mockups, prototypes, high-fidelity app designs, and final app design.
Here, a high-fidelity prototype is the closest a developing team gets to the final app development.
✦ App development
This phase consists of two parts: Front-end and Back-end.
The front end is the part that is visible to the user. The front-end interacts with the user, whereas the back-end is responsible for storing and receiving data from servers.
Here, different sets of teams work for the front-end and back-end of the fitness app development. Later these two ends combine with different APIs and provide extra features to the application.
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✦ Testing of App
Testing involves various iterations like tracking mobile app KPIs, working on user feedback, defining app issues, bug fixing, and working on the enhancement of overall app functionality.
In short, the fitness app goes under rigorous functional and non-functional testing to make the app bug-free.
✦ App Launch Stage
The time taken, for an app review and the procedure to launch the app in the Play Store and App store varies.
Our team has experience in making the app live on both the play stores. So all you need to do is share the information, and the rest of the procedure will be taken care of by our team.
The review process of your fitness app may take 1 or 2 weeks. This is the development process for your fitness app.
Bonus- Fitness App Monetization strategy
Paid download model
Paid apps are effective, especially for brands or a new startup. The reason why people pay for downloads is because of the uniqueness or value of a particular app.
This model will instantly provide you with money but, you will need a sophisticated team of developers who will constantly keep updating your app with new features and functionalities.
Ad-based Model
With this model, you need to portray the advertisements of your partners in the app itself. You can agree on a fixed amount with your partners for displaying their ads.
You can also display different types of ads such as video ads, picture ads, and so on. However, you have to make sure of the fact that you don’t overdo the advertisement because you may lose users.
Paid subscription model
This model allows users to use new features for free and provides an option to upgrade to the advanced level features by buying a subscription.
The paid subscription model is one of the best revenue models in each industry niche. In fact, all fitness apps have in-app purchases included.
Final words- How to create a Fitness App?
The fitness app is one of the trending startup ideas in recent times and stats prove that point throughout this article.
Webbybutter is an experienced healthcare and fitness app development company. With loads of expertise in building fitness applications, we will surely help you come up with some unique and out-of-the-box solutions for your fitness app development and provide people with one of the best fitness apps.
