The increasing awareness about mental and physical fitness and the trend of home workouts (led by the coronavirus outbreak) has made fitness a billion-dollar industry. As per a report by Business of Apps, global health and fitness apps generated $4.12 billion last year, with the highest revenue generated from the United States of America.
The increasing market growth and demand for fitness mobile apps provide businesses with opportunities to invest in fitness app development by connecting with the right partner. Businesses can choose a fitness app development company or hire dedicated fitness app developers to develop robust, scalable, and secure apps.
How to Build a Fitness App: Step-by-Step Guide
Before you connect with a fitness mobile app development company for fitness app development services, it is great to know about the step-by-step process for fitness app development solutions.
Ideation and Conceptualization
The first step involves collecting and analyzing the custom requirements of a business to define the app’s purpose, target audience, and USPs. It also includes researching the market trends and competitors to figure out what problems the fitness app will solve.
Planning and Strategy
In the next step, the fitness mobile app development company designs a detailed project plan, such as the project timelines and budgets. Moreover, it includes deciding the technology stack and deployment platform for the apps or fitness app development solutions.
Designing UI/UX
Developing wireframes and prototypes is the next step a fitness mobile app development company follows for fitness app development solutions. The design team builds an intuitive and user-friendly UI/UX to make the fitness app stunning.
Coding
In this phase, the development team at the fitness app development company writes the code using the selected technology stack. It also involves integrating advanced features like workout tracking, nutrition tracking, and more. Fitness app developers also integrate APIs to make fitness apps compatible with wearables and other devices.
Testing
Testing is crucial to ensure the fitness app works seamlessly on all targeted devices and platforms. Fitness app developers also verify that the app complies with the defined privacy regulations, such as GDPR or HIPAA.
Deployment
The development team at the fitness app development company deploys it on the Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store by following the guidelines and adhering to the defined standards.
Post-Launch Support and Maintenance
Reliable fitness app development services providers offer post-deployment support and maintenance services to monitor the app’s performance and collect user feedback.
What are the Different Types of Fitness Apps?
Exercise and Workout Apps
The exercise and workout apps allow users to exercise and work out anywhere at any time. They can do strength training, cardio, yoga, and other exercises. Such apps generally include video demonstrations, timers, and workout-tracking features. Advanced exercise apps also offer posture detection powered by .
Nutrition and Diet Apps
Nutrition apps allow users to have balanced diets to gain/shed weight or maintain a healthy lifestyle. They can plan meals, count calories, and monitor various food/water intake. Some advanced nutrition and diet apps also offer food recipes to help users cook meals.
Health Tracking Apps
Health-tracking mobile apps facilitate weight management. Users can set their fitness goals and log their progress. They can connect these apps with fitness devices and trackers to improve accuracy and track fitness-related activities.
Mental Health and Meditation Apps
These apps aim at reducing stress and promoting mental well-being. Users can receive guided meditation sessions and learn innovative relaxation techniques.
Sleep Tracking Apps
Sleep-tracking mobile applications empower users to monitor their sleep patterns and get insights into their sleep time and duration. They can also receive tips to improve sleep quality and hygiene.
Personal Trainer Apps
With such an app, users can get personal training sessions, and fitness experts can provide these sessions. They can get personalized workout plans to achieve their fitness goals.
Women Health Tracking Apps
These apps focus on women’s health needs to empower them to manage and track menstrual cycles, pregnancy, breastfeeding, and other aspects of their health.
Benefits of Fitness Apps
Besides helping users with healthy and fit lifestyle management, fitness mobile applications offer numerous other advantages. Here are some of them:
Convenience Different fitness mobile applications offer users the convenience of working out from their homes, having a nutritional diet, and tracking health-related information and other information to achieve health goals.
Personalization With fitness apps, users can personalize workout and diet plans as per their custom body requirements and health goals. It enhances user experience and improves the chances of an app’s success.
Revenue Opportunities The demand for fitness and wellness app development is increasing. These apps offer excellent revenue opportunities to businesses as they can generate income via in-app advertisements, in-app purchases, and subscriptions.
Research Opportunities Fitness apps also offer several advantages in research-related tasks. With the data collected by these apps, researchers can diagnose various health issues and find their cure.
Competitive Edge Fitness and wellness apps offer businesses a competitive edge by allowing them to ensure users’ convenience. These apps also boost customer experience, which builds a positive brand image.
Features of a Fitness Mobile App The features of all fitness apps are different. However, the features required for your fitness app’s success are as follows:
Basic Features
Sign up and Sign in With the sign-up or registration feature, users can register for the fitness apps. Sign-in allows them to access their account from any device.
Fitness Tracker It enables users to track their workouts and nutrition. They can track reps, sets, weight, calorie intake, macronutrients, and other activities with a fitness tracker.
Goal Setting The feature empowers users to set their goals for weight gain, muscle gain, weight loss, or improving endurance. It is one of the most crucial features of a fitness app.
Data Analytics With data analytics, users can measure the progress of their body, weight, and more. It would be better if they get to see this data with a visual representation.
Push Notifications With the push notifications features, users can get reminders and notifications for meals, hydration, exercises, and more.
Social Media Sharing People love to brag about their fitness achievements on social media. With the social media sharing feature, you can enable users to share their fitness achievements on Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms in a single click.
Forums and Discussions This feature would increase user engagement by allowing them to create a social network with their app friends. They can discuss various fitness-related topics and join different challenges.
Advanced Features
Wearable Device Integration Adding wearable device integration gives your fitness app a competitive edge as users can sync their fitness-related data, such as heart rate, steps, run, and more, from these devices to the app. They don’t need to carry their phones to track their workout or fitness activities.
Personalization Personalization contributes to customer satisfaction and, thus, the app’s success. The feature will enable users to personalize their meal plans and workouts based on their unique fitness levels and goals.
Two-Step Authentication Adding two-step authentication will improve the app’s security and users’ information. It would protect the app from any unauthorized access. You can also add biometrics authentication (facial or fingerprint recognition) to allow users to access the app quickly and easily.
Offline Access Providing the offline access feature would enable users to record their fitness activities in the app even when there is no or limited internet connection. The app will sync the data automatically once a fast internet connection is available.
Posture Detection Integrating an AI-powered posture detection feature would help users exercise in the correct posture, improving the workout’s effectiveness.
Telehealth Integration With this highly advanced feature, users can directly schedule appointments with their doctors or meetings with their nutritionists and personal trainers.
Gamification This feature enhances customer experience and user engagement by providing them with exciting challenges and rewards on the completion of these challenges. It also keeps them motivated to achieve their fitness goals.
Emergency Contact The emergency contact feature will help users contact their friends or family in the case of any emergency, such as an injury during workouts.
How to Choose a Fitness App Development Company?
Partnering with the right fitness app development company is crucial for the app's success, business profitability, and customer satisfaction. With the availability of many fitness mobile app development companies, choosing the right one is not child’s play. However, by considering these below points, you can find the best fitness app development company:
List Your Custom Requirements and Goals Define your custom app requirements, objectives, features, and target audience. Also, decide whether you want a native or cross-platform app that runs seamlessly on multiple platforms. Having all these details ready beforehand will help you choose the right fitness or workout app development service provider.
Shortlist Potential Companies Select those mobile app development companies with rich experience in fitness app development. To verify this, go through their portfolio and case studies section. Also, read their clients’ testimonials to understand their relationship with their clients and the quality of their work.
Assess Their Technical Expertise Review the technical expertise of the fitness app developers of the shortlisted app development companies. Check whether they have experience working with emerging technologies such as AI, ML, Blockchain, AR, and VR.
Set Up a Call Once you finalize a few fitness app development companies, connect with their experts to understand their development process. Check what measures they adopt to maintain effective communication and update their clients on their project’s progress.
Discuss their pricing structure and also be clear about your budget constraints. Ask the company about the after-sales support and maintenance services. These services are mandatory to address potential glitches and keep the app up-to-date.
Finalize the Company After evaluating the company based on the above parameters, finalize it to begin your fitness and wellness app development project. Make sure the company signs a non-disclosure agreement. It will guarantee that the information and data you share throughout the development process will remain confidential.
