Sports activities have become part of the daily life of a huge number of people. The relationship between health and fitness is clear, making going to the gym regularly or exercising at home a must for feeling good.
Fitness App Development: Ultimate Guide
Today, fitness, physical education, sports are a normal, natural phenomenon and even a need. Caring for health, vigor of the body, spirit, well-being proves to people the need for regular trips to specialized centers (pools, gyms, ice palaces), organizing outdoor jogging or playing sports at home.
However, self-study for beginners, amateurs, non-professionals is fraught with a number of problems:
- Determination of a safe, but effective load on the body;
- Mastering the correct technique for performing exercises;
- Formation of the schedule of classes (in terms of frequency and duration of rest);
- Other significant points.
The way out is to contact the fitness app development company to create a mobile application. Currently, in the context of the actualization of a healthy, active lifestyle and sports, physical education, fitness, the need for software (SW) for mobile gadgets is very high.
The growth trend of such demand indicates that almost all owners, administrators of clubs, fitness centers strive to develop an informative, original, effective application for their visitors as one of the elements and factors of the attractiveness of their institution in the service market.
Application for sports: relevance, benefits, functionality
In fact, the application is a fitness assistant that allows you to create the effect of a person’s permanent (permanent) involvement in the training process. This is an important task, a necessity for beginners. It is they who often lose motivation for sports activities, having no strong-willed conditions, stop training.
Another feature of the application is an alternative to a personal sports instructor. Not every person has the opportunity to order the services of a professional coach. The gadget becomes a substitute for a fitness instructor, helping to:
- Make a training plan;
- Monitor the progress of classes and its effectiveness;
- Monitor the state of the body and its functions in the process of playing sports.
Relevance of development
Why should every self-respecting, striving for development, increase in the number of clients, and profits fitness center have its own mobile application for exercising? The answer is obvious.
Reputation
The presence of a specialized application is a big plus for a fitness center, if only because it is cool and is evidence of the seriousness and respectability of an institution that has its own mobile application.
Additional Income
An important advantage of any application is the ability of its functionality to monetize, that is, to use it to earn money through the broadcast of specialized advertising (shops, marketplaces that sell sporting goods, food, etc.).
Marketing Tool
The application is an important marketing tool that allows you to increase the number of visitors to the center, their activity through a loyalty policy (bonuses, promotions, commercial offers), as well as specialized content that motivates customers.
Alternative to Instructor, Trainer
The application is a virtual, digital coach that works online at any time. The target audience of clients who dream of a personal instructor is large.
Reduced Customer Churn
As a result, the presence of the application helps to reduce the outflow of visitors. The administration of the fitness center should understand and feel this.
Potential functionality
Mobile applications for sports activities are conditionally divided into 2 types:
- Specialized;
- Complex.
Specialized applications include narrow-profile virtual assistants that control heart activity while walking, cycling, running. But at the same time, they do not allow monitoring performance in other sports.
A complex application is an all-in-one software that allows the user to select individual programs, sets of exercises from the list presented.
Both versions of the application must include:
- Creation of training plans;
- Control of physical indicators;
- Performance fixing.
Nothing limits the functionality of such applications. Their fixed parameters can be: changing the user’s weight; increase in strength, endurance; results control.
Some applications have theoretical information modules, the purpose of which is to teach the correct methodology for performing sets of exercises.
Fitness IT solutions designed for weight loss need functionality for calculating calories based on age, gender, and physiological characteristics of a person; graphical display of changes in the user’s weight.
Applications that provide for rehabilitation classes after an illness or injury should have the functionality of total control of the user’s state throughout the day and signal about its dangerous changes.
Traditionally, when developing such software, the following functionality is provided:
- User registration, profile creation (personal account), authorization;
- Daily setting of sports goals and objectives;
- Notifications (of low or insufficient activity, heart rate, etc.);
- Thematic reminders provided by the training programs used by the user;
- Monitoring of the user’s physical activity;
- Communication with devices used for additional monitoring (fitness bracelet, etc.);
- User geolocation.
When creating a complex application, its software provides not only various types of exercises (stretching, yoga, strength training, etc.), but also the possibility of creating a new exercise.
Additional functionality may include:
- Features of the diet;
- Principles of work with simulators and equipment.
The latter will be beneficial to both parties: both the fitness center and the client. The user will avoid injury due to improper use of the simulator, and the fitness center will keep the equipment in good condition.
Development stages
The main stages of creating a MP for fitness:
- Formation of terms of reference with a choice of platform (Android, iOS) or a faster cross-platform solution;
- Planning that includes:
- Market monitoring;
- Study of IT solutions of competing organizations;
- Study of the target audience (target audience);
- Collecting information about a digital product;
- Creation of a conceptual model of the product;
- Forecasting the scope of work, timing, release;
- Determination of methods for promoting a digital product;
- Direction and scope of the post-release;
- Development (the procedure for creating an application – design study (UX / UI design); creation, approval, development of a prototype, etc.);
- Testing (monitoring of errors in the operation of the application, analysis of the compliance of the application with the terms of reference);
- Release (release of fitness software; upload to PlayMarket, AppStore; implementation of a marketing promotion plan);
- Post-release (creation of updates; correction of emerging errors; refinement based on customer and target audience feedback).
Application development cost
The cost of software development for sports activities is determined by the following factors:
- Application platform type;
- Scope of functionality;
- The presence and number of additional options.
The main criterion for the price of an application is the total amount of time. spent on creating an IT solution. How is time distributed?
- The preparatory stage takes about 50 hours.
- Prototyping – about 100 hours.
- Writing code, passing tests – 100 hours or more.
Each project is purely individual, as it is based on the requirements and preferences of the customer. Therefore, to specify the estimate of the future IT project, the timing of the development of the application, it would be advisable to contact the managers of our company.