I downloaded Sworkit to my phone one bank holiday when my normal gym class wasn’t on and, bearing in mind I’m coming back to fitness after a month of laziness, I still felt the need for a workout of some sort, alongside a short run.
And so I was recommended Sworkit. Free, downloadable for iPhone and Android, the idea is based around circuit training – things that you can do easily wherever you may be, without weights or equipment.
It works simply, select a type of workout – stretching, strength, cardio or yoga, set a time for your workout and off you go.
Myself and friend Lisa decided to put this app through it’s paces. First up we went for a random circuits, selecting ‘Yoga, Cardio & More’ we went all out with a full 45 minute session.
It took us through everything from yoga poses to stretches and some good old fashioned balance exercises. On longer circuits, every 3-4 exercises you have a 30 second rest, but don’t think it’s easy. You’ll still work up a sweat and get yourself nice and warm.
We’ve also used it individually after a short run, selecting the stretching option, it’s been lovely to spend a full ten minutes stretching out every part of your body.
The core workout is particularly good – the next day my abs were definitely feeling it – and I love that when you are working on each side of your body separately you’ll hear a little message to tell you to change sides. No trying to keep an eye on the clock.
The only grumble I might add, is that it does reach a point sometimes where it will repeat an exercise a lot on longer sessions. Certainly on one 45 minute session we had one exercise repeated 4 times. Not a major grumble, at all, but it can make it feel a bit repetitive, and it’s not to much fun when it’s an exercise you hate!
Things that are really great about it are the pause button and on the yoga sets you get the option of extending how long you hold a pose, so if it’s really working for you, you can extend it for a bit and give yourself some time to really enjoy it.
There’s also an upgrade for the expensive price of £0.66 (Android). I’ve obviously splurged on this and the additional extras are pretty cool.
Obviously given my general sadomasochistic tendencies, ‘Bring the Pain’ and ‘Boot Camp’ are on the agenda for next week, and I’ll update this post with all the details as soon as I recover from it.
All in all, for free, this is a great app. On holiday, away for business, or just wanting to work out at home, this is great. A beginner may need to look up how to do some of the exercises (what YouTube was invented for) but if you’re returning to fitness or wanting something a bit different (or cheaper than a gym membership) it’s downright perfect. The random nature of it means that you’ll get everything in a slightly different order and you can always skip something you can’t or don’t want to do.
Sworkit can be dowloaded via Google Play for Android and iTunes for the iPhone.