Jefit App For Android

With the number of people making a fitness or weight loss resolution each year, many are turning to personal coaches for motivation and advice. For those who can't afford a gym membership or a personal trainer, and have an Android based phone, help is only a download away. 

Jefit is a free fitness app available in the Android Market that can help you design and track a workout routine that will have you beach-ready by summer time.

I've started (and stopped) many workout routines in my life and the one issue that I always had was designing a weightlifting routine that made sense, was realistic and produced the results I was seeking. Jefit now does that all for me. Once you create a profile and set your goals, the app will automatically create a weight lifting routine for you.

Just press the "Routine" button from the home screen and you will get a basic routine that you can easily customize. You can personalize the routine that Jefit creates for you according to difficulty level, number of days you want to workout and what type of program you want to follow. For example, I chose an intermediate level workout that covers 4 days per week with an emphasis on general fitness. 

Once the routine is designed, simply click on the day of the week, see what body areas you will be training on, get a list of the exercises, reps and sets that you will be doing, and even have a place to record the details of your workout. All of your sessions are saved and can be synced either to your phone-based profile or to the Jefit Internet site. You can set up your syncing preferences in the profile area of the app.

A great feature of Jefit is the animated description of all the exercises that are used in the custom routines. Click on the "Exercise" tab from the home screen and you'll see an image of a rather muscular gentleman with tabs for each body part. If you prefer to have an image of a female, just click the "Switch" button on the bottom of the screen. Click on a tab to be taken to a detailed description of the weight lifting exercises that focus on that particular body part. 

Click on any of the exercises to learn the proper form and to view an animated movie of the exercise. You will need to download and install the "Exercise Animation Plug-in" to view the animation. A shortcut for the download is posted on the top of each exercise page. The plug-in requires 15 MB's of memory and though useful if you've never seen a certain exercise before, is not really required to realize the benefits of the app.

The library of exercises is impressive as are the details of how to perform them. They are clearly written and provide enough details for a raw beginner to get a solid understanding of the proper mechanics and the targeted benefits of each exercise.

No workout routine is complete without a healthy dose of cardio thrown into the mix. On the bottom of the exercise screen, there is a button that will bring you into the cardio exercise area. From this screen, you can add the type of cardio you want to include right into your routine. Select from the 50 or so cardio exercises, press the "Add to Routine" button, choose which day you want to add the cardio component to and your exercise routine for that day will automatically include a cardio component.

Unfortunately, you have to select each cardio workout and add it to each individual day you want to perform it. A nice feature would be the ability to choose a cardio exercise, (running for example,) and be able to add it to all the days you want without having to repeat the steps for each cardio exercise. Maybe in future updates, but for now, you will have to design each day individually. 

What is nice about this is that you can choose to keep your cardio workout fresh by adding different types of cardio to each day of your workout week. 

When you consider that this app is free, it's hard to find any faults with it. Though it certainly doesn't have the cardio features that apps like Cardio Trainer has, it is focused more to weight lifting than cardio.

The routines are solid and are customizable and the library of exercises, along with animation and details, is very impressive. Once you learn you way around the app, I am sure that you'll find that Jefit is a simple yet powerful app that really can help keep your fitness goals on track.

As far as drawbacks, the one big issue I have is with the font size. The last thing I want to do is to have to throw on my reading glasses to enter or read text on my Droid. If you have strong eyes, this probably won't be an issue for you. But if you've crossed that wonderful line into your forties, you may find the font size, and the inability to increase the font size and occasional challenge. 

All in all, Jefit is a very good app and is highly rated by both me and the hundreds of people who rated it in the Android Market. So if getting in shape is on your list of goals, check out Jefit and hit the gym!

Always check with your healthcare provider prior to beginning any exercise routine.