GymGoal iPhone App

cmw72

Despite the fact that I am a weakling, I happen to love strength training at the gym. I tend to think of it as my reward for doing a good cardio workout. While I'm spending an hour on the treadmill, I'm watching all the "muscle heads" lifting weights and I'm thinking ... why can't that be me someday?

The problem is, I really have no idea what I'm doing. I wasn't in the military, or prison, or high school sports. Consequently, I never got an education on how one should go about the task of bodybuilding. I observe others, and I play on the machines, but I'm always a little apprehensive, because it seems there's a fine line between pushing yourself and injuring yourself.

So last night, I was trying to figure out what the hell I was doing with these dumbbells of mine, when I turned to the App Store for some guidance, and stumbled upon this app called GymGoal. I tried the free version, but quickly decided it was worth the $3.99 for the full version.

This app looks like I can do a lot, but the reason I bought it was that it has descriptions as well as pictures and animations of hundreds of exercises. It also has some general weightlifting tips, such as how to breathe (sounds stupid, but I was doing it wrong!). You can view the "Body map" and select the muscle group you want to work. Then you can filter out exercises based on the type of gear you have available (none, machines, free weights, cables), and by difficulty. It's like an encyclopedia of strength training exercises in your pocket.

So, if you're a total strength training noob like me, and you have an iPhone (or iPad, or iPod Touch), you might wanna take the free version for a test drive . Here's a link to their website, or you can look for it in the App Store.

http://www.smaltek.com/gg_overview.html

:drinker:

aleese

There are a few apps but to be honest I paid for a few sessions with a personal trainer at the gym, well worth the money as I found massive improvements in my technique and he gave me loads of tips and tricks which I dont think you would get from reading how to do an excerise. He also udnerstood what I wanted to see first, i.e. the tight t-shirt around the arms and let me know that although the biceps should be trained, to get the best t-shirt effect then he added loads more tricep reps. The app then helps me remember some of the reps I dont do so often, for when there is noone to ask.

So I would recommend if you can to just have a few sessions with a PT (ask the gym manager to advise you PT is best as I *hate* those drill sergeant types and I have a really good laugh with my PT and look forward when I book follow up sessions).

Hope that helps somewhat