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Top 4 FREE Health & Wellness Apps for Athletes

By Breanna Simon-Seibel, 01/04/20, 6:00AM CST

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Check out my top 4 free apps to help athletes take their game to the next level

Start off 2020 by taking your game to the next level with the help of free apps on your phone!

There are so many apps out there that are design to help you get stronger, eat better and be happier. Over the years, I’ve grown to LOVE a couple of them! To save you the time of sifting through them, I’ve shared my favorites below.

4. Fitbod

Fitbod is as close to a personal trainer as you can get with an app. You input what equipment you have available, what your goals are, which muscles you’ve worked recently, how often you’d like to workout and the app creates workouts- just for you. Each workout day, the app will give you a preview of your workout and tell you which muscle groups you’re working. The workout will include the exercises, number of reps and number of sets. You can also input how much added weight you’re using and keep track of how much strength you’re gaining.

The positives: (generally) personalized workouts, easy to track/follow and customizable to your equipment that you have at home—the app even has no equipment workouts, can give you reminders

The downside: it does not show what the exercises should look like. If you’re a beginner, you may find yourself using google quite a bit.

Why it’s good for athletes: Strength and conditioning is a huge part of being a good athlete. This app is an easy (and free) way to get good workouts. The ability to have at-home, no-equipment workouts leaves athletes with no excuses!


Fitbod


MyPlate

3. MyPlate (by Livestrong)

MyPlate is an app that allows you to track your food, water, calories and macronutrients (proteins, fats, carbs). Within the app, you can create goals and record your weight. Caloric intake and weight are put into graphs for users to easily see trends. There are hundreds of foods already within the app however, you can also create your own entries to add foods that are not in the app.

The positives: 100s of foods are already within the app so it makes it easy to estimate macronutrients and calories, user friendly and customizable, can give you reminders to track

The downside: does not track micronutrients or net carbs

Why it’s good for athletes: Nutrition makes a difference! If you’re constantly fueling your car with bad gas and cheap oil, what’s going to happen to your car? If you’re constantly fueling your car with premium gas and providing it with the best care, the car will perform better. The body is the same way!

2. Stop, Breathe, Think

Stop, Breathe, Think is a meditation app. You start by checking in with yourself both physically and mentally. Based on your answers, the app gives you a few meditations to choose from and follow along with. The app has several free meditations (starting at just 3 minutes long) and several meditations available for purchase. Users can earn awards for meditating and minutes are tracked within the app. After doing a meditation, the app asks you to check in and see if you’ve improved physically and mentally.

The positives: user friendly, colorful, short and simple meditations, great for beginners, calming, acts as a small journal

The downside: some of the meditations need to be purchased

Why it’s good for athletes: The mental game of an athlete is just as, if not more, important than an athlete’s physical ability. This app has helped several of my athletes become mentally strong individuals when they needed it most. The feedback that I have gotten from having my athletes do meditation has been phenomenal- the athletes enjoy doing it and find themselves meditating well on into their adult lives to help them stay strong.


Stop, Breathe, Think


Nike Training Club

1. Nike Training Club

Nike Training Club is my all-time favorite health and wellness app. I’ve been using this app to track my workouts for years! It’s perfect for when you want to try something new. You can filter workouts by muscle group, equipment available, time and workout type. If you’re someone who needs more of a plan- they have that, too! The app will tell you which workouts to do and when. Additionally, the app has ‘guest trainers’ and will add workouts done by various athletes and/or trainer. There are several different types of workouts including running, HIIT, strength, flexibility, yoga and more. They have workouts from as short as 10 minutes up to 1 hour and have both time and rep based.

The positives: user friendly, competitive, tons of variety, world-class trainers, workouts available for all skill levels

The downside: takes up a lot of space on your phone

Why it’s good for athletes: The app is perfect for the athlete that loves to mix things up. The workouts can be as easy or as challenging as you like. There is so much variety that users will NEVER run out of things to do. Nike Training Club is constantly adding new trainers and more specific workouts. These are workouts that you can do in a gym, outside, at home or on the go! There are no excuses when it comes to Nike Training Club!

*Please note that I do not own any of these apps and I don’t receive any sort of compensation from the apps. You should also contact your physician before making any diet or exercise changes.