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My favorite fitness apps for Android

by bernt & torsten

Sitting all day working in front of a computer, I need to balance that with fitness training. I take long bike rides most of the year, in the wintertime I spend most of my time working on my fitness in the gym. I have a few apps that I use for that.

As we are in a sharing mode, I’m sharing my favourite fitness apps and why I use them. When going on a long bike ride, there are five things that I’m concerned about:

1. The Weather
2. The route and planning a route
3. Tracking the ride
4. Near me bike stores
5. What to eat on my rides

Google Maps

Google Maps is my main app for planning a trip, as well as navigating while on a bike ride. I normally do the planning on my desk computer and download the route through text message to my mobile phone. Google Maps can be used in offline mode, you need to download the offline area of your route to make it work.

All the trips I have done and that I wrote an article about, was all planned with Google Maps. One tip that I have, do not use the bike route in the Google Map app- it’s better to use the road option without highway and tolls – as I have ended up on some really bad roads that my road bike was not suited for using the bike route option in Google Maps.

Here are some popular Google tips

• Get better location accuracy – http://goo.gl/OgnOsv
• Improve voice navigation – http://goo.gl/bDMK6P
• Report wrong directions – http://goo.gl/hyOG6m

Map MyRide

For tracking my cycling ride I use the Map My Ride app, it’s a great app that I been using from the beginning. I’m only interesting, of tracking the route I took and compare to the route I planned to take. I also track distance and speed and at the end of the year I get statistics on how many rides I don, km biked. I do a lot of running as well, and use the same app to track that activity.

Amsterdam Bike Guide

I use the Amsterdam bike guide or the event that I would need to find a bike store if I have a problem with my bike. I use the Amsterdam Bike Guide as I live in Amsterdam and I can use this app to immediately get the location of a bike store. The app can provide additional information about Amsterdam useful for a cyclist. The Amsterdam Bike Guide is great for tourists visiting Amsterdam.

When I do not do biking or running, I still need to be agile and work on my fitness. There are a few apps that I use for this.

Bike Yoga

Yoga will keep you cycling for years to come if you do it right and often. Cyclists may have supreme cardiovascular fitness, phenomenal power output and colossal thighs – but when it comes to flexibility, we cyclists are decidedly lacking.

It’s not surprising when you consider what riding a bike entails. A cyclist does a repetitive action performed through a limited range of motion, which means that the legs are neither fully extended nor fully flexed, Joints are never taken through their full range of motion. Cyclists need to do yoga to become more flexible, the bike Yoga app will provide you with the tools to set up a yoga program that you can use on a weekly basis.

Bike Fitness

The Bike Fitness app is for all people that want to enjoy time on a bike ride, it’s not enough just go out cycling. You will need to keep your fitness at the core at maximum. The Bike Fitness app lets you select a program of workouts that are scheduled weekly.

Build your core muscles on Tuesday and Thursday, to enjoy that great bike ride on Saturday.

These are all the apps I need, to keep riding and keeping myself agile and fit.

What are your favourite fitness apps?