Starting a fitness journey can be intimidating. There are countless options for what type of exercise to try and many strategies for how to best do them.
Many people resort to walking as their exercise of choice simply because it's straightforward to start. It allows people to bypass all their uncertainties and dive right into physical activity with little to no preparation or special equipment. Essentially, it's the perfect entryway tool for getting fit.
People can easily commit to a lifelong habit of walking as their sole method for staying fit, or they can easily combine it with any other fitness protocol. Although walking seems intuitive enough, using a walking app is the best way to gradually increase difficulty in a strategic way to improve fitness.
There are many high-quality walking apps available at affordable prices to help guide your experience. Below are the top walking apps of 2024 with an overview of their features.
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Best Overall Walking App: Walkfit
Walkfit is one of the most popular walking apps you'll find. It's available on The App Store and Google Play which both have tens of thousands of positive reviews from users.
What makes Walkfit so special is its personalization and targeted approach to achieving fitness goals. Before signing into the app, users must fill out a profile and complete a short but thorough questionnaire on their health status, fitness goals, current fitness level, and much more.
This allows the apps to create a personalized walking plan perfectly tailored to each person's needs. Whether you're walking for weight loss, better sleep, stable blood sugar levels, improved fitness, or endurance, there's a workout for that.
Here are all the features you'll have access to while using Walkfit:
- Guided walking workouts with voice and visual instructions
- A personalized walking plan
- A built-in GPS to navigate your walks
- Daily goals and message reminders to stay on track
- A step counter
- A calorie tracker
- Access to a library of over 200 workouts
- Warmup and cooldown exercises
As you progress in your fitness journey, you can update your information and change your goals. Walkfit isn't only great as a standalone exercise program, it can also help anyone from athletes to casual fitness hobbyists have better recovery from their workouts. It can complement any training regime and fit into any schedule.
The workouts can be as short as a few minutes, so they're easy to fit into even the busiest of schedules. Sneaking in multiple short workouts in a day is an excellent way to increase your step count without major disruptions to your day.
Whether you do your walking workouts outside, on a treadmill (or walking pad) at home, at the gym, or even by stepping in place indoors, you can reap impressive health benefits. A completed workout is the healthiest workout for you, and this is why Walkingfit is such a great app. They make it effortless to stay on track and stick to a walking plan.
Best Walking App for Workouts: iFIT
iFit is another impressive app available across Android and iPhone platforms. It has some fairly sophisticated features, and it covers many more activities than just walking.
iFit has guided workouts and classes for HIIT, abs, cardio, elliptical, treadmill, dumbbells, cycling, running, walking, rowing, and more. Not only does it have a large selection of workouts, but it also offers progressive series which are groups of workouts that get progressively harder as you improve your fitness.
The app will display workout stats such as calories burned, distance covered, elevation gained, pace, and even heart rate if you connect a Bluetooth® heart rate monitor. Even more impressive, they have a feature called ActivePulse™ which uses heart rate data to automatically adjust your workouts to stay within the heart rate zone specified for the workout.
Overall, these high-tech features elevate this app to the best for workouts. It's great for those who are further along with their fitness experience, though it is more expensive than the other options on this list.
Best Walking App for Tracking Metrics: MapMyWalk
MapMyWalk is another great app for improving fitness. It has a GPS to accurately map where you've walked, your pace, and your elevation throughout your trip.
The metrics from this app are detailed and extremely helpful for the more serious runner or walker looking to finetune their pacing. You can also create custom routes, share your routes and workouts with friends, and even join online communities through the app.
For anyone looking to track their miles and keep a close eye on their progress, this app can be a helpful tool. Better yet, the basic version is free.
Best Walk App for a Cause: Charity Miles
Last but not least is the app that lets your steps count towards a charity of your choice. Charity Miles is a free app available from Google Play or The App Store that allows users to select a charity to support.
After signing up and selecting a charity, you can start tracking miles by walking, running, or biking. Those miles will allow pledges from corporate sponsorships to contribute to charity. You can also get your friends, family, or coworkers on board by sharing your link.
Overall, the functions of this app are fairly simple, so it may not be the best fitness app, but its unique goal of giving back to charity makes it an important contribution to this list.
Conclusion
Regardless of the app you choose, the most important thing is to get moving. Walking apps help keep you on track with your goals and allow you to see progress, but there's no shortcut to putting in the steps. The right app will just make the process more rewarding which in turn can reinforce your new healthy habit.
Change never occurs overnight, so remember that the longer you keep up your walking workouts, the more you'll start to enjoy them and perhaps even look forward to them. It's always worth the effort to invest in your long-term health, fitness, and happiness. Why not start today?