Apple Is Killing The Fitness Industry!

I hate to admit it, but there's some pretty awesome health and fitness smartphone applications or apps available from apple's itunes store and judging by download statistics, people are catching on fast!

There's an app for just about everything you can imagine (and can't: ifart?); in fact there are (as at 22/11/10) almost 300,000 apps available for iphone and ipad with about 600 being added each day!

Of those 300,000, there are almost 7,000 health and fitness related apps which include calorie counters, pedometers, exercise advice apps and whatever else you can think of. A good percentage are free, however the average cost seems to be around $1.99 with some as much as $9.99 per download.

A popular app can make anywhere between $500.00 - $5000.00 a day!

While researching this article, I spent some time goofing around with a few of the free fitness apps and while I hate to admit it; some are extremely comprehensive and easy to navigate (exactly what I'd look for if I were in the market).

How times have changed; I remember when the most fun you could have with a mobile phone was typing in combinations of numbers (55378008 for example), turning the phone upside down and having a hearty laugh.

So I got to wondering what the future holds for gyms and personal trainers as more and more people adopt these 'hi-tech' alternatives to employing human expertise.

Will the general population ultimately ditch paying 'people' to count their reps and teach them how to squat? Oh yeah, even the 'High Five' isn't safe, there's an app for that as well!

Like us, the health and fitness app owners are out to make money. I rang around and with development costing anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000+, it's a decent investment that they expect a return on.

To their advantage, by avoiding holding focus mitts or running up hills or developing interesting tan lines, fitness app owners find themselves with plenty of time to market and promote their products to the entire world and their incredible sales are evidence of that.

If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them

In my experience, it's always better to embrace change and technology rather than sit back and complain. As I often say; clients are inherently curious and like most people, always looking for a cheaper or faster alternative to solve life's problems, so provide them one.

Incorporating carefully selected apps into your clients programming could be the answer and keep you on their payroll.

Some of the nutrition apps are fantastic. For those of you with limited nutritional expertise you may find these quite helpful as will your clients. The most popular free nutrition app is:

• Lose It!

Another cool free app for getting your clients to do some walking or running outside of your session times and keep them motivated is:

• MapMyRun

A great free app for counting calories and managing weight etc. is:

• DailyBurn

So now, just to make a dollar you're not only competing against the trainer up the road and the gym around the corner, you can add some of the largest most powerful corporations in the world to that list...awesome!

You know (and I just want to throw it out there), if you have a spare 20k or so laying around I'd almost suggest having a go at developing your own health and fitness app, but that may be a bit of a stretch, so until then why not take advantage of some of the incredible facilities available.

So what do you think? I genuinely appreciate your feedback, so please leave me a comment down below with questions, thoughts, or feedback. And please share this post with your Twitter and Facebook friends by clicking on the share buttons at the top of the post.

Have an awesome day!

Ben

Additional Reading:
How To Destroy Your Fitness Business And Reputation
50 Best Free Health And Fitness Apps