VirtuaGym Fitness Home & Gym

Summary

Couch potatoes be warned: Android phones aren’t just there for texting, emailing and playing games. It’s about time people got out of their reclining sofas and office chairs to get a much-needed workout. I’ve been looking through the Android Market in search of an app that could help me organize my exercises and keep my in shape. Find out if VirtuaGym Fitness Home & Gym is the answer to staying fit and healthy with the help of your Android phone.

VirtuaGym Fitness Home & Gym looked like the perfect solution to keeping my workout regiment, but I quickly realized the limits of this app.

Basically, VirtuaGym offers you a list of different workouts that can be down either at home or at the gym. And that’s about it.

All the workouts are divided into three categories: morning, home and gym workouts.

The morning workouts are short (7 to 15 minutes) and are meant to give you a good start to your day. For those of you without a gym membership, the home workout is a great option for an intense full-body workout without the need for any equipment. Finally, there are the regular gym workouts that give you a balanced workout for all your major muscle groups.

Select the appropriate workout routine according to your fitness level: newbie, beginner or advanced. With each experience level, the workout increase in both length and difficulty. VirtuGym lets you know exactly how many reps or minutes you have to do for each exercise. Every exercise starts off with a warm-up and ends with a short cool-down. It is important to do the exercises in the specific order listed on the app in order to get the most out of it.

Pros

• Nice and simple exercises for everyday
• Specific exercise to be done at home
• 3D videos explaining how to complete each exercise
• Varying difficulty levels and lengths

Cons

• Includes only 8 workouts! Not enough for people that exercise regularly.
• No workout log book
• No personalized workout plan
• No progress report

Bottom Line:

VirtuaGym is a neat little app for people interested in finding a simple daily workout routine that fits their schedule. Technically, the VirtuaGym app is supposed to be an extension of virtuagym.com – an online personal trainer. In reality, however, the website and the app aren’t synchronized at all. The app doesn’t offer even a quarter of all the options available on the website.VirtuaGym has a lot of potential, but the developers need to put way more time and effort into the app to make it really worthwhile.
 

The main menu includes just three options:

Do a workout
Visit VirtuaGym.com
About VirtuaGym

Click on the first option to get a list of all the available workouts. Scroll through the list to select a workout that fits your schedule and fitness level. Once you’ve opened the workout, click on the individual exercises to get a 3D demonstration of how to do it. Pressing the play button loops a short tutorial video in repeat.

The short 3D animated videos are cute and well-designed.

While I was using VirtuaGym Fitness Home & Gym at the gym, I noticed a small but extremely annoying problem with the app: watching the five second 3D demonstration video automatically stops your music player! It was impossible to listen to my gym music and look at the animated videos at the same time while working out. This is definitely a big turn-off for a lot of gym-goers.
 

VirtuaGym Fitness Home & Gym has no problems with speed or stability. Everything ran smoothly, including the 3D animation.

VirtuaGym Fitness Home & Gym is available to download for free from the Android Market.