GirlsGuideTo | Daily Distraction: Sworkit

I don’t know about you, but unless someone plans out a workout for me and I have pictures of exercises with me at all time, I am pretty clueless when it comes to strength training. Put me on a treadmill and I’m good to go, but let me loose in the free weights and the phrase “deer in the headlights” comes to mind. I’ve been wanting to get into circuit training, like this workout we found last week, but I am just lost. And you know this girl doesn’t have the bank account to afford a trainer’s help. Nor the time to spend hours in the gym. So when I saw a pin about a new workout app, I had to check it out. And it is awesome.

This new app is called Sworkit, and essentially it takes a bank of bodyweight exercises and hits shuffle to create a new workout for you every time you want to workout. You can go for as little as five minutes or as long as an hour. You can workout anywhere because you literally don’t need anything else. You can choose to only work your arms or your abs or your legs or go for an all-over workout. Then you have 30 seconds to do each exercise and are given a break every two or three minutes. And if you don’t know the exercise, examples and videos are shown on screen.

I tried out ten minutes of upper-body work this weekend and found myself moving from lying triceps lifts to wall push-ups to alternating planks, the result of which was impressively sweaty. Any routine I didn’t like I could skip, and trust me, that break was welcome. So while it might not be as good as the real gym, it’s a whole lot better than nothing. And I’ve found myself booting up the stretching only routines after my runs to make sure I actually do it, something I always forget!

The Android and iOS apps, as well as a web version for Sworkit are available for free. Download Sworkit for iPhone, iPad & iPod touch; download for Android; or visit Sworkit.