Nike has about a billion apps on the app market right now. Most of us have hear of, and may even use, the Nike+ Running app. It is one of my personal favorites for run tracking and group running events through social media. Since the Nike+ Running app is so great and since I am now able to use the Nike Training app, I could not wait to get a workout in with it.
The training app is, like it sounds, geared towards giving people a training regimen to complete their goals. It is available in both the Apple and Android app store, but since I have an iPhone, that is what this review will focus on.
Whether your goal be to tone up, slim down, or gain muscle, there is an entire workout plan for that. Once you have logged onto the app, you are able to decide your path, then, pick from the different workouts that will give you what you want. Each workout path has a beginner, intermediate, and advanced option. I opted for the advanced since I workout more than 3-5 days a week. The other two range from not working out much at all to 1-2 times per week.
I chose the advanced toning path and was given the option of one of three workouts with workout times of 15, 30, and 45-minutes. The 15-minute option was a HIIT workout that looked incredible but used a medicine ball- something I did not have with me at the time. 45-minutes seemed too long after just finishing a jog and wanting to eat dinner, so I opted for the middle road.
Each workout lets you know the equipment you need and the amount of Nike Fuel and calories you will burn. The 30-minute workout only needed a kettlebell for plenty of kettlebell swings.
Although the workout was good, I was not a big fan of not being able to use any music app with it- I could only play the music downloaded to my phone. You are also not able to turn your phone's screen off without turning off both the music and the Nike app itself. Yes, I understand being able to see how many seconds are left in each exercise and knowing what is next, but everything has audio instruction, so why my phone must be wasting battery life the whole time, I do not know.
I am also not a super big fan of the app not being available for anything before the iPhone 5. Sure, there are probably plenty of reasons it cannot work (even though we are all running the same os), but my not-so-tech-savvy brain cannot figure any of them out. Since most of us do not get the newest phone the moment it comes out, this seems like a severe shoot in the foot for NIke.
As far as the training program option- I would love to review it but every time I clicked on it the app would either freeze or crash.
If, however, you do have the newer phone models and do not mind using your internal music, this app could be great! There are plenty of workouts on it so you do not get bored and plenty more that you can unlock. I am personally a bit interested to try a couple in each fitness category to see the differences between each.
Side note: I did choose toning, so there should not have been a massively sore feeling the day after, but I was not sore at all. If you are into feeling your workouts, maybe pick an option other than toning.