Whenever a new year comes, many people make resolutions to be more health-conscious through exercise and healthy eating. The first step for many is to download fitness and wellness apps – convenient, affordable, and sometimes free tools that can help anyone stay on track to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Experts estimate the global wellness market to reach nearly $7 trillion by 2025. Fitness apps will continue to play a significant role in attracting potential paying customers and generating income for the health and wellness industry at an estimated $30 billion by 2030. As such, fitness app development is an enterprising move that can generate generous returns if done correctly. 

How Do You Create a Fitness App?

How do you create a fitness app? This article covers the five basics of fitness app development to help you get started.

Do Market Research

Market research is vital for any entrepreneurial attempt because it provides critical information about the industry you’re entering and the market you want to attract. The same holds when creating a fitness app. You need to know your competitors, study their strengths, discover their weaknesses, and what they do to attract users. More importantly, you should find out what needs are still unfulfilled by existing apps. 

• What can you offer that your competitors don’t? 
• What do people look for in a fitness and workout app? 
• What makes them uninstall workout apps? 

Understanding the industry and the target market should inform the design and structure of your app.

Determine the Type of Fitness App You Want to Create

A wide variety of fitness and wellness apps exist, and we can classify most of them into four different types:

1. Smart Coach App 

Akin to having a personal fitness coach, users get a proper workout plan with exercises calibrated to their fitness level when using a smart coach app. This type of fitness application may provide animated or recorded how-to videos showing users how to perform each exercise. The intensity of the workouts gradually increases, allowing users to graduate to a higher level after completing a workout plan.

An ideal smart coach app allows users to personalize their workouts and choose from various uploaded exercise programs, such as toning abs, toning arms, strengthening the core, burning calories, and building strength.

Common examples of this app are the Fitbit Coach and Nike Training Club.

2. Workout Tracker

This app type is a good option for first-time fitness app creators. Workout trackers don’t necessarily provide workout tips or personalized workout programs but often provide helpful information like muscle groups targeted and calories burned when you do specific exercises. 

User notes and third-party integration with other health and wellness apps are common app features for workout trackers. More importantly, this type of app lets users keep records of their workouts. They can use the information logs later to check whether a workout program produces the desired results.

3. Activity Tracker

Step counters and running apps are the best examples of this type of app. It’s a good choice for health and wellness brands that want to branch out into fitness app development because many people, including those who do not workout, like to use step counters. It’s a simple, straightforward app that gives users a sense of accomplishment each time they reach their daily targets. Their biggest appeal is they provide a measurable record of physical activity without the user having to do actual exercises.

4. Nutrition Tracker

Diet and nutrition go hand-in-hand with physical exercise. People who take their health seriously will appreciate apps that help them come up with a balanced daily, weekly, and monthly meal plan. 

Decide which type you want your app to be. While it’s not impossible to try and build a fitness app with all four functions, it would be too huge an undertaking for a first iteration. It’s more efficient to focus your resources and energy on making one good app that many people will love and support than a four-in-one in which all functions are underdeveloped because of the limited time and resources.

Consider How Additional Features will Keep Users Engaged

Features often make or break an app. If users aren’t satisfied with how an app works, they’ll keep looking for one that will meet their needs. 

Use the findings from your market research to determine which features to include in your app. For example, if you plan to create a fitness app that caters to healthy eaters, consider adding features like nutritional information on famous dishes, a food database, and recommended recipes.

Design an App with your Users Needs in Minds

Personalization is also important, particularly for smart coach app users. It would be fantastic, for example, if your app could propose a workout and diet plan based on the user’s current body mass index (BMI) and goals, i.e., to lower or increase their BMI. Third-party integrations like linking Spotify or Apple Music playlists to an exercise routine can make your app more exciting and appealing. 

Plan Ahead for Monetization

Even if you intend to offer your app for free, it always helps to have a plan on how to monetize and grow it. Common monetization strategies are paid ads, in-app purchases for premium features and perks, and paid subscriptions for content like training videos with popular health and fitness coaches. 

Hire an App Development Team

The success of all these plans depends on your fitness app development team. You can have funds and a solid app development plan, but succeeding is only possible with an experienced team of project managers and fitness app developers. So apart from the costs, consider their previous work and experience creating health and fitness apps. 

Build a Fitness App With Jackrabbit Mobile

Finding the right fitness application development team is key to bringing your exciting and innovative ideas to life. You’ll want experts on designing user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) for mobile applications. And if you envision your app to become wearable tech in the future or have Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities, you’ll want developers with superior technical skills. 

Let us assemble a team to create your healthcare and wellness app. Jackrabbit Mobile is an app development company offering a wide range of custom digital solutions to customers around the world. We’ve designed and developed applications for many different industries, including healthcare and wellness. 

We offer a mutual non-disclosure agreement if you want to discuss your goals and expectations before committing to a contract. Contact Jackrabbit Mobile today to get started on your Fitness App.