Ludus Fitness app review: a wearable fitness trainer

Introduction

Our family recently had a scare with a member that nearly lost his life due to heart disease. It was an overwhelming experience and it really changed the way I look at my own personal health goals. I decided it’s time to make some changes and that’s why I’m especially interested in the app we are reviewing here today. Ludus Fitness is a wearable fitness trainer, which isn’t a new concept as there are tons of products on the market designed to help you with your fitness goals – the most noticeable one being Fitbit.

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What makes Ludus Fitness stand out is that you don’t have to purchase any separate equipment to use this app. All you need is your iPhone and the app. After you’ve downloaded this app, you’re ready to get started. This is a free app and it’s compatible with the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Behind The Ludus

Ludus Fitness was developed by a company called Appic – a start-up out of London that began operations in 2014. Their goal is to “build interactive health and fitness apps to encourage people to make exercise a habit.” At the moment, it appears that the Ludus app is the only one in their catalogue, but it will be interesting to see what they come up with in the future.

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What they hoped to achieve with this app was to provide people with a personal approach to fitness that coincides with your own needs and not the general needs of others. They created a highly adaptable app that can be tailored to your own body size and level of fitness. In the long run, they’d like to see their apps combine true artificial intelligence that can continuously adjust to your own personal needs.

As the CEO of Appic, Gabor Barany, points out that the app can also be used in conjunction with an Apple TV device as well as a Pebble watch. They aim to give you as many options to reach your fitness goals at home or at the gym.

The team of Ludus fitness professionals has some strong credentials to their name, including its Master trainer Attila Szigligeti, who is a qualified fitness coach with more than five years of experience in the industry. He stresses that the app has the potential to really help people change their habits and work out properly.

Your Own Trainer

The fitness industry is one of the most saturated out there, so to really stand out an app has to provide something just a little bit different. The benefit of Ludus Fitness is that it’s meant to be entirely self-contained within the app. You don’t have to buy any extra products, such as fitness wristbands or pedometers, as everything you need is built right into the app itself. It’s not without direct competitors though, as Nike+ Training Club offers something similar and it’s completely free.

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What’s great about the Ludus app is that it’s got an excellent user interface with clearly defined sections and a nice simple color scheme that makes it easy on the eyes. There are no ads to worry about, but there are in-app purchases. Essentially, each workout session is limited to 10 minutes in the free version and if you wish to extend your sessions you’ll have to purchase full access by way of in-app purchase. This app will require 105 MB of available space on your iOS device.

What’s In the Ludus?

You can either create a new user profile to begin using the app, or you can sign up with your Facebook account. Once you’re signed in, the first thing you have to do is identify if you’re male or female, input your weight, and input your height. The app uses this information to tailor your workouts based on your own physiology. You’ll then be presented with recommended workouts for you.

If you prefer, you can select your own type of work out depending on what body part you’d like to target by tapping on the freestyle workout tab located at the bottom of the app. Within this feature, you can decide upon the length of your workout, starting with a minimum of seven minutes and going all the way up to 30 minutes. You can also specify if you consider yourself a beginner, intermediate, or advanced trainer and you can choose whether you want to include equipment such as weights in your workout routine.

Once you’ve chosen your preferences for your workout, you simply tap on the begin workout tab at the bottom of the app and you’ll then see a preview with the different exercises that you’ll be doing in your workout. To get started, just tap on begin workout again.

Each exercise includes videos which you can follow along to and a handy timer on the right-hand side of the screen to let you know how much time you have left in each exercise. What I really liked about this app is that if you don’t like an exercise you can simply tap on Skip to move onto the next one. You’re not tied down to following their recommendations. The other great thing about each video is that they include a helpful commentary that tells you how to perform the exercise and how it benefits you.

What really separates this app from other fitness apps though, is that after each exercise they ask you to rate the individual exercise in order to tailor your workouts in the future. The app actually learns your habits as it goes and creates new workouts that make sense for you. This isn’t something you’ll find in the majority of other fitness apps.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Excellent user interface with clearly defined sections
• Adaptable workouts tailored to your own needs
• Each workout includes videos with a helpful commentary
• Every exercise includes a timer
• You can skip exercises you don’t like
• The app provides you with recommended workouts or you can select your own
• Uses your own physical traits to tailor your workouts

Cons

• Includes in-app purchases

What Are You Waiting For?

Ludus Fitness is filled with great exercise videos and you have a fair bit of control over tailoring your workouts to your own needs and likes. It’s too bad that the free app is limited to 10 minute workouts, but the upgrade isn’t unreasonably priced. I’m looking forward to seeing where this one goes next and I recommend that you all download this app today.