Sweatin' To The Oldies: iPhone Edition

I see iPhones everywhere these days. I mean, it doesn’t seem like too long ago when I would literally climb over people on the bus just to sneak a peak at someone who had one…but now, they are totally ubiquitous. At the office, on the commute to the office (this one is maybe not such a good thing), at parties, at the store, at the beach, pretty much everywhere! But here is a new one on me; iPhones at the gym! I know what your saying, ‘Open your eyes Dave, of course people take their phones to the gym.’ Well, I know that. I’m not talking about just bringing them to the gym…no, what I recently noticed happening more and more is people using the phone as literally PART of the workout! Now for me personally, having my iPhone out at a place like this…well it just gives me the chills. (I have written at length about my OCD when it comes to getting my phone dirty, but suffice it to say that I never make a call without the headphones, for fear of getting face grease on the screen. Pointless, I know…but that’s how I am.) So naturally, the first time I saw someone at the gym with their iPhones out in the trenches I was a little disturbed. Half the time the phone would hang precipitously from the ‘sport-pack’ bouncing roughly on their muscled arms- and the other half of the time it would be sliding around on their sweaty calloused palms. I could barely stomach this, and my mystification must have shown as I received many a discomfited glance from the people I was dumbfoundedly staring at. Time has given me a little perspective though. I decided to spend some time researching so as to discover the reasons (impossible though they seemed to me at the time) why someone would sacrifice their phones in this way. And it turns out…there is some dang good workout stuff on the little guy! We all know that it has everything you would ever need for like corporate presentations (like Sway, Rolando, Kryzer, etc.), but for the first time it seemed to me almost as if the iPhone was designed with fitness in mind! After much sweat and effort and sweat, I have discovered what I deem to be the 5 apps necessary to sculpt your misshapen body into a god-like statue! Weightbot-You know. It’s actually a pretty winning idea. First take something that most people hate with a passion-a scale. Then you make an app that works with that scale that is all cute and useful! It actually makes tracking your weight enjoyable…depending on the direction of your graph… Loseit- Extremely time consuming to enter every single thing that you consume. It took me pretty much an hour to put down all the ingredients of my sandwhich…of course maybe that says more about the type of sandwiches I eat than it does about the utility of the app…however, all things considered it definitely raises your accountability when you see all those calories displayed for you. Yoga stretch- Certainly not for everybody…but then again maybe it should be. I kid you not, stretching like this…and granted what I was doing is probably a profane corruption of what Mr. Yoga originally had intended, but still…the stretching and relaxation felt good…really good. I recommend this to everyone. None of these apps needed to be used in the gym however; they could all be used in the safety of my own apartment. However, for the following two apps I had to do some serious investigative journalism. And it will please you all to know, that I have overcome some of my more natural propensities to pen this article! Yes, I have descended into the belly of the beast. I have gotten sweat on my iPhone…and not immediately gone for the canned air and buffering cloth! (I did that when I got home.) I sacrificed much to bring you this information…tread lightly. Interval trainer- This one is fun and perfect for people who do cardio and who like to be able to see where they stand and how it compares to their last few efforts. Ifitness-This is the one I assume is being used most often in the gym. Unfortunately, you have to enter every number of reps for every single exercise you do…but for me that wasn’t really an issue- I try to keep my workouts modest. However, it is much easier to see how often you want to increase your reps and by how much, or how much longer you want to go on cardio next time to see some improvement-when compared to tracking these things with pen and paper. The goals are real, and reaching them has a definite sense of progression attached to it. The motto of the new Biggest iPhone Loser? First you put on 3.5 ounces (or however much the iPhone actually weighs), then you take off 50 lbs! What do you guys think? Have you seen success with the iPhone in the gym?