"Gym Genie" Solid For Weightlifting Vets, Beginners Should Probably Stay Away
July 19, 2011
There are a ton of exercise apps available for iOS, and -- since the ever-bulking genre is unlikely to shed any of its unwanted weight -- it's becoming more and more of a chore to sift through the pile. To make matters more tedious still, each app typically warrants at least a cursory examination, as they all invariably tout best-of-category merits and feature, at the very least, decent(ish) UIs.
Gym Genie, from developers Muscle Prodigy LLC, is the latest such product. From its iTunes listing, the app is described as
the best pocket-personal trainer on the market, and with over 600,000 combinations of specialized workouts... A sleek and easy to use interface lets you select and modify your workouts in an instant. You can spend hundreds of dollars on personal training sessions... OR, you can buy this application for the price of a pack of gum.While it doesn't come close to living up to such lofty claims, Gym Genie does inject some new life into the old standard. On the plus side, the app is dead simple to use: You select a muscle group (or groups) to engage, tap "Launch," and start lifting as per the randomly selected exercises. Each group chosen will display five unique lifts, any of which can be randomly changed at your discretion. For the most part, the included movements are fairly standard, and the app does a swell job at getting you "swole." However, there are so many drawbacks to Gym Genie that, for the beginner, it is definitely not an effective primer. First, there is a heavy mix of isolation and compound exercises on board, many of which require more experience than those just getting into the rhythm of a daily lifting routine are likely to have. Additionally, the very nature of the app is built around the advanced training technique of "muscle confusion," and this is notoriously difficult -- physically and especially psychologically -- for the weightlifting novice. Early on, it's far more important to establish a set regimen than it is to swap out motions en masse every workout. To that end, then, Gym Genie is no substitute for an educated personal trainer. In technical terms, the app has several points of annoyance. Each demo is preceded by a five-second Muscle Prodigy advert, and viewing any on-board tutorial requires an internet connection: Instead of including the videos within the app itself, everything is merely embedded from YouTube. Sure, that lets the app have a smaller footprint, but you're pretty much out of luck if your gym doesn't have decent Wi-Fi. And, though these demos are better than average in skilled conveyance, I'm afraid they all need to be rerecorded. The guys aren't miked up, and there's so much background noise that most of the verbal instruction is largely incoherent. Overall, Gym Genie is good, just not for most users. If you're a seasoned lifter who sometimes gets bored in the gym, the app can help invigorate a stale session. If you're trying to focus on a particular lagging muscle group and need a huge shot of variety, Muscle Prodigy has your back in spades. And, at only a dollar on iTunes, it truly is worth the money. Unfortunately, if you're just getting into the game, there are better options out there.
