Skimble’s Workout Trainer
Workout Trainer for Android - Download
Workout Trainer for iOS - Download
A couple of weeks ago, I started telling some of my friends that I’d be getting into tip top shape before the end of 2012. They laughed and made fun of me, believing that it’s just one of those narcissistic self-motivating promises I made to myself AGAIN. They did so rightfully because since the end of 2009, my fitness and conditioning level have deviated so far away from the ideal that I now have difficulties recalling how being fit feels like.
Make no mistake, for the better part of the last 3 years, I have been exercising regularly, albeit not in proper ways. Of course I didn’t realize it all along until recently when I got a crushing wake-up call after reading a Men’s Health article – “The Pushup Challenge”, which basically says that if you can’t do more than 74 pushups in 3 minutes (no matter how you pace or rest), your fitness level is just “average”. I immediately tried it and got merely 65, which falls into the range of average (55-74). It’s disappointing and discouraging all at the same time, because you would think you could do better than average when working out is one of your obsessions.
I quickly got over the disappointment in my fitness level after I decided to give Skimble’s Workout Trainer a try. The app had been sitting on my phone for at least 5 months before I finally started using it 2 weeks ago. The first impression totally blew me away and I dare say that in the last 10 days or so, I have learnt more varieties of workouts than I did in the whole of last year. Before discovering this app, the sources I used for learning new workouts are mainly men’s magazines and YouTube; Skimble is adding new workouts everyday or at least very regularly to its already huge database of thousands of workouts. The best part? A large number of them are completely free and come with very comprehensive instructions.
Home Page
In this post, I will mainly cover two fundamental parts that make up this app - Programs and Workouts. Community keeps track of all the workouts you’ve done as well as what others have done in the form of status updates, with which members can interact with each other (by liking or commenting). Forum is, well, self-explanatory by the name.
Programs
There are a total of 12 featured programs as of now BUT they are not free. I have checked out a couple of them and each one costs around $12-19. Not exactly an ideal option if you don’t intend to spend much money using this app; the programs are very detailed and well thought out though.
Workouts
This is easily my favorite section of the whole app, firstly because there are a lot of free workouts to choose from and then because it gives me a lot of freedom to mix and match any workouts I like, with detailed descriptions of the outcome of each workout.
When you begin a workout, there will be a timer, an audio description as well as pictures/videos showing the correct postures and procedures which will guide you through the entire workout seamlessly. If you’re not used to rigorous exercises, it’s advisable to start out with casual or moderate workouts and then move on to the intense ones. My (eccentric) approach is to start doing the intense ones partly because I’ve already been working out for a long time. Obviously, the intense workouts are very challenging and I cannot keep up with them all the time but the point is to keep pushing each time until I nail a workout. The choice is yours; just make sure to not over-exert your muscles.
Subscription Fees for Pro Workouts
This one may seem like a much better value for money than the Programs I mentioned earlier on. But the Programs sort of take care of everything for you, in terms of rest days, workout variations and the ideal reps for each workout. If you’re more or less knowledgeable about working out and your body conditioning, purchasing full access to all workouts would be a much better option, if you ask me, because you can create your own workout program from a collection of thousands of workouts. And because of all the descriptions, you would get to learn how to balance out different parts of your muscles. As for rest days, a good rule of thumb is to power up an intense session every other day with a cardio day or a rest day in between.
More Screenshots
General Settings
Adjusting this value will give you different featured workouts on the front page
Google Calendar integration is awesome; one tap and it’s set
This is definitely a fun feature but I know exactly what I am after, so….. won’t use much
In short, there are only a few apps on my phone that I would love to pay for and recommend ardently to friends and family. Workout Trainer is definitely one of them; it may sound exaggerating to you but I’ve already started seeing myself shaping up much better after following this app properly for about 10 days. The important thing is this – if you decide to be serious about it, be disciplined and don’t stop until you start seeing results. It may be painful at first but it’s gonna be worth it. Happy working out! 
Paul Gilbert
/ January 21, 2013There is also an app that works on the Blackberry Playbook