Aaptiv is the on-demand fitness app that lets you choose from 2,500 audio-guided classes - Here's how it works

Prachi Bhardwaj

Jun 24, 2018, 18:30 IST

Aaptiv

Aaptiv is a fitness app for anyone unwilling or unable to plan their day around a regularly scheduled class, or for someone like me - someone who wants to stay active but doesn't want to be told when, how, or for how long to do it.

I used it for a few weeks last year, and only stopped because I started a membership at a specialty gym. At the latter, I loved the workout, the instructors, and the facility, but I decided I much prefer not being on someone else's schedule, especially on those weekends when I had to travel - and the fee was starting to get to me.

Aaptiv's $10 a month (or $50 a year, which is about the monthly fee of an affordable New York gym) gives you over 2,500 audio-guided workout classes on your smartphone, with 40 new classes each week. The classes help you make the most of the facilities you have access to - or lack thereof - and can be filtered by workout type, intensity, length of time, music genre, or even by trainer.

In the two years since it launched, Aaptiv gained 200,000 users and has raised a total of $52 million as of June 2018. Since it's striking a chord with users (and some investors), I decided to give it a shot - well, another shot.

Here's how to use Aaptiv, the app that gives you on-demand audio-guided workout classes for $10 a month:

When you sign up, the app asks you three questions so it can recommend workouts accordingly:

Now you're ready to go. On the 'Discover' tab, you'll see recommended workouts across the top, and all of the available classes organized by type of workout underneath.

The rest of the categories — which is where I spent most of my time — are filled with hundreds of workouts that vary by length, trainer, and level of intensity.

To filter down the type of workouts from here, you can select the upside down triangle in the top right-hand corner, and choose your preference(s). You can select multiple from each section at once.

Alternatively, you can go into one of the categories, and filter down from there, which is what I generally do since I get to the gym knowing what machine I want to use.

If you enjoyed a workout, or come across one you liked and couldn't get to right away, you can select the bookmark icon, and add it to your Favorites or To Do lists.

These can be accessed with the "Saved" tab at the bottom of the app's screen.

About a week in, I realized there were some trainers I liked more than others — some of them I avoided completely. Fortunately, there's a tab at the bottom that lets you pick workouts by trainer, and you can filter through these the same way you can elsewhere.

And for the more goal-oriented people, there's the Profile tab. Here, you can see your workout statistics, access classes you've already taken, and set a reminder to keep yourself on track.

Unfortunately, you can't edit this section. That seems like a given, since it's tracking your progress, except that the app counts your stats the second you hit "Play" on a class. That means if you go in and decide you're not into the music or the trainer even a minute in, the whole workout counts on your profile.

This matters more if you're competing with a friend or keeping score — a minor setback in the grand scheme of things — but does bring to mind a bigger issue with how the app works.