Need a Personal Trainer? Use inShape App to Get In Shape

inShape Personal Trainer wants to be your workout buddy. There is a wealth of exercise data to help anyone get fit.

There are two different ways to use inShape PT. You can create a full-blown exercise plan complete with fitness goals or pick and choose individual exercises.

The exercise list is impressive. inShape Personal Trainer is one of the better compilations of exercises available in the App Store. Choose the part of the body you wish to focus on (like chest, abdomen, back) and then it is easy to get started. The only caveat here is that many of these exercises require gym equipment. But, if you head to the gym or have a good machine setup at home then there should not be an issue.

When tapping an exercise there is a description of how to do it properly and in most cases a video. But launching a video creates a popup menu asking if you wish to go to the download manager to watch it. Then, get ready to wait. In all my tests I found downloads to be rather slow – even over a fast wireless N network. If you are out at the gym and trying to download this over 3G, good luck.

Videos aside, inShape does have excellent music integration. A music bar occupies the top of the screen. Flicking it down brings up the current song playing (it works much like Android’s notification bar). From here you can choose songs to play during the workout: essentially creating a mini playlist on the fly.

InShape PT has it's quirks. When getting started the app asks for your gender, height, weight and year of birth. But, the height is oddly calculated in feet and decimals. So instead of choosing 6 feet 3 inches, look for 6.25 feet. At least you can practice some math here.

Another quirk: by default a message pops up reminding you to mute your phone before exercising as not to disturb your fellow workout buddies. It is good manners, but some don’t need the regular reminder. This option can be turned off.

There is a lot to like with inShape Personal Trainer, but, for now, just too many bugs and quirks to justify the price tag. Fitness fans though may want to keep an eye on how inShape progresses.