7 Must-Have Fitness App Features in 2024

Ever since the COVID-19 situation of 2020, there’s been a noticeable increase in the use of fitness trackers and apps for exercise and nutrition. 

And with that, the demand for all-in-one fitness apps that give a complete workout experience has shot through the roof. So for every entrepreneur, there’s now a huge opportunity to tackle a market problem, tap into the growing demand for comprehensive wellness solutions, and help users reach their goals.

However, when creating comprehensive fitness apps, you should always go for a fitness program builder that is simple to use. Some decent options are Wellcaster – Health and Fitness Platform with its flexible editor and expansive media library, TrueCoach with its custom branding features, and Zen Planner with its focus on managing memberships.

To help you out further, this blog will explain the seven essential features your fitness app must include in 2024 to stand out against the crowd and motivate your users to achieve better fitness results.

1. Highest Level of Personalization

Personalization is key to keeping a person engaged. In this vein, to make your app’s users feel like everything is tailored to them, your fitness app needs to go beyond basic parameters like height and weight to also include more sleep patterns, activity levels, and health metrics like blood pressure, etc. 

By doing so, you can tailor workout plans, nutrition advice, and progress tracking to the unique health conditions, fitness levels, or specific goals of users. This will result in a more engaging and efficient user experience. 

2. Lifestyle Tracking

Personalization aside, any fitness company that wants to monetize an app in 2024 has to be serious about offering a holistic fitness and lifestyle experience. So, in addition to the main focus of your app (i.e., bodybuilding, healthy eating, etc.), consider integrating lifestyle exercises that contribute to increased wellness, such as meditation routines, breathing exercises for pain relief, mindfulness exercises, and health tracking services like water intake trackers and sleep pattern monitors, among others. 

Moreover, think about how you can offer lifestyle exercises that align with your audience’s goals. For instance, if your flexibility and posture app targets individuals dealing with posture challenges due to demanding work-from-home schedules and desk jobs, incorporating stress management techniques would be a strategic move because studies show a relationship between prolonged sitting and higher levels of stress and mental fatigue.

3. Wearable and Health Data Integration

Since the early 2010s, we’ve been in an era of connectivity. Now, almost every modern technological device has the capacity to sync and share information with another device, just as you can connect your smartwatch to a phone, your smartwatch to a TV, a smartwatch to your laptop, and all the objects to each other. Thus, your startup’s fitness tracking app can never be complete without the ability to sync and communicate with wearable technologies and home devices, regardless of whether you manufacture wearables or not. 

But beyond connectivity, your fitness apps or wearables should also incorporate advanced tracking systems capable of monitoring physical health metrics like step count, walking steadiness, blood pressure, etc., as well as psychological markers like self-reports of self-esteem, mood, or anxiety level.

4. Social Fitness Community

No one should embark on a fitness journey alone, and the best health and fitness apps recognize the fundamental need for interaction and community engagement we humans have. For your app to compete as a top solution in 2024, you need to develop active communities for your users and incorporate social elements such as communication with like-minded fitness enthusiasts, virtual coaching classes, one-on-one guidance sessions with “virtual workout companions,” and more. By integrating these social elements into your app, you’ll notice a heightened communal spirit and level of motivation in users to achieve their goals by using your app. 

Moreover, consider incorporating healthy gamification into your community with elements like badges, points, and leaderboards for calories burnt, steps taken, etc. These elements motivate users to surpass the results of other community members by completing daily goals and tasks.

5. Advanced Data Insights and Analytics

Top fitness apps are equipped with comprehensive data analytics and dashboards that enable users to keep track of their progress and find insights into their trajectory with metrics like calories burnt, progress towards their goals, and workout performance. This is why, on one hand, your health app must allow users to record all metrics, from the number of sets and reps they perform to the hours they spend training, the calories burnt, and their weight levels. On the other hand, because each user has varying aspects of fitness they prioritize, your app should let users set custom data visualization so they can focus on the metrics that matter most to them.

6. Streamlined In-App Purchases

We highly recommend implementing streamlined in-app purchase functionalities in your fitness application. In every scenario, a frictionless transaction process enables users to access your full range of offerings effortlessly and thus goes a long way in improving the overall functionality of your app. 

Additionally, consider offering a free trial option with your paid services. This not only builds trust by showing customers you care about them making an informed decision but is also a compelling way to communicate the trust you have in the value of your offering. 

7. Video & Live Streaming

For a lot of people, video content proves to be more informative, engaging, and easier to follow than text. This observation is particularly true in the realm of fitness where no one wants to read about an exercise; but rather they want to see it in action so they can replicate it themselves. 

Furthermore, when seeing others crushing their exercise routines and sweating it out, there’s a powerful sense of motivation that simply can’t be replicated alone, so video content also triumphs over text and images in that aspect. So even though they may not be free, consider offering an archive of workouts or exercises such as yoga, weight lifting, meditation, etc., that users can access easily, or daily live streaming for various exercises, which fosters a sense of community and helps a lot with motivating users.

Boost Your Fitness Results in 2024

To succeed in this growing and competitive marketplace, fitness apps of the future must go beyond counting steps and calories burned, and evolve to create a holistic and wellness experience and, what’s equally important, a vibrant sense of community. By including the features we discussed today, your business will be able to boost user engagement and satisfaction, as well as motivate users to achieve optimal fitness results.