Apps Addiction

Confession: I haven’t opened the EpicMix app on my phone since April when I closed out my season at Vail. I tried to collect any final pins and ride at least as many lifts as the day before. Then I took one last look at my vertical and points accrued and said good-bye until next season. I was addicted...at least until the final chair in part because I subconsciously equated with more chairs and more vertical with a greater calorie burn at the end of the day. My legs were burning after all.

But that was four months ago. That’s not to say that I’ve been sitting on the sofa, tanning on the beach, dining at the food fests and letting summer get the best of the fitness gains I made on the mountain over the winter. It’s all about prepping for the next season so we can rock it even harder than the last. Right? So while EpicMix takes a much-needed vacation, my attention falls to the other apps on my iPhone: the fitness-focused ones that can keep me in shape when I can’t ski 12 runs or log 20,000 feet of vertical in a day. The ones that can suggest new workouts I could never concoct on my own. The ones that are almost as good as working alongside a personal trainer because they provide real-time feedback.

The only problem is there are thousands of apps fitting that description. Take one look in the iTunes store and it's overwhelming (I know--I was researching apps for a magazine story two months ago and nearly got lost). So I took the guesswork out at buzz.snow.com where you can read about seven apps that'll keep you motivated to exercise even when you don't have a trainer pushing you through that last rep.

What fitness apps do you have in your cache?

Photo grabbed from marc.flores at flickr.