14 DAY TRIAL // A healthy body and a healthy lifestyle are becoming more and more a major concern worldwide, as people begin to realize the growing risks represented by cardio diseases, stress-induced disorders or, more often, unbalanced alimentation. In order to become and stay fit, most individuals try to find a good gym where they can work out to lose a few pounds, increase their bodily strength and overall health by sustained physical exercise. The best results are obtained under the coordination of a professional trainer, but sometimes people can?t afford one, or they think they have found enough information about the routines and the exercises in health magazines or using the Internet to stop going to one.
For those who want to learn on their own more about weight training and what exercises are suited for a particular muscle group, GymGoal Lite provides a quick solution with its wide-ranging database that explains each exercise and workout, providing useful training tips and illustrations. This lightweight, free application can substitute a human trainer when you simply want to find out more about the exercises you can perform for a muscle group and also about the specific workout routines that can be done using free weights and pulleys.
The user interface of GymGoal Lite is straightforward, without any complicated functions, complex menus or any other bells and whistles. To better describe it, I?d have to call it a Spartan interface as it hosts only five large buttons for Favorite Exercises, Body Map, Search By Name, Favorite Workouts, and Browse Workouts. And to be fair, this little piece of software doesn?t need much more that this, because it will simply show you the muscle groups of the human body and the routines fit for each group.
The Exercises section is endowed with loads of entries for body weight, machines, free weights and pulleys. GymGoal Lite will also enable you to easily choose the type of exercise you want to perform: compound or isolation. The Difficulty levels range from Beginner to Expert, with Intermediate and Advanced in between. You simply need to pick the one that best suits your needs and requirements.
Once you select an exercise from the list, you will be able to see the instructions on performing it, the type and difficulty level, as well as the required equipment (if any) for that specific routine. In the same window are detailed the muscle groups the particular work out is suitable for. A nice feature of the application is that it provides a set of useful tips for certain exercises designed to optimize the result of the routine.
The Workout routines section of GymGoal Lite will allow you to select the best training split for you from whole-body, two-day, three day or four-day splits. For the equipments that can be used, you can select from Free Weights and Free Weights combined with Pulleys. In so far as the Difficulty levels for the Workout Routines are concerned, you are presented with the choices of Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced sets of exercises.
A great feature of this utility is that it will enable you to mark any exercise or workout as favorite and, once a set of preferred routines is defined, you can simply browse the Favorites category to access them instead of having to search the entire index. The 200+ exercises present you with a complete plan for weight training without any complications.
In case the user of GymGoal Lite is a beginner with little knowledge on fitness, workouts and physical exercises, there?s a very practical Glossary that explains most of the terminology that could be difficult to understand for non-professionals.
All things considered, it?s safe to say that GymGoal Lite offers a wide range of physical exercises for anyone who wants to become and stay fit, without any fancy features, complex animations or videos. This application simply presents you with an all-inclusive choice of exercises that are suitable for beginners as well as for experts, explaining them in detail and showing you how the routines should be performed.
The Good
The strongest point of GymGoal Lite has to be its large exercise database that recommends over two hundred routines, with in-depth explanations and graphical illustrations that show exactly how a particular exercise needs to be done in order to get the most out of it. Another good thing about this free software is that it gives you the possibility to choose favorite exercises and workout routines and view only those instead of browsing for one in the huge database.
The Bad
With regard to the downsides of GymGoal Lite, perhaps the most obvious one is the plain interface that could use some improvement in terms of attractiveness for the user.
Also, the illustrations accompanying the routines could have been colored and a bit more detailed in describing the movements needed to perform a particular exercise.
The Truth
Overall, GymGoal Lite does a great job in providing the user with the needed information on the physical exercises, is very easy to use and light on system resources.
Nonetheless, it would certainly be nice to have a section for keeping a log of the performed routines, the achieved progress and a module for scheduling the following workouts, so that the user could also use it as a training manager and not only as an exercise guidebook.
Given the fact that it is free, you may say that GymGoal Lite is the cheapest weight trainer you?ll find that gives you full insight into physical workout. So, wait no more and take it for a spin!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
