Recently I was allowed access to review a great new fitness iPhone app called Fitness Builder from PumpOne. The app aims to be your one-stop shop for all your exercising needs. It contains hundreds and hundreds of unique workouts designed by professional fitness trainers, stat tracking of your own various fitness measurements and even allows you to monitor your physical progress. The workouts seem to be designed for any goal in mind, whether you want to target certain muscle groups, improve your sports performance or have limited access to equipment.

The workout routines themselves are easily accessed via the intuitive user interface and feature well illustrated exercises with pictures, text and video. Once a workout has been selected, you can simply swipe through the exercises one at a time. There is also a timer to keep your rest periods to a minimum.

After you have completed a workout, you can log your activities into the app’s database to track your progress over time. If you so desire you can also share your workouts via Twitter or Facebook.

Overall, I think the app is wonderfully designed and contains an amazing amount of information for the beginner to intermediate fitness enthusiast.

What I liked: I think that Fitness Builder is particularly great at supplementing an established fitness routine. Often times I find myself searching online for new exercises to target certain muscles groups. This app contains literally hundreds of illustrated exercises that have helped me add new elements into my workouts on just such occasions.

What I didn’t like: Even though Fitness Builder had a wealth of information and described many different workouts to target the areas you were wanting to focus on, I would hesitate to use this as your only source of training advice. Unless you systematically and regularly worked through every workout in the app, you may be left with a somewhat unbalanced fitness plan. I’d say if you just want some great new routines to try to incorporate into your already existing program or want a simple way to create and log your own routines, you may still find the $9.99 price justifiable.

link – Fitness Builder

The following is a new feature of FitHacks.com where I review certain fitness gadgets and gizmos that may benefit the fit-minded reader. Should this be a regular feature on the site? Let me know what you think.

Also,  I have some big news! Beginning next week, I will start the FitHacks.com Subscriber Contest! All I can say at this time is that I have an extra Sony W-Series Walkman (unopened) and I want to give it to one of my faithful readers. More details on this Monday. Now to the review:

Disclaimer: This device was a test unit sent to me free of charge for review on the site. The following article is an unbiased and honest review of a product. I do not review products that do not align with my personal convictions nor do I accept money for reviewing products.

For the last few days I have been testing a new water resistant MP3 player from Sony known as the W-Series Walkman. The W-Series is a very sporty player that was designed with the athlete in mind and has been very fun to play with over the course of the past week. It’s a little different from an average MP3 player as the storage, controls, battery and headphones are all housed within the same casing. This makes for an interesting device free of all but the smallest of cords and cables. Sony has made a lot of interesting design choices which they hope will aid digital audio lovers while on the go, at the track or in the gym.

Form Factor: The MP3 player has a very unique construction. In fact, I have never used a device quite like this one. With this unit, the headphones are actually built into the main body of the player. The device looks exactly like two separate Blutooth headsets joined together with a small cable that runs behind your head. They fit over the ear pretty comfortably and the earbuds (which come with different rubber casings for different sized ears) actually felt pretty good when in use. The player is lightweight and doesn’t distract while walking or even jogging.

The controls for the device are located on the underside of the ear pieces. The right unit has the play/pause and volume controls; the left unit has the shuffle button and the USB port.

Another interesting thing about the physical design of this player is that there is a magnet built into the player that is intended to hold the two separate units together while not in use. This is great for securing the player from damage and for a compact storing solution.

User Interface: The control interface for this player is also pretty unique. As the designers purposed that all functionality must be controlled from the bottom of the player with the user’s thumbs, they attempted to make the buttons as intuitive as possible. I’d say that on the whole, they were successful. The right unit contains a “joystick-like” control. Pushing the button in controls the “Play/Pause” functionality. Pushing the button to the front/back controls the skip track functionality. Also among the player controls is the “Volume Up/Down” buttons and the “Shuffle” button for randomizing the song order. After five minutes with learning the navigation controls, I was a pro.

Sound quality: Honestly, this was the most surprising part of using this player. Having headphones built into the unit didn’t give me high hopes for a quality sound. However, I was very satisfied with the audio quality that I heard. Considering that I’ve gone through many, many pairs of in ear headphones, I can say that these sounded just as good as the high price stand alone units that you will find in Best Buy.

Battery Life: Actually, as I’ve only been testing the unit for the last week, I haven’t used up the whole battery yet. The little player is still running on the initial charge. Officially, the player should give you approximately 11 hours of playtime before needing to be recharged.

Storage: The memory capabilities of the W-Series is only 2GB. This is seemingly pretty low when compared to other MP3 players on the market but not when you consider the purpose for this device. This is meant to be a player that you can use while you work out – not for a road trip across the country. With that in mind, 2GB seems like an adequate (though not abundant) amount of media storage.

Overall Impressions: Overall, I was impressed with the player’s ability to remain on my ears even while jumping and jogging. I have had problems with in ear headphones in the past when I work out. I tend to sweat a lot and have a hard time keeping traditional headphones in my ears. These are secure and won’t fall out no matter how sweaty my ears get.

The lightweight units are comfortable and easy to control. I was able to scan the device for songs quickly and effectively without interrupting my workout.

The storage capabilities are smaller than most players today, but if you use this device solely for working out it shouldn’t be a problem.

The only thing that I could really consider as a point against this player is the appearance. Sony definitely was trying to be different in their design here, and I appreciate not having to carry around any headphones with the device. However, it looks exactly like I have two Blutooth cell phone headsets strapped to my head at the same time. This may seem a bit odd to people who see me on the road or in the gym but it is only a small complaint. On the whole, I definitely see myself using this device whenever I want to workout with some music.

link – Sony W-Series Walkman

Lately, the interwebs have become riddled with various web applications, social networks, and training programs that are great for helping the web savvy of us get in shape. I’m very thankful for all the amazing efforts put forth by these fit-minded web developers and have used many of these sites in my own personal fitness journey. Browse the massive list below and feel free to add your own favorite fitness resources in the comments.

DailyBurn.com

DailyBurn.com is an all-in-one online fitness suite. It allows you to keep track of your diet, caloric intake, workouts and goals. There is also a strong community around this site that definitely helps in personal accountability.

MapMyRun.com

MapMyRun.com is my personal favorite way to log and map out new running routes. Use their online mapping software to create your own routes through your city or browse through their massive database of routes created by other users. This site is also great at helping you keep track of your running schedule and total mileage.

DailyMile.com

Hailed as the “social” training log, DailyMile.com allows its users to keep track of their weekly running mileage via a simple status update system like Twitter. This site is great for sharing your workouts with friends and mingling with other users for daily encouragement.

PeerTrainer.com

PeerTrainer.com is a fitness social network that places a lot of emphasis on community. Users come here to meet like-minded individuals for accountability and encouragement. While the site does offer diet and workout logs, the strength of this site is its large user base.

ProjectWeightLoss.com

While other sites tend to have a broad focus on fitness, ProjectWeightLoss.com aims at helping its users do primarily one thing: lose weight. This social network is riddled with articles and blog posts from experts and professionals that will help you create a diet and fitness plan that will work.

Traineo.com

Traineo.com provides a super-clean web interface that allows users to keep track of their activity, diet, and weight. The sheer simplicity of this site is very appealing and is backed up by a very strong community of active users.

FitLink.com

FitLink.com is another all-in-one fitness community. You can log your workouts, research exercises, calculate your body mass index and find “activity partners” who can train virtually alongside you.

iStats.com.au

iStats offers a very comprehensive stat tracking package for all types of workouts. Enter your activity, duration, intensity, and track your progress over time. Definitely the site of choice for statistically minded information geeks.

FavoriteRun.com

FavoriteRun.com specializes in one thing: finding and creating new running routes. There are a ton of different running routes from cities all across the world that are easy to search through. The intuitive interface is built on Google Maps so route creation is always a breeze.

BodyDaemon.com

BodyDaemon.com is another online fitness network that specializes in logging all aspects of your fitness life. The site has several experts on hand to give advice and seems to have a community that is more focused on strength training than other areas.

WalkJogRun.net

WalkJogRun.net is a barebones web app that lets users create walking routes around their homes. The interface is simple and easy to navigate. Also, it seems to have plenty of users so finding a route near your home shouldn’t be a problem.

introPLAY.com

introPLAY.com is another workout tracking web app that allows you to log almost every type of activity imaginable. However, what I find interesting about this site is their “competitive workout leagues”. If you are ever lacking motivation, this could be a great way to kickstart your workouts.

WeEndure.com

WeEndure.com is simply a training log site for athletes interested in all types of endurance sports (primarily running, swimming and cycling). This is a fantastic resource for those training for a marathon, triathlon or other endurance event.

RunFatBoy.net

RunFatBoy.net (I love the name) is a type of workout generator. Once you signup and complete the profile questionnaire a fitness plan will be created for you. Keep track of your daily workouts and diet as you progress from fat to fit. There’s not a lot here for the experienced fitness professional, but for the beginner, it seems like a great place to start.

Gmap-Pedometer.com

Gmap-Pedometer.com is the original distance calculating application built on GoogleMaps. I remember using this app years ago when I first started jogging around my neighborhood and wondered how far I actually ran. Sure, there are more feature rich applications online today but this probably inspired most of them. If you prefer a streamlined way to measure the distance of your running routes over the fancy bells and whistles of other sites, then this site may be for you.