Having a well-balanced schedule is a hard thing to juggle with, work, sleep, eating healthy, socializing and working out. Sometimes it can get to be too much and people can’t fit it all in one day. Often working out and eating healthy meals are dropped. But now with advancements in fitness and health apps, it makes life easier in being able to manage everything. You can work out with a trainer from home or even at a park across the street and create workout programs to follow wherever and whenever it works best with your schedule. According to a study done by Canada Health Infoway, based on a national survey done in 2017 with 4,109 adults, 32% of Canadians consult health apps on their smartphones and 24% use smart connected devices to monitor their health conditions.
With Canadians showing more interest in health and fitness apps, the country has come up with a number of wellness startups for people to begin or continue their fitness journey. The following are some of Canada’s most dynamic and engaging health and fitness app startups including exercising on the go with personal trainers, earning rewards when reaching fitness goals, access to influential fitness personalities, connecting and training live with trainers and connecting with people joining recreational activities.
1. Flex: Training on the Go
According to the team: “Flex delivers hand-picked, vetted, certified and insured trainers to your home, hotel, office, condo, or favourite park in Toronto. Choose from Personal Training, Boxing and Interval Training. Shoot us a message in-app to schedule your complimentary session today! Choose your workout type and time, enter your location, and choose one of our high-quality trainers. View trainer profiles and ratings before making your choice. Book your workouts on the go and see your upcoming sessions at a glance. Work out with your friends. Bring up to three friends and get personalized attention for the cost of a class – without the hassle of commuting to your local gym or studio! Flexible and convenient. Our trainers come to you and fit into your busy schedule. Switch up your workouts with any of our plans.”
Fun Fact: Guaraná is super proud to have worked on this app! Check it out in our portfolio!
Location: Toronto
Apple App Store
Website
2. Gymnut: Earn Rewards and Achieve Fitness Goals
According to the team: “Take the first step towards the new you. Earn rewards by completing workout & nutrition plans from our community of the best personal trainers. Get started for free! Find the free workouts, training, and nutrition plans you need or request custom ones from trainers you can trust! Stay focused on your goals. Share your journey with a supportive training community dedicated to achieving your goals! Gymnut is not just an application, a platform, or a marketplace – its built on an idea, that together, we can each strive to be a better version of ourselves, and bring out our inner gym nut.”
Location: London
Website
Angel List Profile
3. Fitplan: Access to Influential Fitness Personalities
According to the team: “Fitplan is a wellness technology company giving one-on-one access to the world’s most influential fitness personalities and their methods. Like having a celebrity personal trainer in your pocket, Fitplan makes it efficient and affordable to find the right fitness routine, track progress and achieve specialized results. Fitplan Trainers are some of the world’s most popular fitness influencers and athletes, curating exclusive 3-12-week, gym-ready and home-friendly workout programs for people of all fitness levels. Choose from dozens of programs designed by your favourite trainers. Work out at the gym, at home, or anywhere life takes you. Track your progress. Keep tabs on your weight, reps and time, and watch your results take shape. Stay accountable. Join ur private Fitplan communities to ask questions, share progress, and stay on top of your game.”
Location: Vancouver
Employees: 11 – 50
Website
Angel List Profile
4. LIFT Session: A Digital Fitness Club
According to the team: “LIFT session is a digital fitness club that allows its members to connect and train LIVE with top coaches online through computers, iPads, tablets and Smart TVs. We remove all challenges related to fitness training: location, time, budget & mindset. It’s a huge market that we are disrupting: we’re addressing the fitness needs of 85% of the population, who do not go to the gym or want to train from home. Think of P90X or Insanity, but with real coaches customizing fitness programs for each member and actually delivering the session LIVE at a fraction of the cost of training at a gym.”
Location: Montreal
Employees: 11 – 50
Website
Angel List Profile
5. #moveready: Discovering Recreational Sport Activities
According to the team: “#moveready is a platform and community for easily discovering recreational sport activities, organizing with others, and playing. Our platform allows recreational athletes to browse activities such as drop-in games, tournaments, leagues, classes, and more. Recreational athletes can then sign up to our community to find other players, teams, and activity partners to participate in activities. The goal is to provide a seamless process for recreational athletes to go out and enjoy their activities with others that share their interests. We also provide recreational activity organizers and sport venue owners various ways to list and promote their activities and venues.”
Location: Toronto
Employees: 1 – 10
Website
Angel List Profile
6. Hale: Supporting Clients and Trainers
According to the team: “Hale is changing the personal training world by combining years of industry experience with cutting-edge technology to help clients reach their goals faster, while making trainer’s lives easier. Hale helps clients reach their fitness goals while supporting the personal trainers best equipped to help them. Hale gives clients the ability to input the price, experience level and fitness goal they want to achieve and matches them with trainers at a time and price that suits them. Hale deeply vets all trainers and assigns them one of four experience tiers, making it easy for clients to compare trainers.”
Location: Vancouver
Employees: 1 – 10
Website
Angel List Profile
7. Suited: Nutrition Coaching
According to the team: “Suited is a habit-based nutrition coaching app. It enables people to reach their fitness goals by helping them practice and develop long-lasting habits. Feel, look and live better. Complete a program that has been personalized for your specific goal. Practice 1 habit at a time. After completing a habit 14 times, you’ll unlock the next one. Develop an accurate understanding of nutrition by reading our evidence-based lessons. Receive daily reminders to keep you on the right track. Report whether or not you did your habit to be held accountable. Follow a customized exercise program to accelerate your results.”
Location: Toronto
Employees: 1 – 10
Website
Angel List Profile
8. PlayCity: Connecting People Through Physical Activity
According to the team: “In a world that’s constantly being divided, PlayCity enriches lives, communities, and local economies by connecting people through physical activity. For app users, PlayCity is the easiest way to incorporate physical activity into your social life. By downloading the free PlayCity app, you find others to play with, facilities nearby and local events to participate in. Our goal is that your experience should be simple, positive, and fun! For our partners: municipalities, associations, recreation facilities and other local businesses, PlayCity’s mobile platform technologies and community management expertise helps you reconnect with your current clients and reach new ones while gaining insights to help you make informed decisions about your marketing and programming dollars.”
Location: Calgary
Employees: 1 – 10
Website
Angel List Profile
9. Body Club
According to the team: “Work with your own coach. It doesn’t have to break the bank. New plans every week, video form analysis, and unlimited messaging with your trainer. Get assessed. You’ll share your goals and work with your coach to develop your first week of workouts. Every week your trainer sends you a new plan based on your performance and feedback from the previous week. Use the Body Club Video analysis app to submit videos your coach requests. Every week you’ll have exercises reviewed by your coach and one on one time with your coach.”
Location: Toronto
Employees: 1 – 10
Website
Angel List Profile
As you can see, there are many creative and compelling options to get in your daily workout with the wide variety of health and wellness apps at your disposal. If there are any more fitness app startups in Canada worth mentioning let us know! We would love to hear your ideas.
