A Review on Aaptiv Fitness

What is the Aaptiv fitness app?

Whether your goal is to lose weight, run farther or faster, or simply stay fit, the Aaptiv app offers a personalized approach to fitness.

The app meets you at your current fitness level and plans your workouts based on your fitness goals, what type of workouts you prefer, and the exercise equipment to which you have access.

The app features audio-based instruction from certified personal trainers to guide you through the workouts, as well as preset musical inspiration.

For exercises that you may not be familiar with, the app includes video demonstrations on how to perform them.

Although Aaptiv plans workouts based on your fitness level and preferences, you can also browse the app’s library of workouts, which you can do at home, outdoors, or at your local gym.

These workouts target individual muscle groups or your full body, and they last anywhere from 3 minutes to over 2 hours depending on the workout type.

Here are the workout types you can choose from on the app:

• treadmill
• stretching
• strength training
• stair climber
• outdoor running
• yoga
• elliptical
• indoor cycling
• Pilates
• barre
• meditation

Aaptiv also offers specialty workout regimens for those who want to train for a marathon, stay active during pregnancy, or incorporate suspension training using the TRX system, also known as Total Body Resistance Exercises.

While you’re not assigned a specific trainer per se, you can choose workouts from your personalized plan led by a trainer who you find better suits your personality or preferences.

The app allows you to track workout-related statistics like duration, frequency, and miles run over the course of a week, while allowing you to compare trends by week, month, and all-time.

It also tracks calories burned, but this number is an estimation and may be inaccurate (1).

Getting started with Aaptiv

To get started with Aaptiv, download the app to your phone and create an account.

Aaptiv will run you through a quick survey to personalize your daily health plan.

The survey consists of questions related to your primary health goal, current fitness level, and preferred type of workout and duration, among others.

Based on your responses, Aaptiv provides three options for workout programs you can jump right into, whether at home, the gym, or outdoors.

Otherwise, you can browse over 4,000 audio and video workouts and structured programs across various categories, scroll through a feed of other Aaptiv users’ posts for motivation and inspiration, or learn about the role of proper nutrition to meet your health goals.

You can explore all that Aaptiv has to offer for 7 days, after which you are charged automatically based on the plan you chose.

Both subscriptions give you unlimited access to the features of the app, including thousands of workouts, with new classes added each week.

Summary

Answer a few questions about your goals, current fitness level, and workout preferences, and you’re ready to get started with Aaptiv.

Benefits

The Aaptiv fitness app offers several benefits that may make it a great fitness solution for you.

Highly personalized

After you sign up for an Aaptiv membership, you’re asked a series of questions related to your fitness level, preferences, and goals.

Based on your answers to these questions, the Aaptiv algorithm provides you personalized workouts and programs.

As you meet your fitness goals or your preferences change, you have the option to change your training plan and workouts or incorporate new healthy habits into your daily routine.

You also have the power to choose how often and what days you work out to accommodate your lifestyle and schedule.

Because Aaptiv incorporates your fitness goals and preferences, you’re more likely to stay motivated and stick with the program long term, compared with a less individualized program (2, 3, 4, 5).

Highly accessible and provides a support community

Whether you’re spending a weekend at your in-laws for the holidays or traveling for work, if you have an Apple or Android device, you have access to Aaptiv workouts.

The app requires access to Wi-Fi or the use of cellular data, but you can also download any Aaptiv class ahead of time, allowing you to stay on track with your fitness goals wherever you’re at — hassle and worry-free.

Aaptiv also has a community feed where members can post messages, trade encouragement, interact with the Aaptiv trainers, and hold each other accountable.

For additional accountability, the Aaptiv app gives you the option to allow notifications on your phone to keep you on track with your fitness goals.

Workouts are ever-changing

With the release of more than 40 new workout classes every week and unlimited access to 2,500 guided workouts, it’s unlikely that your workouts will ever become stale or repetitive.

The Aaptiv app also features team challenges that you can join to mix things up, feed your competitive nature, or further challenge yourself in a team setting.

Though recent reviews suggest a decline in new workouts.

Downsides

Although the Aaptiv app has several benefits, it also has downsides you may want to consider.

Audio-based

The Aaptiv workout programs are audio-based and designed to be listened to without watching a screen or staring at your phone.

While the trainers provide detailed directions and guidance throughout the workouts, it can be easy to become lost or out of sync with the trainer’s directions if you’re not familiar with certain exercises.

However, each workout program includes video demonstrations for most of the exercises so that you can refresh yourself on how to perform them or learn new ones.

Still, these demonstrations don’t line up with the audio, so you must pause the audio before you watch the videos to stay on track with the trainer’s direction.

Having to refer back and forth to the demonstration videos for directions or guidance can be inconvenient and interrupt the flow of your workouts.

Additionally, the loudness of the background music sometimes makes it difficult to hear and follow along with the trainer’s directions.

Minimal focus on nutrition

Although the Aaptiv app has a nutrition blog and allows you to add nutrition-related goals to your fitness plan, such as to drink more water, eat more slowly, and incorporate more fresh, whole foods into your diet, it lacks a strong nutrition component.

Ensuring good nutrition is not only important for optimizing workout performance and recovery but also key for weight loss — if that’s your goal.

The workout programs offered through the Aaptiv app can certainly help you burn calories, but whether you lose weight largely comes down to your diet.

Studies have shown that among people with excess body weight, implementing dietary changes along with exercise leads to greater weight loss than implementing dietary changes or exercise alone, as well as that diet alone is more important than exercise alone for weight loss (6, 7).

However, for long-term weight loss maintenance, a combination of diet and exercise is likely equally essential (8).

In either case, without a strong focus on nutrition, you may experience suboptimal weight loss results — regardless of your fitness goals — with Aaptiv unless you also make nutrition a primary focus of your overall lifestyle.

Costs and subscriptions

You can download the Aaptiv fitness app on both Apple and Android devices.

The app offers a 7-day free trial with an Aaptiv membership, so you can determine whether you want to purchase a membership plan.

Still, to receive the free trial, you must enter your credit or debit card information.

If you don’t cancel your membership prior to the end of the free trial, you’ll be billed the annual membership fee of $99.99 plus tax.

Along with a yearly subscription, Aaptiv offers a monthly membership, which you can cancel anytime, for $14.99 plus tax.

Both the monthly and yearly subscriptions automatically renew until you cancel.

If you decide that you don’t like the Aaptiv app, you can cancel your trial or subscription through your app store or by going to the website.

You must also cancel at least 48 hours prior to your renewal date otherwise your subscription will automatically renew and you will be charged.

Aaptiv reputation

Aaptiv was created in 2015 and has since built a strong reputation for personalizing fitness to make it more accessible and enjoyable.

But that doesn’t mean Aaptiv’s reputation has been spotless.

Aaptiv’s renewal and cancelation methods have angered some of its users who have reported being charged for subscription renewals that they have canceled, in some cases, 2 years after.

However, in previous years, you were only allowed to cancel your subscription through their website, whereas now you can cancel your subscription through your app store.

Privacy information

In a data-driven world, personal data is highly valued by companies.

Companies can harness your data for targeted marketing, medical research, predicting sales trends, and identifying behaviors.

Some companies exist to profit from your data by curating and selling it to other companies.

As such, it may be important for you to understand how Aaptiv uses your information.

Some of the personal information Aaptiv collects, includes your name, email address, IP address, browser type, and type of mobile device.

They also track your behaviors and actions within their app as well as outside of it, monitoring how you interact with other websites and apps.

Tracking your behavior outside of the app allows third-party companies that Aaptiv has partnered with to deliver advertisements relevant to your interests.

Aaptiv retains the information it has collected, even after you close your account.

However, you can request that they delete your personal information, subject to certain exceptions.

You can manage Aaptiv’s tracking permissions on your phone through your settings.

Aaptiv vs. competitors

Here’s how Aaptiv stacks up with three other popular fitness apps:

Compared with its competitors, Aaptiv offers the most variety in terms of workout categories and classes and therefore is likely to meet most people’s health and fitness goals. But it does come with a higher price tag.

Customer reviews

Aaptiv averages higher than a 4 out of 5 rating among 66,000 plus reviews across the Apple and Google app stores, demonstrating positive overall feedback.

Based on reviews from the Google and Apple app stores, users enjoy the level of workout program customization, workout variety, and motivation that Aaptiv offers.

However, there are a few commonly shared qualms based on the most recent user reviews.

The first — and most common — issue relates to cancellations and refunds. Some users report canceling their subscription but still being charged a renewal fee.

Users also report that the customer support for these subscription issues isn’t the greatest.

According to the Aaptiv website, you need to cancel at least 48 hours before your renewal date, whereas the app notes that you must cancel at least 24 hours before.

It may be best to err on the side of caution and cancel at least 48 hours to avoid being charged.

Another concern among its users relates to the decline in the quality of workouts and trainers.

Some users report that many good trainers have left the platform and that there are few new workouts, at least for certain categories.

Other complaints relate to the volume of music — with it being either too high that it drowns out the trainer’s voice or too low that the trainer’s voice drowns out the motivating music.

Users also report that the music is off-tempo with some workouts.

In either case, using the 7-day trial offers you a chance to determine whether these issues — and any other issues that you may come across — are a deal breaker for you.