App of the day: QuickFit's simple and addictive 7 Minute Workout

We all know we should be working out more, but with busy schedules, hangovers and the lame weather it can be really hard to get out there and get moving.

According to research last year, which was explored in more depth by the NY Times, we should stop trying to crowbar lengthy workouts into our days and instead treat our bodies to short blasts of high intensity exercise – 7 minutes of the sweaty stuff to be exact.

Sure it might just be the latest fad in a long line of fitness crazes, but the exercises included in the 7 Minute Workout all get different parts of the body moving and leave your heart pumping as if you’ve just come back from a pretty intense run.

There are a number of different apps on the market to introduce you to the 7 Minute Workout (not to mention some great YouTube videos), but our favourite is from Quick Fit.

It’s been available since January, but it’s the only one out of a tonne of health and fitness apps that we’ve actually kept using here at Shiny Shiny.

The app takes you through all 12 exercises of the 7 Minute Workout giving you 30 seconds for each with a 10 second break in between. The voice commands are simple and ensure your form is spot on, but they’re not at all patronising like some other workout apps on the market.

HD videos accompany each workout so you can check you’re doing the exercises right. You can also try and keep up with the number of reps the little dude does each round too, but don’t worry if you can’t – it’s much better to start off slow and ensure your form is perfect before you try and smash through 297385 reps in 30 seconds anyway.

There’s a performance tracking section within the app that keeps track of your workouts and your progress and once you’ve done a fair few you can unlock a special workout dedicated just to your abs.

Brought to you by the team behind the great-looking Wake alarm, the app is really intuitive, just tap to pause and swipe between screens. There’s no unnecessary clutter, it’s just focused on ensuring you’re doing the right workouts in the right amount of time.

Of course you could just learn the workouts yourself and grab a timer, but with the app it’s all just much simpler, which means it’s much more likely you’ll keep it up.

7 Minute Workout – Quick Fit is available from iTunes for 69p.