App to track fitness with friends: Top features, benefits and examples

Starting a fitness routine takes work. There are days when you feel unmotivated to stick with your workouts and reach your fitness goals. However, working out with friends and a supportive community can make all the difference. By incorporating social and community features into fitness apps, users are no longer limited to solo workouts. The apps connect like-minded individuals who share goals, struggles, and triumphs. 

Peer-to-peer fitness apps bring fun and friendly competition to the fitness journey. Celebrating milestones with friends adds excitement, transforming the app experience into something more than just a tool. 

Additionally, from a business perspective, developing a peer-to-peer fitness app is a strategy for retaining users and driving long-term user loyalty. This article will explore the features, benefits, and six popular health-tracking apps with friends. 

I. The rising of app to track fitness with friends 

Fitness enthusiasts crave personal progress and connection with a community that shares their passion. 

For example, cycling or climbing enthusiasts thrive on having friends to push each other to conquer new trails. Gym enthusiasts want to exchange stories and tips with others using the same equipment. That’s why peer-to-peer fitness apps that can bridge this gap and connect users to a larger community are in high demand. 

Recently, Sensor Tower research found that the global fitness app market has seen a massive surge. Businesses raked in a whopping $2.8 billion in revenue in 2020 alone. This tells us that the demand for apps that track fitness with friends is stronger than ever. People are flocking to downloading these apps at an incredible rate. The report revealed a year-over-year increase of around 46% in downloads. 

To truly make a mark in the market and stand out, fitness app developers must recognize the untapped potential beyond simple tracking tools like workout plans and personal trainers. They need to embrace the power of community and social connection. 

II. Benefits of using app to track fitness with friends 

Here are some of the benefits of peer-to-peer fitness apps: 

1. Use Competitions to Increase Client Accountability

Are your clients doing their cardio by running on the weekends? A fitness tracker with friends lets you know if you use trackers, apps, and friendly competitions. 

2. Accountability is a tough part of training

Sometimes, your clients may feel tired and unmotivated to exercise. They may even give up on working out. However, these friend fitness games and apps, like step challenges, can improve results by increasing accountability. 

3. Track Client Progress with Apps and Trackers 

If everyone in your community uses the same app, you can organize information like reps, weight, and even heart rate in one place. Tracking your workout progress is important. It allows you to see what your clients are doing and what they’re struggling with so you can help them. 

4. Help customers achieve their goals

The ultimate benefit of a friend fitness app is that it helps customers achieve their goals. With the app, customers can set clear goals for themselves. And, with the push from friends through the app or the chance to win a contest, they are more likely to achieve their goals sooner. 

III. Top 6 best social fitness apps to consider in 2025

1. Stridekick: Track Your Activity Insights

Stridekick is a straightforward and user-friendly fitness tracker that helps you connect with friends. You can effortlessly track your workout progress while connecting with fellow fitness enthusiasts who share your passion. Helping you make the most of every workout. You must sign up for an account and connect to a data source to use the app. 

The Stridekick app uses GPS data from your phone or wearable to provide accurate information. It also uses that data to determine how far you’ve gone and how long it took. With Stridekick, you can stay motivated with a social fitness community that helps you improve your health and get in shape. Plus, you’ll find friends committed to their fitness journey. So, you can share workouts, ask questions, and post motivational photos. 

With Stridekick, you can join or create challenges and earn badges as you reach milestones or personal bests. 

The dashboard feature allows you to track the number of steps you have taken, the distance you have traveled, and the time it took. However, you should also make sure you have location permissions enabled to sync your data properly. The app is free to use. 

2. StepBet: Step-Counting Game for All Fitness Levels

Counting steps is a favorite activity for competitive group exercises, with countless apps offering this feature. However, StepBet stands out by leveling the playing field and creating a more balanced step-counting experience. 

Step Bet allows you to select and connect your favorite activity tracker on Fitbit, Apple Health, Google Fit, Samsung Health, or Garmin to receive a personalized weekly fitness goal. It then calculates two personalized goals for you based on your past step data: an Activity Goal (which is quite challenging) and a Strength Goal (which is more difficult). 

Each user’s step count will vary, but the competition is now balanced. Each competition requires you to hit a certain number of active days and power days. Then, there’s the usual step challenge with a betting element (because betting has been proven to motivate people). Each game or group will have a minimum bet of $10 and a maximum of $60, and the pot is split between everyone who reaches the goal. Groups let you connect with others, celebrate milestones together, and motivate one another to keep moving forward. 

3. Strava: Map Out Your Activity Routes

Strava is one of the best apps for tracking a variety of workouts. These activities include cycling, hiking, running, and various other outdoor adventures. It is worth noting that the app has features like group challenges. It allows you and your friends to complete goals together. This makes it perfect for a social fitness experience. 

Strava offers unique features, such as allowing you to access popular locations through Segments and Routes. It has detailed maps that help users find and navigate through the best routes for their workouts. The app uses GPS technology to track your location and then uploads this data to the cloud. It eventually uses this data to create the app’s Global Heatmap feature. It helps you discover new trails or popular routes around the globe. 

Strava also has a large library of challenge workouts for fitness enthusiasts—from easy workouts to more complex ones like marathons and mountain hikes. Strava easily syncs with other apps like Google Fit, making it simple to share your progress with friends. 

4. Squaddy: Daily Workout for Training Groups

Squaddy provides a welcoming workout space that’s perfect for accommodating large groups. If you want to start working out with friends, family, and colleagues, this is the perfect app. 

The app can let you create a personal diary or workout log to set fitness goals. You can also record your workouts and review your history. You can discover them in the “Templates” tab and tailor them to suit your preferences. Plus, you can create “Squads” to connect with friends, colleagues, clients, or teammates and share your workout journey together. The best part about this app is its templates for various exercises. You can find them in the “Templates tab” and customize them according to your needs. 

To start, sign up for an account and create a group (or team). Then, you choose a profile picture and press the + button to start a session. With the app, you can communicate with your team members or workout buddies using the app’s chat features. The free plan lets you log exercises and session details using a list of pre-defined movements. At the same time, the pro or premium version lets you add circuits, complexes, supersets, and more. 

The workout library is where your group admin (or anyone else) adds new workouts. When you complete a workout, you mark it as completed. This workout will be visible to your group members who have marked it as completed for the day. 

The Squaddy app accommodates a wide range of workout styles, from strength training and weightlifting to powerlifting, Olympic lifting, bodybuilding, HIIT, and beyond. Whether you’re looking for easy, basic workouts or something more advanced, Squaddy has you covered. 

5. Love HIIT: Timer-Based Workouts

The Love HIIT app is designed for interval training and requires adding exercises in succession. It adds a timer for each exercise, rest time between exercises, and the total number of rounds of the exercises you want to do. The app will call out each exercise, rest, and finish time. 

The app has a user-friendly interface that anyone can use. Love HIIT makes it easy to set up workouts and share workouts with friends, making it perfect for a workout group that isn’t too tech-savvy. Anyone with the link can access the app through a web browser (on both desktop and mobile) or via the mobile apps. 

6. ASICS Runkeeper: Get in Running Form

Runkeeper is one of the top fitness apps with friends. It offers a variety of features designed to enhance your fitness journey and connect you with a supportive 

community. The app can accurately track your workouts, whether running, walking, cycling, climbing, or any other physical activity.  

The Runkeeper app offers a variety of challenges and goals that are tailored to your fitness goals. Not only can you compete to complete goals alone, but you can also join community challenges to push your limits and reach new milestones. With Runkeeper, you can add friends, create or join teams, and take on challenges together. This community feature promotes support, accountability, and healthy competition. The ultimate goal is to make your fitness journey more fun. 

To get started with community workouts, go to the “Community” section in the bottom panel and click “Create a Run Group.” Then, set your group’s goal, duration, and frequency. 

Runkeeper also allows you to create custom workout plans that fit your fitness level and goals. Whether you’re training for a competition or want to improve your overall fitness, you can follow expert-designed and guided workouts to stay on track and progress at your own pace. 

IV. 6 must-have features of an app to track fitness with friends 

In today’s fast-paced society, where staying fit is a top priority, technology, and fitness apps have become indispensable tools for individuals striving to achieve their goals. 

However, the abundance of fitness platforms poses a challenge – how can people stay motivated and committed to a single app or program with many available options? 

Let’s explore the mystery behind the most successful fitness apps out there. We’ve deciphered and compiled the top 6 features that they all have in common. 

1. Build a community through groups and forums

Forum groups are like the on-the-go, lifeline support for online fitness communities. They play a vital role in creating a sense of togetherness and providing the special support we all need on our fitness journey. Let’s face it: getting in shape can be a tough and challenging road, but we can find our workout buddies with the community power of groups and forums. 

In the past, sharing personal challenges, like lifting 50 pounds, on platforms like Twitter might have felt intimidating. Thankfully, niche communities have come to the rescue, providing a safe space to open, seek advice, and find real support from people who understand our struggles. 

Take Noom, for example—an app that understands the importance of community. They’ve introduced a great feature called the Discover button in their Categories section. You can find groups that match your interests with just one tap, like “Quick Meals for Busy Parents.” Picture the joy of connecting with other parents in the app, exchanging meal ideas, sharing helpful tips, and offering each other valuable emotional support. It’s a turnaround that keeps parents returning for more and maybe even rallying their friends to join in the fun. 

The beauty of these friendly communities is that they provide a safe, relatively healthy environment to seek physical and emotional support without the awkwardness that sometimes comes with sharing in larger public forums. It’s a place where we can be ourselves, speak our minds, and find comfort in the company of people who truly understand our triumphs and struggles. 

2. Track Your Progress with Your Activity Feed

Tracking your progress with your activity feed is a game-changer for staying motivated and accountable on your journey toward your goals. 

• Imagine this: You’ve been training relentlessly for your upcoming marathon, but running another 10K feels like a huge challenge. Picture sharing your progress with friends through your live activity feed. It’s more than just a pat on the back; it’s a moment of pride and encouragement to keep going. 

• But it doesn’t stop there. Your activity feed becomes a hub of connection and motivation. You stumble upon a great new run and can’t wait to share it with your team. The shared experience creates a bond, and the thrill of training with others can amplify your drive to explore even more. 

• And here’s the best part: seeing your progress happen in real-time. It’s like a scrapbook of your accomplishments, tangible evidence of how far you’ve come. A constant activity feed serves as a strong motivator, boosting feelings of joy, pride, and encouraging greater engagement with the fitness app. 

3. Reward and celebrate accountability with achievement badges and leaderboards

Picture this: You’re using a fitness app, pushing your limits, and suddenly, you earn a shiny new badge as a reward. It’s like winning a trophy that makes you feel recognized and proud. It’s like seeing your name rise on the leaderboard. It’s not just about bragging rights; the excitement of friendly competition sparks your motivation and keeps you coming back for more. This is the magic of gamification at work! 

Take a cue from Peloton, the masters of leaderboard magic. They introduced a game-changing trio: Filters, Followers, and Ratings. With a glance, you can see other users’ statuses and progress and rate them to show your admiration. It’s like being part of a huge fitness party where support and encouragement flow freely. 

By infusing the workout experience with forums, Peloton’s leaderboards create a dynamic and engaging atmosphere. It’s no longer just a solo endeavor but a shared journey with fellow fitness enthusiasts. This social element becomes the secret ingredient that fuels your commitment to working out and knowing that others are there with you, cheering you on. 

Whether badges, conquering virtual leaderboards, or exchanging high fives with virtual workout buddies, gamification features make fitness apps feel like a fun game you can’t stop playing. They infuse your workouts with motivation, recognition, pride, and an addictive sense of accomplishment that directly impacts your engagement with the app. 

4. Celebrating personal identity in user profiles

Strava is an app that promotes personalization. It creates an experience that is one-size-fits-all for every user. First, Strava allows you to make your profile more engaging and unique. You can upload photos that showcase your fitness adventures and achievements. 

Next, Strava understands that sharing with friends often creates your fitness enjoyment. So, it allows you to connect with your friends and make a close-knit community that you can interact with virtually. Additionally, Strava will enable you to create running and cycling routes that you can share with others. And finally, you can create personal running and cycling goals to keep you accountable. 

These personalized features contribute to the bond between the user and the app. Having a trusted fitness buddy who knows your interests can help support your goals and keep the adventure exciting. Remember, it’s not just about getting fit; it’s about creating connections that keep users returning to the app, which drives the app’s stats. 

5. Excite the audience with streaming videos

In-app video content is a key factor in keeping users engaged and motivated. The fitness app Peloton does just that. With over 1,000 great on-demand video classes available at all times, it’s a quick workout when you have just ten minutes to spare. 

Peloton takes its video workout content to the next level by offering daily live classes. So you can stream on a variety of devices. It’s like having your gym at your fingertips, ready to help when needed. 

Now, let’s explore the magic of video streaming: it brings the infectious energy of a real class into your home gym. Users can feel the collective excitement of other fitness enthusiasts working towards their goals. Plus, they can share their workout video content with their friends. That increases engagement and keeps them motivated. 

6. Prioritizing communication via live chat

Communication is the glue that holds any growing community together. And when it comes to fostering real-time engagement, in-app chat takes it to the next level. Consider incorporating live chat if you want your friend’s fitness app to stand out from the competition. 

Here are some great ways you can consider leveraging live chat in your fitness app: 

• For Newbies: Let curious new users ask questions and gather information about the app. 

• On-demand Support: Once users create an account and log in, live chat becomes their one-stop support hub. 

• Personalized Guidance: With live chat, users can ask for expert advice whenever needed. 

• Interactive Training: Chat is a seamless way to stay connected with coaches and get personalized feedback. 

• Challenge Champion: Live chat allows users to share their challenge reports and celebrate their achievements. 

• Instant Feedback: Live chat will enable users to stop waiting for a response. They can get feedback instantly. 

• Personal Connections: Chat can be used for members to chat in 1:1 and group messages. 

In short, live chat is an indispensable tool for any application that wants to function effectively. It contributes to a unique user experience and builds a strong sense of engagement. 

V. Why you should work with Adamo Software for the perfect Social Work Out App

If you’re thinking about creating a social workout app, Adamo Software is the perfect partner. We can turn your app ideas into reality. Our team can help you build an engaging, easy-to-use app that keeps users coming back. With our support, you’ll create a fitness app packed with unique features to help you stand out in the market. 

Whether you want to know about the cost of developing your app or need help assessing your app idea, our experts are here to guide you. We’ll choose the right technology and take care of the development process from start to finish. 

Reach out to us today to bring your fitness app dream to life!