Six of the best: Gadgets for fitness fans

By Peter Jenkinson

Fitting Fashion

Misfit Shine activity tracker - £99.99, from firebox.com

We've seen our fair share of wearable monitors keeping tabs on exercise regimes, but none quite as stylishly as the Misfit. It tracks your walking, running, swimming, cycling and even sleep patterns, then tots up all the steps, calories and distances, and shows your progress with the tap of the screen. Synch over Bluetooth to your smartphone and open up a whole world of stats and goals to achieve - splendid kit indeed.

Listen Hear

Sennheiser PMX 685i - £59.99, from uk-sennheiser.com

There are some Bluetooth earphones beginning to hit the market, but the Sennheiser PMX 685i offer a vastly superior sound. They're lightweight, have a secure fit to ensure they stay the distance, plus there's a handy in-line remote control so you can flick to the Rocky soundtrack as you approach any steps.

Music Magic

SanDisk clip sport - from £39.99, from amazon.co.uk

It is perfectly fine to use your smartphone for your motivational music but, there are the obvious drawbacks; social media distractions, emails, texts and the dreaded dropping it. So while you're on the run, a dedicated device like one of these colourful numbers from SanDisk is a superb alternative. Plenty of on-board storage with the capacity to expand the memory, and an FM tuner so you can tune in and work out.

Sitting Pretty

LUMOback - £129, from amazon.co.uk

For many of us, days spent slouching and crouching at our computer screens causes terrible posture, bad backs, and, with it, the ability to exercise. This superb piece of kit is a real breakthrough; worn under the clothes, it communicates with an app and alerts the wearer when posture levels fall short. It also tracks steps, calories burnt and even how much time you're seated.

Power Punch

BoxBurn Machine speed bag - from £99.99, see healthandcare.co.uk

This piece of kit, with its 360 degree rotating grips, offers a seriously intense workout should you want it, or a lower calorie burning session (while sitting down) if not. It is proven to improve strength, stamina and also speed and essentially mimics a speed bag, which can be tricky to master.

Good Vibrations

LANAFORM Power Full 57670 Vibrating Platform - £157.94, from pixmania.co.uk

These vibrating platforms have seen a surge in popularity of late, believed to offer all the workout in minimal time. Similar machines punch well above the price tag of this clever machine, which is ideal for muscle toning with its five different pre-programmed modes.

App of the Week

Nuffield Healthscore - free trial on iTunes and Google Play

This newly launched app has been created by a group of health experts including GPs, physiologists and nutritionists to help track your health and fitness using achievable goals. The online and mobile fitness/lifestyle tool lets users measure and monitor a range of readings and uses this data to offer vital info to improve your health status.

TTop 10 paid for apps of the week

1 Minecraft - Pocket Edition

2 Plants vs. Zombies

3 Scrabble

4 The Chase

5 Where's my water?

6 The Room

7 Farm Crush

8 Mo Candy - Match Three game

9 Bejeweled

10 2 Cut the Rope

Top 10 free apps of the week

1 Despicable Me: Minion Rush

2 Doodle God

3 Guess the Emoji - Emoji Pops

4 Candy Crush - Saga

5 100 Pics Quiz

6 Can you Escape - Tower

7 The Secret Society - Hidden Mystery

8 Sonic Dash

9 Frozen Free Fall

10 BBC Media Player