5 Minutos de Pilates +4

I really needed an exercise app that was suited to my personal physical needs: muscle toning, core strengthening, low impact to avoid muscle strain. This app also allows for a person to modify some of the exercises if you have not exercised regularly, or do not have enough strength to do the full exercise when you first begin.

Already, just five to ten minutes a day with this app can feel a noticeable change in my physical stamina, posture, and appear to be slimming down some. I feel better too. You cannot beat the price and exercising in small increments for me is a practical way to keep an exercise routine especially when I am experiencing immediate results.

This app will not teach you the proper way to do Pilates. However if you are experienced in Pilates, this app is a good way to get in a quick workout. The pictures illustrate the movement in a very rough way. But did not explain the nuances how to do it or how to prevent from getting hurt. Which are both very important to doing exercise properly. I would not recommend this app to somebody new to Pilates because it’s possible to injure yourself if you don’t use proper form. I think an option for voiceover that talks you through the movement and what to do to make it effective and what not to do to prevent injury would be very helpful. The animated movements could be more accurate too, Including the actual timing. The movements are shown very sped up which is unrealistic and potentially unsafe for people trying to keep up with it. In summary I will use it occasionally as someone who known Pilates well, but this does replace a real instructor or a regular workout schedule.

The best thing about the app is that I feel compelled to at least do a few minutes of exercise each day. Unfortunately it stops there: the idea is ok, but the app would need a lot of add-ons to make me want to take out a paid subscription.

There are only a handful of traditional Pilates exercises that seem quite randomly combined from one day to the next. It would be better if they could have a specific focus or emphasis that shifts from one day to the next, e.g. back day, leg day, arm day.

It’s also clearly only usable for someone with prior knowledge of Pilates as the pictures and descriptions are rudimentary at best. There’s also no warm up or cool down and no suggestion anywhere that these might be good to add (even without instructions or guidance) - I just added those myself, based on existing knowledge.

As other reviewers have pointed out, the absence of an audio cue to accompany the timer and start/finish of each exercise is, frankly, baffling. At least add an option! Otherwise, I’m not sure how the developers think I’m going to keep an eye on my phone screen while I’m doing criss-cross or the hundred.

And while I’d probably disable push notifications, some people might enjoy regular motivational pop-up reminders rather than just setting an alarm.

So, to sum up: let me know when you’ve actually developed an app and not just a set of clips with a countdown timer.