Verdict

When it comes to pushup training apps a hundred seems to be the magic number. They always seem to have the aim of upping the number of repetitions you can do to a full ton. Quite honestly we’d be happy with 50, 20 or even 10…, but no, they always want you to go for a century.

Pushups Pro follows this well trodden path. It’s available on both iOS and Android for 69p and 79p respectively. However, there are lots of pushup training apps available both in the App Store and Play market for free, so is it worth shelling out for this one? We took the iOS version for a spin to find out.

To use the app you first need to create a log-in. You can sign up via Facebook or instead use your email address. During the sign up you enter your gender, date of birth, weight and height. After this you choose your level. There are three levels which correspond to the target number of pushups that you eventually want to achieve (although this isn’t actually explained, which is annoying). The first is for 1-20 push ups, the second is for 21 to 50 push ups, while the third is for 51-100 push ups.

The app then creates a program of push ups that will help you get to your target number of reps. These training programs are based on sports science and are designed to gradually improve your strength and stamina so you work towards your target bit by bit without ever over reaching yourself.

For example, if you select the second category, as we did, your training session might be split into reps of 16-16-12-11-10, with rest gaps in-between that the app automatically counts down for your.

One of the neater aspects of this partiuclar app, though, is that each pushup can be registered automatically either using your phone’s proximity sensor or by touching the screen with your nose.  We used it on an iPad which doesn’t have a proximity sensor (as normally used to switch the screen off when you hold the phone to your ear), so we had to actually touch our nose to the screen to get it to register each press up. This is easier said than done, especially when you’re getting towards the end of your reps and your arms feel like they’re about to fall off.

Nevertheless, you can just do you reps and tap the screen to input them when you’re finished, which we found was a more comfortable way of registering your workout. Of course, you shouldn’t have this problem if you do them via a mobile handset with a proximity sensor, although some of these sensors are more sensitive than others.

The app includes voice coaching as well, so it counts down the number of pushups each time it registers one and tells you when to rest or when you’ve reached set marks, such as ten pushups completed.

Your progress is logged within the app, but also uploaded to the Runtastic website, so you can log-in online to view your progress at any time. As Runtastic offers other training apps, it also means that you have a central place to view all your stats for different activities.

Runtastic Pushups Pro Verdict
Overall, Pushup Pro is a good app that’s nicely presented. However, it does the same thing as many free apps available in the app store, so what you’re really paying for is the integration with the Runtastic website and nicer presentation. For many that will be enough to justify its modest asking price.

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