Trainer-Developed App Helps Track Clients' Fitness Progress

Many personal trainers wield clipboards as they lead their clients through workouts. Exercise physiologist Lukasz Monka wants trainers to use an iPad instead.

Monka spent two years developing an iPad app that lets trainers track their clients' workouts and graph their progress.

Monka's offering, Lumon Fit, went on sale in the iPad App Store in August. It costs $149.99 up front, plus a monthly subscription fee of $14.99.

In exchange for that investment, trainers can quickly calculate such measures as body mass index and VO2 max. The app includes links to YouTube instructional videos for hundreds of exercises. If a trainer has a question about a prescription drug a client is taking, the app will link to a WebMD description of the medication.

Monka, who works as a trainer at The Club at Admiral's Cove in Jupiter, is marketing the app through conferences and trade shows. The pitch is simple: Lumon Fit gives trainers easy access to the information they'll need to guide their clients through their workouts, whether it's the proper way to measure hamstring flexibility or the best techniques for gauging body fat.

And the app lets trainers send progress reports to their clients.

"It improves the quality and value of your service overnight," Monka says.

Monka, a native of Poland, says he has spent about $40,000 to develop the app. With perhaps hundreds of thousands of personal trainers plying their trade in the United States, he figures only a fraction of them need to buy his app to create a viable business.

Monka is just the latest Palm Beach County entrepreneur to adapt iPads for the health industry. Modernizing Medicine of Boca Raton has been selling an app that lets doctors track patients more efficiently.

Monka says his next tasks include adding an Android version, designing an app for physical trainers and -- if sales take off as he hopes -- hiring workers.

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