It’s safe to say I lead a fit life.

On one memorable hiking trip with two friends and my boyfriend, after steep ravines and even steeper hills to ascend, our teeth grinding with each craggy precipice, we reached an impossibly vertical upswing after an already steep climb. The others groaned miserably, feeling the gravity in their quadriceps and the tightness in their hamstrings, a petulant cloud beginning to darken their faces. In an attempt to lighten the mood I chirped over my shoulder, “Hey guys, it’s easier if you just run up!” To which I gallop uphill, a trifle, jubilant hop to my step. Halfway up, I hear my boyfriend bitterly yell behind me, “Yea, just WAY easier to run.”

So I’m active, and I like to be. Being a fan and regular reader of Women’s Health Magazine, I was elated to see they released an iPhone app not too long ago, called Women’s Health Workouts, that brings workouts and exercises to your fingertips, with exclusive routines that, as they say, “melt fat, burn calories, and firm up your body.” What woman doesn’t like that? It would be great if, like GQ, Women’s Health would make the transition to iPhone readability, but for now, creating a fitness app is a step in the right direction.

With the season being autumn and the air crisp and cool, you can now take your workout indoors and still get your blood moving. The app is divided into individual exercises for focusing on specific body parts, and into workouts, should you want a specially tailored fitness routine; both the exercises and workouts are categorized either by Goal, Body Part, or Alphabetically, depending on which you select. Women’s Health is known for its rigorous strength and cardio routines, so if you’re accustomed to Shape and Fitness Magazine routines, then you better be ready to step it up a notch with push-ups and intense drills. When perusing the Exercise list, the first move that caught my eye was “Cobra Push-up.” Interesting. A yoga calisthenic hybrid? For those who’ve taken a Vinyasa yoga class, Cobra is a mini Upward Dog, a move in the moving asana where you lie on your stomach, shoulders pulled back, with palms face down by your ribcage and elbows at near 90 degrees tucked in close to your body, with your back doing all the work lifting your chest into the air. The Cobra Push-up is a variation of this, starting off in a pike position and then dipping down, leading with your chest, followed by your stomach and hips until your body is flat in a lowered push-up position. Sweating, yet? It’s a rough move, and requires good upper body strength, a prowess many women are lacking in.

Each listing in the Exercise section is pictorially divided to effectively illustrate how each exercise is performed. The Cobra Push-Up was divided into A and B, A describing the starting position, complete with picture, and B showing the end move, also with picture. As soon as you select an exercise by tapping, a timer at the top of the screen begins, logging how long it takes for you to complete the exercise. If you wish to record this information, either for performance progress, or simply to remember, tap the “Log a Set” tab. A revolving counter of reps and weights (if applicable) will show, so you may record whether you did a set of 4 or 40 or 100 (you rockstar, you). If using the timer, make sure you tap the timer icon in the upper right to time rest periods, for accurate measurements. When you finish your workout, scroll to the right to see your ending results: your total time, number of sets, and number of reps per set. Make sure you have your iPhone playing music in the background to go along with your music, because sometimes just flipping through a workout, even with pictures, can be sedating. Keep your hearts pumped, ladies. Work that circuit.

The Workout section boasts enticing titles laden with fitness argot typical of most exercise magazines. Titles like, “Better Hips and Thighs,” “Melt Fat Fast,” “Rev Up Your Metabolism,” and the slightly oxymoronic, “Ripped and Relaxed,” all sound appealing to women looking to up the ante on their athleticism and good looks. I, myself, was attracted to the routine, “Master Push-Ups.” Despite my rigorous yoga sessions, I feel I am near physiologically incapable of more than 2 gravity-defying pull-ups and 10 push-ups, both of which men seem to pump out with ease, their broad shoulders and more expansive chest muscles naturally inclined to performing such moves of upper body strength. To boost my morale, I immediately broke out the spandex with the Rocky Soundtrack blaring in the background, arms akimbo on my hips, a distant, faraway look in my eyes as I envisioned my status as Master of Push-Ups. The first move wasn’t so bad, called a Flat Push-Up, and was performed in essentially the same way the phrase visualizes. Lying flat on the floor, I pushed straight up into a starting push-up position, paused for two seconds, and then lowered down all the way to the floor again and repeated. I was able to churn out 8 of these, before I figured I should save some residual strength for the other moves before too much lactic acid built up in my muscles, rendering them weak and ineffective. Scrolling to the right, I next performed the Pyramid Push-Up, which tested the surprisingly pathetic power of my triceps. I was finished after 6. The last move was by far my favorite – a Decline Push-Up that required me to assume a pike position (somewhat like a downward dog) and then lower just my upper body to the floor. Believe me, gravity is extra powerful in this move, and the blood rushing to my head didn’t help matters (curse you yoga shoulder stand and still making me vulnerable during inverted poses!).

The only real issue I have with Women’s Health Workouts is the up and down scrolling mechanism for each exercise and workout. You can’t simple scroll down to see B, you must first scroll up and then down, in some bizarre, glitchy slingshot or archery move. I got used to it after awhile, but it was definitely frustrating at first, the scrolling bar not even appearing on my first few tries. Other than that, it’s a great app that does the magazine proud. I, myself, practice ashtanga yoga, I backpacked in the backwoods of the Siskiyou for three weeks, I’ve run the Nike Women’s Marathon, the Bay to Breakers three times, and countless other unsponsored runs of my own free will, over the gently sloping hills of the Bay Area. I rock climb, I dance, I bike around town, I walk to markets and downtown, I box, and I definitely do not shy away from trying fitness videos like P90X. There are plenty of women like me, and others who simply want to break out of a sedentary rut, who will appreciate the on-the-go fitness tool that Women’s Health Workouts provides.