Show HN: Workout Daily. We text new 7-minute workouts daily to make fitness easy

Show HN: Workout Daily. We text new 7-minute workouts daily to make fitness easy(workoutdaily.io)

33 points by jenniferpattee 5 years ago | 38 comments

Tepix 5 years ago |

Is a daily 7-minute workout better than a 30-minute workout three or four times per week?

I've followed the Mark Lauren 90-day bodyweight challenge with good results (using his book) - didn't loose weight (wasn't trying to) but got a lot fitter. It's about 30 minutes of training plus warmup and cooldown so the total time invested is more than that.

michaelcampbell 5 years ago | |

> Is a daily 7-minute workout better than a 30-minute workout three or four times per week?

The best workout is the one you'll actually do; I suspect this program is appealing to the crowd that figures they can fit in 7 minutes, but not 30.

jenniferpattee 5 years ago | | |

EXACTLY

blensor 5 years ago | |

I usually do a 20-25 minute VR workout using a game I developed for myself.

You could say it is optimized to give the maximum full body workout you can do in a limited space with no additional equippment (except for the VR headset of course).

I top out at 17.9 kcal/min tracked with a Polar H10 chest strap and the vrhealth institute app.

Here is a shorter workout of last night [1] it's 328kcal in a little over 18 minutes.

The game has the very <s>inspiring</s> name VRWorkout [2]

[1] https://twitter.com/MichaelGschwan5/status/12730156899730391... [2] https://vrworkout.at

jclos 5 years ago | |

Physical training follows a fairly typical bell curve-ish dose/response relationship, where more training gives you less and less benefit until you reach a point where your recovery cannot catch up and you get worse. 7 min per day isn't bad because it's a very small time investment that can yield a lot of result for anybody who cannot do anything else, but that's really about it. If you are liking Mark Lauren's strategy you should stick with it. You could probably do both ML's program and this one to be honest.

The 2018 guidelines of activity for physical activity for general health [1] are the following:

* 150 to 300 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity, OR;

* 75 to 150 minutes per week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, AND;

* Resistance training of moderate or greater intensity involving all major muscle groups on 2 or more days per week.

[1]: (PDF warning) https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Physical_Acti...

jenniferpattee 5 years ago | |

I always say the best workout is the one you look forward to. If you are currently doing 30min 3-4x a week - and you change the exercises every 2 weeks (so you don't plateau0 - then you are following what most trainers would say is the ideal protocol for strength training. You're also hitting the CDC guidelines. Ideally you would also be getting 120-150min of vigorous cardio in there as well.

Definitely going to check Mark Lauren out. Thanks for the tip! The 7-min workouts tend to work best for people who are too busy for 30-min workouts, or they are looking for something to "mix it up." For instance, they've been doing the same ab workout forever. Our 30-day ab program delivers a new 7-min ab workout every day, so you learn a lot of new moves!

jclos 5 years ago | | |

Not to be needlessly confrontational, but unless you are referring to general training modalities (change in load/volume/RPE) the change of exercise every 2 weeks is definitely not a good thing for strength training. A big part of strength is skill acquisition both in terms of technique and in terms of neuromuscular efficiency, and that necessitates giving yourself enough time to learn a movement to a repeatable form (i.e. maybe not perfect, but consistent) and then enough time for your muscles to accommodate to higher and higher loads. If you don't then you are putting yourself in a perpetual state of learning a new movement, instead of getting good at it.

moneywoes 5 years ago | |

Not at all even when factoring intensity

m3adow 5 years ago |

You should improve transparency. "Try it free", without a pricing overview site doesn't look like very trustable.

osullip 5 years ago | |

I went to their sitemap: https://www.workoutdaily.io/sitemap.xml

And found this: https://landing.workoutdaily.io/pricing

jenniferpattee 5 years ago | | |

Wow I did not even know we pushed that out live! Thank you for digging it up and sharing!!!!

jenniferpattee 5 years ago | |

omg great feedback thank you so much!

medialucky20 5 years ago |

This looks good starting point for people who are busy or lazy to start workout.I will definitely try. Only thing bothering me here is, it asks for mail ID and details for free trial too. I prefer to see sample videos or exercise before signup. Also, are they generic to people or user can customise based on health condition or age group?

jenniferpattee 5 years ago | |

This is great feedback - thank you! Looks like the links to the sample workouts are missing. Here's one https://www.workoutdaily.io/vanessa. It sounds like we need to also provide links on the signup flow soon after we ask for an email. This could explain why so many people are dropping out! Right now the workouts are intended for people between the ages of 20-60 and in good health. Soon we would like to make it so the user can customize based on health condition and age group. We'd love to know more about how you'd like to customize and what you're looking for.

rasz 5 years ago |

Nice, but what if someone comes out with 6 minute abs, then you're in trouble! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2di69FmhE

jenniferpattee 5 years ago | |

We're already in trouble in so many ways! LOL

shermanmccoy 5 years ago |

It's a good idea, kind of like a distributed gym. I think they need to invest more into convincing us that 7 minutes a day will do something for our health.

jenniferpattee 5 years ago | |

This is such a good point! We definitely need to do that. What would convince you? The CDC guidelines for exercise To maintain your weight: Work your way up to 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity, or an equivalent mix of the two each week. Problem is most people aren't doing anywhere close to the CDC guidelines. What we're hearing from users is that they can't say they are too busy for a 7-minute workout...so they end up doing it. If you do 7 min a day for 7 days that's 49 minutes a week of exercise - which helps people build the habit and the confidence necessary to "work their way up" to the CDC's suggested guideline.

shermanmccoy 5 years ago | | |

I think any reference to an authority is enough for people. Something like what you mention in your reply would be good to work in to the marketing material somewhere.

itake 5 years ago |

Certainly this is better than nothing, but do 7-minute workouts actually have an large impact?

aeternum 5 years ago |

There are also plenty of 7 minute workout videos on youtube.

jenniferpattee 5 years ago | |

Yup. What we're hearing from users is going into YouTube and finding the workouts is kind of a pain, and then you also have to do the workout. Our user is crazy busy, mostly working parents, tiny slices of time in their day to workout. It's worth it to them to pay $20/mo to get a new workout texted. We have yet to see if LOTS of people want that, tho! Free is def a nice price.