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« Week 16: 2nd Week of HyperStrike Trial, Oct. 21-27 | Main | Fitness for Moms Carnival, 3rd Edition- October 31, 2007 »

HyperStrike Works Great for Moms, Contest Included!

By Cindy | October 30, 2007

As promised in Babystep #8: Try New Activities, I was excited to be introduced to HyperStrike, an online fitness program designed to be your virtual personal trainer. I signed up for the fourteen day free trial to give it a whirl and provide you with an honest assessment of the program. My review covers the program dynamics, advantages, disadvantages, upcoming features and my personal two week trial. Plus, don’t miss out on a chance to win a 3 month subscription!

HyperStrike is perfect for moms of all backgrounds. For amateurs, professionals, working, and stay-at-home moms, HyperStrike provides the tools to develop and maintain a consistent journey in fitness.

“With HyperStrike, you’ll never walk into your gym or home without a planned, effective workout that constantly challenges you and helps you attain results.”

Program Dynamics

The process to enter HyperStrike was seamless and simple. From sign up to viewing of your customized workout program, the process took 15 minutes. The 14 day free trial sign up was painless and required nothing more than name, birthday, zip code and email address. A confirmation email was sent to my account with a Motivational Starter Guide about being Positive and an email address to send questions regarding support. Upon confirmation, I followed a series of steps to set up my customized program:

1. Invite a Workout Buddy: Knowing the success of having a partner, HyperStrike encourages a buddy which helps them increase customers, but also allows you to invite someone that you think would help encourage you. As a side note, once you enter into the Site, you’ll have an option to invite existing HyperStrike members to be a buddy with you.
2. Health Questions: Similar to the PARF-Q, these questions are an assessment of your ability to engage in exercise.
3. Plan Your Program: There are four types of plans you can decide upon: health, lean, fitness, and performance. Each program specializes in your ultimate physical fitness goals. For example, lean is designed for weight loss and performance is designed for specific sports. Click here to understand the methology behind HyperStrike’s program.
4. Select Training Days: You tailor the program to fit your schedule. Do you only have 3, 4, or 5 days to train in a week. You select your days.
5. Equipment available: This is the neatest feature around. By selecting the equipment you have available, they will tailor the individual exercises to this list. You don’t need to have access to a gym. If you only have resistance bands or dumbbells, then they will incorporate those exercises into your routines. With a gym, you’ll have the access to all of their 375+ exercises in the database.
6. Personal Adaptation: A few questions are asked about your experience with cardiovascular and strength training routines.

In less than 15 minutes, I was led to the Dashboard. A workout schedule was available in calendar format with a section breaking down the current day routine to the left of the calendar. A featured article was available, along with an area to provide feedback or go to the workout lab to add or remove exercises. Main tabs included within the homepage area are:

• Build a Workout:To create your own custom workouts.
• Connect: Where you can search for a buddy. You can match up by keyword on location, age, or name if you know someone already. There are currently 30,000 members signed up with HyperStrike.
• Exercise Lab: You can search for exercises by muscle group, keyword or equipment. Some examples within the list were broom stick, bucket, chair, table, towels, and various gym equipment.
• Articles: There is a wealth of knowledge ranging from various exercise methods to nutrition.
• My Profile: You include as much or as little information about yourself that you are comfortable sharing from your location, favorite workout, personal bests to Favorite places to workout, what’s on your iPod, post workout meals, etc. You have the option to make your profile public if you desire.

The instructional videos are user friendly and detailed. Every exercise is provided with simple written directions and a clear visual with proper technique. Some come with audio, but not all. The online interface was smooth and loaded in a timely manner. The overall program was easy to navigate and understand.

Advantages

• Customized workouts (created in minutes and based on equipment availability)
• Variety of exercises and routines
• Proper technique illustrated
• Price (The average price of a one hour consultation with a trainer averages $50.00. One 3 month subscription is 29.95. For 2 one on one phone conversations with a HyperStrike trainer on, along with weekly email assistance, the 6 month plan is 49.95–that’s less than $9.00 a month. The 12 month plan gives you 12 phone coaching sessions and unlimited email assistance at 149.95.)
• Accessibility (Online anytime, print your workout with or without pictures, you can send your workouts to your mobile phone.)
• Articles to educate
• Innovative, new features in the works (discussed below)
• Maximizes your time (a good portion of the program works to use multiple muscles per exercise)
• Working with a Buddy
• Family Participation (everyone can get around the computer and mimic the muscle man! Your children will love it.)
• Friendly, Prompt Service (All my questions were answered quickly and completely.)

Disadvantages

• Current Program Glitch (Once you pick a program, you can’t go back and change the program without losing your earlier workout data. The programmers are working to fix this as quickly as possible.)
• No Running Program is available under the performance list of sports. Being that I train to run, I was a bit disappointed to see that they didn’t have a performance feature specific to runners. They do have a Triathlon Performance plan though. Running is currently on the development list. My request has also been passed along.
• No Yoga or Pilates Illustrations or Programs. This is not in their area of focus, but they do accept feedback. They have submitted my request to the Development Team, so I recommend if you like the interface of their program, to submit your requests! With customer demands, come great changes!!!

My Personal Two Week Trial

Over the past two weeks, I have been impressed with HyperStrike Online Fitness. I performed a variety of speedwork, body resistance exercises, dumbbell and gym equipment strength exercises, treadmill, rowing and elliptical workouts along with running. My complete routines are written in Week 15 and Week 16 of my personal journey. What I enjoyed most about the program, was that I was able to swap out exercises if I were not able to make it to the gym on a designated day. I could find an exercise that matched the muscles worked without using equipment. Asher and Stephanie loved it too. They thought the medicine ball was the neatest thing. They even like watching the “guy with claws” as Asher pointed out on the computer. I now have little toddlers hopping around the house (they were attempting my jumping lunges and A Skip) and pulling on the resistance bands. When my children say, “Mommy, this is fun,” I know we are on the right track.

New Features on the Way in the New Year

1. FitScore – An online fitness assessment tool that will be integrated into HyperStrike.
2. An E-book–I don’t know what the content will be, but I’m sure it’s going to be filled with great information.
3. Nutrition – Online nutrition complete with allergy and food preferences.

Conclusion

HyperStrike provides the flexibility a mom needs. The way in which the program is designed, your workouts range anywhere from 15 minutes to 60 minutes. The long routines can be broken down into segments. The long routine is usually one day out of the week for cardiovascular endurance. If you’re nervous about incorporating strength/resistance training into your routine, HyperStrike blends it seamlessly into your routines. The price is phenomenal for the tools provided, especially for stay-at-home or single moms living on one income. Are you motivated more when you put your money on the line? HyperStrike is the way for you to go to create consistency into your Fitness Journey.

Contest! Contest! Contest!

Are you ready to give HyperStrike a try? Leave a comment and/or provide a linkback from your blog (if you have one) to spread the word by November 6th, 2007 at 8 AM CST. You will be entered into a random drawing to win a 3 month subscription to HyperStrike. One entry per person for comments and one entry per blog linkback. Make sure to include your email in the comment form (your personal information will remain private) so that I can contact you if you win. If I am unable to reach the recipient within three days of the drawing, then I will redraw. No purchase is necessary.

HyperStrike Options Available to You

1. Workout Lab with specific workouts available for free. This is a great opportunity to see how their Instructional Videos work and how they design workouts.
2. 3 month, 6month, or 12 month subscriptions. The 6 month subscription offers the best deal at $8.32 a month with 2 phone sessions with a trainer and weekly email access to a trainer. See more under their Subscriptions. Check out their demonstration on site and you can save even more.
3. With the holidays approaching, a Gift Subscription for friend or family members would be perfect.

To learn more about HyperStrike, visit their FAQ.

*3 month subscription provided courtesy of HyperStrike.

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Topics: Program Reviews |