Sessions: Personalized Mobile Coaching Helps You Stay Active

Sometimes you get busy. For most people, the first thing that gets pushed off is regular exercise. For me, this generally happens when my schedule becomes travel heavy or I don’t have a running event I’m training for. In the past six months, I traveled to Asia for a month, moved not once but twice, and spent approximately 85% of my weekends away from San Francisco. And so my regular exercise became my commute, which didn’t amount to very much.

I needed someone to encourage and gently remind me to set aside 30-40 minutes a few times a week to hit the pavement. Sessions, did just that.

The 16 week program is targeted towards steady lifestyle improvements. My coach, Glennis, who is also the Director of Coaching at Sessions, has worked with hundreds of people in my position. She essentially became my online and mobile personal trainer. Every Sunday I would plan out my workouts for the week through an online user portal we shared. Before each run, Glennis would text and email me reminders and tips. She helped me create a plan for running on weekdays, and after I moved she gave me route ideas for my new neighborhood. By syncing RunKeeper to Sessions, she knew when I exercised and encouraged my progress.

There were definitely days I did not want to run, especially on Sunday afternoons. But then I would get a text from Glennis asking if I was ready, which always kept me honest. Along with Sunday check-in’s, there are quick weekly assignments that ask introspective questions about my habits and find potential improvements to them.

All messages and exercise sessions are recorded on one dashboard in Sessions, where you can track your progress.

Here are some stats on how the program really does change behaviors:

• 90% of people complete the entire program which is 10-20x higher than most health and fitness products
• 94% of people are very likely or extremely likely to recommend the program to friends and family
• On average, people send a message to their coach daily
• There is 80% compliance with Sessions plans
• People visit the site an average of nearly 10x/week
• Sessions is currently enrolling in a Randomized Clinical Trial with Mayo Clinic

Sessions is a great way, for a fraction of the price, to work with a personal trainer and health consultant. The best part is that after only a month of Sessions, I’ve still kept up with my new fitness goals.

Omada Health: Preventative Medicine, Starting with Diabetes

Omada Health is changing the way people reduce their risk of type 2 diabetes. Through their Prevent program, built on research in behavior change and disease prevention, members use personalized coaching, community support and tracking tools to create and continue healthy behaviors. From weight loss to lifestyle changes, Prevent hopes to stop the progression from prediabetes to type 2 diabetes. The Prevent website mentions that “on average, our participants lose 6% of their body weight in just 16 weeks, exceeding clinical results and putting them on the path toward lifelong health.” Additionally, these preventative measures decrease the financial burden of chronic diseases for participants as well as for the overall healthcare system. Omada partners with employers, providers and health plans to deliver the Prevent experience and the company is actively working on other solutions to prevent additional chronic diseases.

You can sign up for the Prevent 16-week program online.

Nike+ Accelerator: 10 Companies Bringing Health and Fitness to a New Level

NIKE announced this week that they’ve chosen 10 companies to participate in its Nike+ Accelerator program, co-facilitated with startup accelerator, TechStars. Nike filtered through hundreds of applications to create the following list:

• FitDeck: Digital decks of exercise playing cards that deliver ever-changing workouts for fitness and sports.
• GoRecess: Helps users find, book and review fitness activities.
• Chroma.io: An indie game studio that creates virtual worlds tied to real-world activity.
• CoachBase: Provides a digital sports coaching platform.
• FitCause: Leverages fitness data as a means of raising money for charities.
• HighFive: Ad network for health and fitness apps that helps people achieve their goals by rewarding them along their journey.
• Sprout At Work: Provider of corporate wellness solutions leveraging social and gamification tools to inspire employees and empower employers.
• GeoPalz: An interactive gaming and rewards platform for kids and families.
• Incomparable Things: Creates activity-driven fantasy sports leagues.
• RecBob: Offers a platform that makes recreational sports easy by organizing play.

These companies will present their businesses at two investor Demo Days in June (one at the Nike World Headquarters and one in Silicon Valley) and I look forward to seeing their progress these next three months.

Lumosity: Brain Games! (for Cognitive Enhancement)

Lumosity lets you pick which cognitive areas you want to improve on and then gives you specific games to play each day to work on those areas. When you sign up you get 3 free days of training. Each day’s session will have three to five exercises targeted to improve on the priorities you selected.

The games are developed by neuroscientists, and the site claims 25 million users. If you like what you see, you can get more days of training via a subscription based payment model. At the end of August, Lumosity raised $31.5 million in Series D funding, bringing total company funding to over $70 million to date.

I tried the Speed Match game, which was quite interesting. My only issue was that the flashcards used Chinese characters and I found myself trying to read the cards versus matching them…maybe they are testing me on multiple levels!