Show HN: HackerBody – A Geek’s Guide to Getting in Shape | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: HackerBody – A Geek’s Guide to Getting in Shape

hackerbody.com

54 pointsg0atbutt47 comments

As a hacker who enjoy fitness and lifting weights, the message "'meat head' free" tainted my impression of this site, as if my way of working out was bad. I happen to be someone who doesn't want "muscles on muscles on muscles" but I am also someone who works at a desk 8 hours a day and wants to stay healthy, and trust me, even lifting heavy weights 3 times a week does not turn you into some freak of nature.

That said, I'm really not even sure what the value add is here for bodyweight videos: they've been done so many times over, and with the recent popularity of the 7 minute workout[1] I just don't see what you're trying to bring to the table that is specifically "for hackers" other than the marketing appeal.

My suggestion would be to offer something that appeals uniquely to your hacker audience that isn't found elsewhere. Off of the top of my head, hackers are "lazy" (in that we aim to optimize and remove redundancy) and are convinced by science, so if you can prove that your videos are shown to be efficient, effortless (meaning everything but the workout is taken care of for you), and that it delivers marketable results, then I think you might have something.

[1] http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the-scientific-7-mi...

I had the same reaction. I'm not a "muscles on muscles" guy but three times a week I lift weights. The 'meat head' thing was judgmental and off-putting.

Perhaps more importantly, why do I have to create an account to view a work out video? That and the fact that I had to agree to a massive ToS which included things about billing and cancellation stopped me going further.

jgrahamc, thanks for that. I'll look at changing the tagline.

HackerBody videos are 100% free. The TOS have stuff regarding refunds incase I launch some premium features down the road. I could see how that would be confusing. I'll work on adjusting that.

I'm requiring people to create accounts for some additional features I'm rolling out. Great point on having a demo workout that doesn't require some to login. I'll make that happen.

Acconrad, I appreciate your thoughts on the tagline, "meat head free". My goal was to appeal to people who aren't already doing something active. HackerBody isn't the end-all in being active but it's a great place for people to get started.

The videos are just the tip of the iceberg. I wanted to get this launched and get feedback before I push out new features.

Thanks for taking time to give me your feedback!

I liked your work with Startup Foundry so I was excited to see this, and I'm sure you're using many tried-and-true entrepreneurial principles to get this off the ground. But the psychological UX needs to focus on the positives and the benefits people will experience. That does not mean you have to achieve that by ostracizing people who enjoy working out, or by convincing people who don't work out that if you do work out you'll become a meat head.

I travel every 3 days and I have no home-base. The copy really appealed to me, especially the no-weights required. I don't always stay at hotels with Gyms (or hotels) and I'm not going to pay for memberships in 6 different cities. I'm not completely against the copy, considering you are targeting me, and not other hackers / techies - that already lift weights and work out.

> My goal was to appeal to people who aren't already doing something active.

By putting other people down? Classy.

I see where you're coming from, and I'm probably in your target demographic - male, full-time programmer, and completely ignorant of fitness in general.

I'd dump the line entirely and play up the "Feel better. Write better code." part, particularly how regular exercise can reduce mental fatigue.

Jumping on the acconrad bandwagon. I was completely inactive, weighed 240 when I should be around 150. But I took up heavy lifting, specifically Stronglifts 5x5 in February, then switched to Ice Cream Fitness in May.

Nothing against bodyweight stuff either. I do a light bodyweight routine two days a week to help deal with some back/posture issues ICF is not addressing well enough.

I'm down to 195, and stronger than I've been since I was in my 20s.

I tried one of those "vary your workout every day" programs last year, and quit. Not being consistent, as a newbie, made it hard to see progress, which demotivates. On ICF, while reaping noob gains, I see the weight I lift go up every session.

For me, value would be in putting in my exact workout, down to lift tempos, pauses, rest between sets, etc., and having an app run my workout for me, so I only have to think about proper form and pushing out that last rep.

The "meat head free" line was good. I'm really tired of seeing how often programmer-focused sites tend to advocate eating huge amounts of meat, equate muscles with health, bash on endurance training and simply ignore things like yoga or pilates. This could be related to the extremely male-dominated demographic of the audience.

Regardless of the reasons for this, I believe hacker-centric health services really could use more "meathead free options".

You missed his point. Calling people "meat heads" is as judgemental using "geek" as a pejorative. We're supposed to be better than that.

I disagreed with his point. Your assertion is sensible but tangential to the discussion.

While it's true it's not nice to call specific people meat heads, it's perfectly reasonable to have "meat head free" messaging. Similarly, I would be very careful about calling a particular advertiser a huckster but would have few qualms with a site's messaging including a "huckster free zone".

What makes a fitness program hacker friendly? That's basically reinforcing some stereotype that all coders belong to this fraternity of brothers. We don't. We are professionally programmers, but once I step outside of my job I am no longer a programmer. Fitness shouldn't be targeted at a specific profession, instead it should be targeted at people who work in similar conditions. Office jobs vs programmers, which makes more sense to target? There's way more people working office jobs with health issues from sitting, but the converse isn't necessarily true about programmers. A programmer might not work in an office, they might work at some hip startup with exercise equipment everywhere. My employer has it's own gym with personal trainers, but I doubt most small non-engineering offices do. You're going to hurt the bottom line by using a "hacker" tagline to sell this service.

Agreed. Rebrand it now to target those who sit all day.

Agreed 100%. I've seen several fitness sites try to brand themselves as "geek" or "nerd" oriented, but at best they're just the same old thing with a couple of video game jokes added.

I'd love to see someone actually address the motivational and cultural differences that people from the geek subculture have, instead of just thinking that you can slap a coat of paint on the same old bro-and-jock approach.

A business needn't go for as broad a market as they could, and is often rewarded by targeting (and really resonating with) a narrow niche.

Due to the name I immediately felt right at home, that this was totally for me. "Feel Better. Code Better. Level Up."? Heck yeah, speaks right to me.

I signed up without hesitation and enjoyed a nice 26 minute break from coding. Something aimed at "office workers who sit all day" likely wouldn't have gotten that response from me.

(And if the "hacker" tagline really does end up weighing down this venture, spinning off a rebranded version or two for other niches could quickly solve that problem.)

The idea of a pragmatic plan to get in shape appealed to me as a programmer, but I read this kind of language and cringe:

"Feel Better. Code Better. Level Up."

"Being healthy will make you a better programmer."

I think the "hacker" market can be captured without being so patronizing.

> "Being healthy will make you a better programmer."

This resonates with me more than "...Level Up.", because it's true. When I was working out my whole body worked better, including my brain, so I appreciate that angle in the marketing.

My whole point is that they aren't resonating with that niche. Being a hacker doesn't say anything about your fitness level. I know plenty of Engineers that are healthy as hell and work out regularly (myself included). This is basically stereotyping engineers into the pale fraile archetype. Not everyone who codes is a vegan-overly-politically-correct-Bay-Area-hipster. There's a lot of diversity in people who consider themselves coders.

If you want to call it "Geek" fitness or "Nerd" fitness, that's one thing. The whole level up angle is being done by Fitocracy successfully and they aren't targeting coders, they are targeting people who like games and tech, which is a large group of people who may be put off by the hacker angle. By labeling hacker, they are saying that "only people who code will really understand our product".

On your registration form, you are sending passwords over plain http.

http://my.hackerbody.com/membership-account/membership-check...

My feedback: I'd love to see some examples of the kinds of workouts the service sends before signing up.

That's a great point. I'll implement that.

No HTTPS on login or signup pages? You lost me at hello.

At work, I get a lot of heat for being the one and only guy who is never around on the seat. It's turned into a favourite joke on me with a number of people. Despite that, I don't mind it one bit -- in fact, I joke about it myself. I have made it a point not to sit on a chair in front of a computer continuously. I take breaks quite often. I stand up and work/read. I roam around the office, spend time with people from other departments, discussing things, solving issues, etc. I learned early on how detrimental a geek's profession is to their health and body. Not only your eyes, wrists, and your back, but your entire body is at risk. As we read so often, our bodies were never made to be forced to remain in a sitting posture for a considerable length of time. Obviously, it didn't descend on me from nowhere. I learned the value of proper ergonomics and proper health management the hard way. Bad eye-sight, headache, migraines, yadda yadda. But I'm glad I learned it before things got out of hand.

I also try and follow a 7-minute workout routine every morning. Apart from that, I'm an active tennis player -- although, after having joined a work-from-office job (since a year), I've been getting less time to be on the courts than I'd like.

As a "geek", I can vouch for the bodyweight fitness that this guy is recommending. The toughest part is working out regularly. The main benefit of choosing BWF is that you can literally do it anywhere. I even did it on vacation. The things I've found that help are:

1. Subscribe to fitness-related forums on reddit or find friends with whom you can compete. Huge motivational boosts here.

2. Try not to let yourself get depressed when you have weeks upon weeks of really tough work with no end in sight. This happened to me recently and I let go of my habits which I had built up over months. It's seriously killing me and my mood is suffering. It's a vicious cycle.

3. Eat well. Doesn't mean eat like a rabbit (you'd be surprised, you don't even need to eat remotely like a rabbit.) Like Scooby said in his videos: eat a little less, exercise a little more and lay off the carbs.

In as little as one month, people noticed the difference to the point where they said I appeared even more intimidating than usual (I'm pretty tall). I want to get to the point where I do this continuously for at least one year. But man, is it hard.

Weeks? You mean years! :)

I actually find the "no end in sight" aspect of BW work to be really helpful: I don't have to worry about what happens when I "run out" of exercises, there will always be another progression: Pullups are getting too easy? Try one-arm pullups. Pushups getting too easy? Work on handstand pushups.

etc. etc.

The important thing is to ensure that you feel like you're making progress on each workout: Adding reps, moving to a harder version, or just improving form. Stagnating is an absolute killer.

Great points :)

But I was referring more to work-work, like coding...

What's wrong with meatheads? As if getting in Bodybuilding-shape didnt require the same dedication as programming. I'd even say true bodybuilding is far more demanding than being a programmer. Not necessarily requiring as much math, but nobody in his right mind would compare against that.

Also, this program will not help you get in shape.

There are 5 fields to fill out to sign up? At the very least, provide a Facebook or other one-click sign in option.

It's a nice start although it is hard to tell without signing up. There needs to be more available prior to committing.

Not sure where your TOS came from but there seems to be a lot of focus on free trial that moves to a subscription after 30 days. This is a valid choice for a business model but it seems like it will limit your growth.

From a technical standpoint it looks like some of the routes for authenticated users are available to unauthentic folks like me. Also, ssl is a requirement even for early stage projects, pick one up asap.

All that said, you o have a nice bootstrap based layout that looks nice which is more than many projects have.

Lastly, being from Grand Rapids I do like the 'Made in the Mitten – By geeks, for geeks.' slogan.

Lost my interest at "A New Workout Every Day" - that's the antithesis of useful training:

"Exercise is physical activity for its own sake...Training is physical activity done with a longer-term goal in mind...random exposure to a variety of different movements at different intensities...is Exercise, not Training, since it is random, and Training requires that we plan what we are going to do to get ready for a specific task." - Mark Ripptoe

It also removes the ability to accurately track progression, which is something that tends to matter to the geek with a fitness app. AKA your target market.

As a hacker who codes all day and likes to understand how things work, I don't find this particularly enticing. I'm not particularly interested in paying for something when I don't even know what I'm going to get, how it works, what it's track record is, etc. Furthermore, you're going to have a tough time competing with all the stuff I can get for free or the much more well known things that I can pay for.

HackerBody workouts are 100% free. We require people to make an account because we're launching some really cool stuff soon that requires one.

It would be great if you said this somewhere prominently before needing to sign up for an account. Once I saw the "refund" section near the top of the Terms and Conditions, I closed the window, assuming that you'd be asking for a credit card number.

Well, I was chased off by the signup. Maybe I'm not your target market, but I'm unlikely to sign up until I'm pretty convinced that it's something I'm interested in.

100% make this clear from the outset. I "stopped" at the create account screen because I didn't want to go through the trouble just for some teaser videos. I hopped over to the hn comments to find out what the deal was.

Hopefully helpful feedback from someone interested in this kind of thing:

1) I was assuming "Get Started for Free" means there's a free trial followed by a subscription fee type service.

2) It would go a long way to have a little more content (in terms of pics or specifics about the program) to tease sign-ups. The sign-up wall came a little too soon, before I felt interested enough to continue.

Are the videos necessary, how about photos and a timer for low bandwidth/speed? Just a though. ;)

I'm on the opposite side, several times I tried apps that give only 3-4 frames per exercise and sometimes (if they are not shoot with an appropriate angle) they are not enough to make clear what you have to do.

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3575489574 250MB/day limit.

As a fellow weight loss geek, I recommend dropping gluten and milk from your diet.

Out of curiosity, where in Michigan are you based?

In Holland, MI (30 min from Grand Rapids).

Why do you show different exercises everyday? Technique is important especially for bodyweight exercises.

How can you call it "HackerBody" when bodyweight exercises are so much less effective than Weight lifting?

[citation needed]

There are pros and cons to bodyweight and free weight depending on the desired outcomes. Neither strictly dominates the other.

Will there be an API for this?

Eventually it's possible. Building the core first.

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