When we launched our My Plan feature in March 2021, it was — and continues to be — the furthering of Tempo’s mission to provide the most personalized home workout experience possible.
Using your personal preferences, your fitness goals, and current experience level, Tempo is able to provide you with more customized weekly training plans to get you to your goals. These weekly training plans include what are called “Daily Focuses” that recommend a particular class that targets different muscle groups, whether they are strength and muscle-building focused, cardio-dominant, or namely mobility/recovery.
While this takes the guesswork out of knowing when and how to train, how exactly does it answer the why behind the way Tempo is recommending you train?
The Exercise Science Behind My Plan
The answer lies in the science and know-how behind My Plan and how it was developed. Reining in the minds of our Head of Exercise Science, Dr. Joel French in collaboration with our product designers, My Plan fuses together an easy-to-understand user experience that is backed by science.
When you onboard with the Tempo home gym and My Plan, you’ll be asked about your goals and this is a big differentiator in how Tempo thinks about offering you your Daily Focuses.
For instance, if you want to get leaner, Tempo considers the scientific method of actually getting you to that goal and how our content fits into that journey.
“We match your goals and preferences with the behaviors that decades of science have found are necessary to reach your goals,” Dr. French explains.
We know that for the average person to lose weight, they must burn about 1500 calories per week from exercise. With weight loss and shedding excess fat as the goal, Tempo will recommend a higher proportion of HIIT and other calorie torching classes
My Plan's Well-Rounded Fitness Approach
There is more to it, though. HIIT is a great way to lose calories, but it’s not the only (or best) way. Tempo will also recommend daily focuses on strength and muscle building to not only make you a more well-rounded athlete, but to also help you build calorie-burning muscle mass. Tempo isn’t just trying to make the numbers on the scale go down, but provide a more holistic approach to improving your fitness.
Similarly, if your goal is to gain muscle mass, Tempo will generally recommend a Build, or muscle-building class aimed at specific muscle groups at least twice per week — a best practice for most anyone looking to develop more strength and muscle.
In both cases, Tempo will roll in mobility classes as well. Tempo knows that training consistently is important but so is taking care of the muscles, tendons and ligaments, and joints. Mobility and recovery classes are key for avoiding injury and mental burnout. Yoga and Meditation can be helpful for winding down and letting your muscles relax after tough workouts and Tempo offers a huge variety to help get there.
Tempo also knows that home fitness isn’t stagnant and requires progressive overload (an incrementally increasing stress and load on your body to effect change in your fitness and strength), which is why Tempo will also recommend classes that may be outside of your self-identified experience level for an extra challenge.
“My Plan algorithms and recommendations were built using the same science and training methods used by top coaches and training centers,” Dr. French explains.
And My Plan will only get more nuanced as we develop more content like yoga and put to use our new equipment offerings like our folding bench, folding squat rack, kettlebell system.
Coming up next, we’ll be exploring how My Plan differs from Tempo's program offerings and how our community is taking advantage of My Plan.
