A PhyzWOD is the Phyzseek Workout Of the Day. Each day a new PhyzWOD will be made available to you. You can access it on the PhyzWOD page of the App and it can be sent to you as a daily notification, if you choose. If you missed a prior PhyzWOD or would like to do a specific category of workout on a certain day then you can view and perform PhyzWODs from the past four days on the PhyzWOD page as well.

When you choose a PhyzWOD that you will perform on a specific day, the Workout details page will describe the exercises, the number of reps, and/or the number of rounds to be performed to complete the workout. If you want more information about the workout you can hit the “i” contained within the black circle towards the top of the page. And, if you want more information about a specific exercise within the workout, you can click on the exercise name and view a detailed demo of the exercise.

While we recommend working out with Phyzseek 3 – 4 times per week, some people may be able to workout more often while others may need more rest. LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. If you feel compelled to gain muscle mass we recommend weight training 2 days per week, but again, we do not recommend using heavy weight during the Phyzseek workouts.  In addition, during off days, you may choose to jog at a pace that keeps your heart rate in its aerobic zone (60% - 70% of heart rate max).  By doing so, you may be able to reduce soreness and increase aerobic capacity further.

A typical Phyzseek workout should take a minimum of 20 minutes. For beginners, a workout could take 30 minutes or more but that’s okay because proper form should always be emphasized over speed.  Your times will decline as your strength, exercise proficiency and endurance improve.  Being able to finish Phyzseek workouts in less than 20 minutes with good form is a good indication that you should increase the amount of weight you are using.  Increase weight in small increments (5 - 10 lbs.) over time as you progress through the workouts and go slow, paying attention to proper form.

The Pacer is designed to keep you motivated to maintain a certain workout intensity even when you are working out alone. The Pacer will tell you where in the workout you should be at all times to achieve your pre-programmed workout result (time, reps, or rounds) and PhytRank. In other words, what specific exercise of the daily workout you should be doing as well as what rep and what round you should be in at every point in time during the workout.The Pacer will show you at what point in time you should be completing each exercise to achieve your performance goals.

Before each workout, you can adjust the Pacer to the time, reps or rounds as well as PhytRank that you strive to achieve. For example, if you aim to achieve a time of 24:35 and want to perform better than 80% of your peers in a specific workout, the Pacer will calculate where in the workout you need to be at all points in time in order to achieve a time of 24:35 and a PhytRank of 80.

PhytRank represents the percentile rank you achieved in a workout as compared to your peers (age and gender for modified or non-modified workouts) or All Users (modified or non-modified workouts).  The PhytRank should be utilized to compare yourself to your peers for your performance in every workout in order to motivate you to improve over time.  For example, if you achieve a PhytRank of 35 that means you are better than 35% of your peers that performed that specific workout.

A "Peer" is considered a user of the same gender, age group (every 10 years) and whether or not they are a modified or non-modified user.  A user is considered modified if they have done at least 25% of the workouts in a modified fashion, either due to a lack of exercise proficiency or inadequate equipment is available to them.

To further explain, your Peers could be men aged 40 – 49 years old that have done mostly non-modified workouts. To analyze your workout performance and/or fitness results, you can choose to compare yourself to your Peers (male, 40 – 49 years old, non-modified) or to ALL non-modified users of both genders and of all age groups.The calculations of PhytRank and PhyzioLevel, by default, are based on your relative performance to Peers. However, you can adjust the analysis (drop-down menu) to include ALL non-modified users.

Exercise demo videos are accessible in two ways through the App. From the Workout details page, you can click on the exercise name and watch a demonstration of how to properly perform each exercise.  In addition, from the same page, you can access videos of potential exercise alternatives and modifications. The videos are also accessible in the education section.

There are three categories of workouts provided by the Phyzseek App: Lactic Loading, Intervals and Endurance. Each category is designed to stress your metabolic systems in a different way with the intention of maximizing physiological adaptation. Some days are focused on Interval training in order to create peaks and valleys of anaerobic and aerobic work. Other days are designed to be more consistently anaerobic in order to increase blood lactate levels steadily throughout the workout (Lactic Loading) while other days are more focused on aerobic exercises (Endurance) to expand aerobic capacity.

The workouts stimulate aerobic and anaerobic conditioning as well as full body muscle strength, toning and coordination. By stressing the body’s energy systems in a very specific manner, the exercises encourage the body’s metabolism to adapt in a way that increases the burning of fat, reduces the storage of fatty acids in adipose tissue, increases lean body mass, and most importantly, promotes and enhances daily function. In addition, an added benefit is to drive more normal levels of key hormones which tend to decline with age, such as Insulin for all users, and for male Phyzseekers, growth hormone and testosterone.

Workout results are easily captured by the Phyzseek App. Different workouts require a different level of user input during or after the workout. Timed workouts will automatically capture pertinent information once the user presses stop upon completing all of the required exercises of the workout. Tabata-type workouts require the user to input the number of reps achieved for each exercise (using a keypad) and AMRAPs (As Many Rounds As Possible) require the user to input the number of rounds and exercises (using a keypad) achieved during the allotted time for the workout. For all types of workouts, other information such as Max HR, %Intensity, Avg. Intensity and Calories Burned will be automatically captured as long as the user is wearing a heart rate monitor.

Following the workout, the user is brought to the Workout Complete screen to easily view all of the important information captured during the workout including the workout result (time, reps, rounds), whether or not they beat their record, their PhytRank, their new PhyzioLevel, where they rank on the Leaderboard, and all of the health metrics described above.

If you cannot perform a certain exercise either do to a lack of proficiency or an injury, you can view the demo videos associated with the exercise to see which alternative would be appropriate for you. You can click on the exercise that needs to be modified and you can choose an alternative directly from the Workout details screen. When you are ready to work out and the timer page is shown, the screen will show the workout with the alternative exercise already included.

In order to more accurately track workout performance across different users of the Phyzseek App and to prevent the data from being skewed, it is important to classify a user’s workout as either Modified or non-Modified. A workout will be considered Modified based on two criteria: (1) if the user does not have access to certain equipment required to do the standard exercises of the PhyzWOD then the App will provide an alternative exercise which may be considered modified or non-modified depending on the specific exercise alternative, or (2) the user is unable to perform a certain exercise due to a lack of proficiency or an injury limitation and thus must substitute a modified exercise in place of the standard exercise of the PhyzWOD.

If the workout is considered Modified then the performance data will be stored within the Modified database as compared to a non-Modified workout where the data gets stored in the non-Modified database. A user can tell an exercise and thus a workout is being considered Modified if you click on an exercise on the Workout details page of the App and it says, "modified." Your performance in a specific workout will be compared to other Modified or non-Modified users.