FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
WHAT’S my Experience Level?
As the most personalized workout app available for iPhone and Android, KINETICOACH uses three experience levels to select the perfect workout to get you fit, while keeping you safe. Here’s how we define our workout experience levels:
Beginner – Less than one year of consistent fitness training. Unfamiliar with the KINETICOACH movements. New to using weights for fitness training.
Intermediate – One to two years of consistent fitness training. Mostly familiar with KINETICOACH movements. Some experience using weights for fitness training.
Advanced – More than two years of consistent fitness training. Familiar with KINETICOACH movements. Experienced using weights for fitness training.
Once you’ve downloaded KinetiCoach, you’ll declare your experience level. You can update your experience level at any time by selecting the Profile icon on the home page, then clicking “Edit profile and goals.”
We recommend that new users who qualify as “advanced” still start with “intermediate” for a few workouts to get a feel for KINETICOACH exercises and workouts.
HOW MUCH WEIGHT SHOULD I USE?
We know that using weights in a workout can be intimidating; but it’s an essential part of any fitness program for health and longevity. KINETICOACH provides suggested weights based on your experience level, and alternate exercises to accommodate injuries, experience, and equipment. Ensure you watch the demo video, read the movement instructions, and thoroughly warm up the movement at lighter weights prior to starting the workout.
Never use a weight that leads to poor form. You’ll make faster fitness gains using a lighter weight with safe form than if you go heavy and injure yourself. Only increase weight once you can consistently do a movement safely and with the form demonstrated by the in-app video. Ensure you enter your workout results and notes to track progress and to reference for future weighted workouts.
Note: Different types of workouts will demand different weights for the same movement. For example, longer workouts with higher reps will generally use lighter weights than a shorter workout with a lower volume of reps.
How should I warm up?
It is absolutely critical to thoroughly warm up prior to starting your personalized KINETICOACH workout. Warming up doesn’t mean several minutes of static stretching — an effective warmup uses dynamic mobility to gradually increase range of motion and to warm up joints, muscles, and your aerobic metabolic pathway. These dynamic warmup exercises help you get the best workout possible with minimal risk of injury.
For an effective and efficient warmup, we recommend you follow the full KINETICOACH warmup prior to your workouts. Our warmups consists of dynamic movements and, once you’re familiar with the movements, generally take less than 10 minutes to complete.
To view the KINETICOACH warmups, click on the instructions link at the bottom of any workout page, or go to the Movement Library from the homepage. You can view each warmup movement along with instructions and alternate movement options.
How TO use Demo videos?
KINETICOACH’s professional fitness trainers demonstrate all exercises and stretches. The in-app GIFs provide a focused, quick, and thorough overview of the correct form and important points of instruction to help you get the best results while staying safe. We recommend that you film yourself doing the movement and compare it to the KINETICOACH demo video to see where corrections are needed during your weekly exercise plan. At the bottom of each movement demo page are suggested alternate movements to accommodate injuries, experience, or equipment limitations.
What if I can’t do a movement as it’s shown in the Demo?
The professional fitness trainers in the demo videos have been doing these movements for more than a decade. There is no expectation that you’ll be able to do all movements as demonstrated right away.
Follow the instructions on at the bottom of each movement demo page for a prioritized list of what parts of the movement you should focus on. Never use a range of motion that leads to pain or discomfort. For example, with the Air Squat, do not continue squatting lower if your lower back rounds or if your knees collapse.
Often, simply slowing down the movement allows you time to make adjustments to keep correct form. Film yourself and compare to the demo video to identify where corrections are needed. When you create a workout plan for yourself, it’s about improving your form over time. This will lead to quicker, safer results.
What if I’m injured?
KINETICOACH incorporates alternate movements to accommodate injuries and varying experience levels. There’s no reason to stop working out completely due to most injuries, but always follow your physician’s guidance for exercise restrictions. Warm up thoroughly and identify which movements or ranges of motion cause you pain or discomfort, then modify or eliminate them from your weekly exercise plan until able to reintroduce them. Checkout our blog post on working through injuries
The custom workout builder algorithm provides you with 10 workouts to choose from within each workout build. Run the builder again if necessary to find a personalized workout that is compatible with your injury, or use the alternate movement options at the bottom of every movement page to modify your workout.
how does the app Use my "time available" selection?
KINETICOACH will use your "time available" as the upper limit for workout selections. This makes KinetiCoach the perfect workout app for people looking to fit in a quick workout, or if you have the time to really dig in for a long aerobic bout or lifting session. The custom workout builder algorithm will choose workouts primarily within your time available selection, but will also pick shorter workouts that meet your other selected criteria. Always working out in the same time domain limits your fitness gains, so be sure to explore the extremes of workout durations (shorter and longer workouts).
What workout type should i choose?
This question allows KinetiCoach’s custom workout builder algorithm adjust the intensity (duration, speed, load, or volume) of your workout based on how you feel, or to offer specific training options such as strength, flexibility, or recovery.
STRETCHING & RECOVERY – choose this option if you want to specifically work on improving flexibility, if you’ve had insufficient sleep (less than five or six hours), if you do not feel recovered or rested, if you feel drained, excessively sore, or are recovering from an illness. STRESSED & TIRED workouts will have lower volume exercises, and they will tend to focus on one area, such as stretching, strength development, or skill work. These are great recovery workouts for those days when you need to move, but just don’t feel like going hard. These customized workouts are a critical part of maintaining a well-rounded personal training program.
STRENGTH & WEIGHTLIFTING – Strength training is an essential part of health and longevity. Benefits of strength training include: increased resting metabolic rate, reducing fat, increasing lean body mass, improved balance, improved flexibility, improved cognitive abilities, and, critically, increased bone density. KINETICOACH incorporates resistance training (weights and body-weight) to help you look, feel, and perform better, while improving your health. Choose “Strength & Weightlifting” to receive workouts focused on this critical element of fitness.
MODERATE INTENSITY CONDITIONING – choose this option if you had moderate sleep (six or seven hours) and feel mostly recovered. You can be somewhat sore. These workouts are great at the end of a long week or travel day, or as the last workout prior to a rest day when you feel well enough to go somewhat hard in a workout. These workouts have moderate volume and weight loading, but will still ask you to work hard. These are NOT easy workouts.
FEELING GREAT! BRING IT ON! – choose this option of you had sufficient sleep (more than seven hours) and feel fully recovered, rested. Slight soreness is fine. These are great workouts after a rest day or when you’re feeling great and want to push hard. FEELING GREAT workouts are not necessarily always longer workouts; they will tend to have higher loads, volumes, or will demand higher output. Don’t choose FEELING GREAT workouts every day as it will increase your risk of over-training, fatigue, or injury. These are tough personalized workouts!
How often should I work out?
But if you’d need more flexible, we recommend 2-3 days of working out, followed by 1 day of rest. Rest days can include a “STRETCHING & RECOVERY” workout. Here’s a suggested flow
o Monday – workout (Strength & Weightlifting)
o Tuesday – workout (Feeling Great, Bring it On!)
o Wednesday – workout (Stretching & Recovery)
o Thursday –workout (Moderate Intensity Conditioning)
o Friday –workout (Strength & Weightlifting)
o Saturday – rest
o Sunday - workout (Feeling Great, Bring it On!)
Consistency is critical in the pursuit of your fitness goals. Even if you only have 15 minutes, you can do the full warmup and get a KINETICOACH workout in. Just select <5 minutes when asked, “How much time do you have?” And remember, on days that you don’t feel great, select “Stretching & Recovery” to stay on your path to fitness with customized workouts.
Note: Listen to your body. If it’s supposed to be a workout day but you’re unable to even get through the warmup, consider throwing in a rest day and modifying your workout schedule.
HOW TO SEARCH FOR WORKOUTS
KinetiCoach Premium users can search our entire catalogue of more than 1000 workouts based on any movement from our Movement Library. Go to your My Workouts tab, and enter the movement name you’d like to search for. KinetiCoach will return every workout in our catalogue containing that movement. Or, if there’s a specific workout you’d like to search for by name, just type the workout name in the search window.
How do Teams and Leaderboards work?
KinetiCoach allows users to create and join teams for motivation and friendly competition! Simply select the “KINETICREW” tab at the bottom of the home page. You can create your own team and invite other KINETICOACH users to join, or if you receive an invite code, you can join someone else’s team. Once on a team, you can view leaderboards based on experience points or on workout performance.
The default leaderboard for a team is the Experience board. This ranks team members by how many experience points they have earned using the KINETICOACH Travel Trainer. You can filter the board by workout performance by clicking “Filter by Workout” at the bottom of the Team page. Now select a previously accomplished workout or search for a workout by name to see how you rank based on workout performance. KINETICOACH is the best personal trainer app for friends who like to keep each other accountable and celebrate workout milestones!
How do I post results for a workout?
Prior to starting a workout, click the INSTRUCTIONS link at the bottom of the workout page to see what type of result and notes you’ll be asked to enter. There are several types of results to accommodate the wide variety of workout types in KinetiCoach:
Total Reps – track the total number of repetitions you complete in a workout.
Total Rounds Plus Reps into the Final Round – a “round” consists of a group of exercises. Each time you get through that group, you will have completed a round. At the end of the workout, you’ll enter the number of times you completed rounds, and then you’ll enter how many reps into the final round you completed. KINETICOACH will automatically convert this into a raw score for the leaderboard!
Total Time – track how long the workout takes to finish. The timer will automatically transfer your completion time into your results page. But you can update the time to account for the time it took to stop the timer at the end of the workout.
Weight Used – enter the heaviest weight used for the workout. If you needed to modify the weight during the workout, enter the weight you used for the majority of the workout. If using dumbbells, you’ll always enter the weight of a single dumbbell.
Notes Only – some workouts will only ask you to enter notes regarding performance, what weight you may have used, or any modifications to movements you made.
After completing a KinetiCoach workout, click on the “FINISHED” checkmark at the bottom of the timer page. You will then be prompted to enter your results based on the type of workout completed.
After entering your results, you’ll be asked to enter any notes. The Instructions link at the bottom of the workout page will let you know what notes to enter to help you compare your future performance of the same customized workout.
What is THE Virtual Gym?
As you complete workouts and reach certain milestones (such as consistency in working out), you’ll earn experience points towards equipment in your KinetiCoach Virtual Gym. There are hundreds of pieces of equipment to earn, so stay consistent, work hard, and watch your gym grow!
Why should I do Flexibility work?
KINETICOACH uses mobility training and dynamic warmup exercises for functional flexibility. The goal of mobility work is to gain or maintain a healthy range of motion in your joints and muscles. Consistent mobility work vastly reduces the risk of injury and increases your performance in workouts to get you fit faster. Consistent flexibility and mobility work is critical for those who may spend large amounts of time sitting or who are inactive. Follow the KINETICOACH warmup, use the Movement Library to select flexibility movements when you need a quick stretch, and regularly choose a “Stretching & Recovery” workout for longer flexibility workouts. These dynamic exercises will keep you in shape while protecting you from any injuries that would interfere with your workout plan and overall health.
Got more questions about eating healthy, sleeping well, or losing weight? Check out our blog posts, where our personal trainers dive into nutrition, exercises, lifestyle, travel tips, and more!