Fitness Interactive Experience Launches A Step Ahead: Alien Invasion

ATLANTA, July 15, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Fitness Interactive Experience, a leading provider of game-based corporate wellness programs, today announced A Step Ahead: Alien Invasion, a walking challenge that uses players' real-life movements to advance them through a video game. The challenge is an ideal complement to companies' existing wellness programs, which often focus on weight loss and other quantitative metrics, because it uses obstacles and rewards to engage players and incite lasting behavioral change.

A Step Ahead: Alien Invasion, which runs for six or 12 weeks, is a story-based challenge that puts players on teams that are being pursued by an army of alien invaders. The number of steps a player takes (entered manually into the game or through a synched activity tracker) advances his or her avatar across the game board and towards the "safehouse," or next level. Players receive bonus points for exercise (which helps their avatars ward off alien attacks) and dietary choices (which helps them resist alien mind control). If the alien army catches up with a player, he or she turns into a mind-controlled alien drone and begins chasing the other players.

"Although nearly all companies offer wellness initiatives, only about a quarter of employees participate in them," said Mike Tinney, founder and CEO of Fitness Interactive Experience. "Most programs focus on providing education or measuring weight loss or other goals – and while those initiatives can be part of a successful wellness program, they alone are insufficient in motivating people to make meaningful, lasting changes to their health."

A Step Ahead: Alien Invasion is the third walking challenge to be released by Fitness Interactive Experience; the first, A Step Ahead: Zombies, launched in late 2014. Of the thousands of employees who have played A Step Ahead: Zombies:

• 86 percent walked more
• 86 percent played the hourly fitness games
• 78 percent exercised more often
• 69 percent made healthier lifestyle decisions
• 64 percent adopted a cleaner diet

Of the more than 20 companies that have used an A Step Ahead challenge within their organization, 75 percent signed up for another.

"A Step Ahead challenges are rooted in research," added Tinney. "They use the same incentive and reward mechanisms that video games use to engage their players, and numerous studies have shown that people push themselves harder when they're exercising with teammates and opponents than they do alone. These elements, combined with an exciting and suspenseful storyline, make A Step Ahead: Alien Invasion an unusually engaging corporate walking challenge."

The first organizations to use A Step Ahead: Alien Invasion will be Compass Minerals, a leading producer of essential minerals headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, and Methodist Health System, a hospital network headquartered in Dallas. Those interested in holding an A Step Ahead challenge within their organizations can visit http://www.astepaheadchallenge.com.

About Fitness Interactive Experience

Fitness Interactive Experience is a leading provider of game-based wellness programs used by companies including Coca-Cola, Ernst & Young and Methodist Health System. Drawing on founder and CEO Mike Tinney's 20+ years' experience in the video game industry, Fitness Interactive Experience disrupts the traditionally staid corporate wellness industry by creating highly engaging fitness games that are influenced by real-world activities. Its team is also comprised of personal trainers, doctors and even a former lead FBI hostage negotiator.

Fitness Interactive Experience's products include the walking challenge A Step Ahead: Zombies and UtiliFIT, a wellness platform that provides hourly reminders to complete a short, low-impact exercise. The company was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Atlanta. For more information, please visit http://www.astepaheadchallenge.com.

SOURCE Fitness Interactive Experience

Related Links

http://www.astepaheadchallenge.com