World's Largest Obstacle Course Race and Endurance Brand, Spartan, Launches Employee Fitness App to Build Healthier Workplaces

BOSTON, Feb. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Spartan, the world's largest obstacle course race and endurance brand leading a global fitness movement has entered the $13 billion corporate wellness sector with the development of its SPARTANFIT^™ Challenge App. The simple-to-use app allows employees to compete in company-wide 30-day health challenges, share their healthy habits, and earn prizes. The app is designed to build employee health, work-place engagement and team-work through a variety of themed challenges. SPARTANFIT will launch this May with a challenge that will see companies face off for a donation to the charity of the winner's choice.

The SPARTANFIT app is an easy-to-use, mobile option that integrates elements of personalization, social sharing and gamification to get people moving. To develop the new app, Spartan collaborated with Praktice Health, a corporate wellness company that has developed a highly engaging wellness platform based on the latest research on habits and nudge theory. The partnership leverages Spartan's global fitness experience, which has impacted more than 6 million participants worldwide, with Praktice's pioneering work on virtual challenges and reinforcing healthy habits at work via a mobile application.

"We want to rip 100 million people off their couches to help build healthy lifestyles across the world, and SPARTANFIT will allow us to work with human resource professionals to impact well-being in the workplace," said Spartan CEO and Founder Joe De Sena. "The app incorporates the principals of the ancient Spartans that our company was founded upon with the programs we have developed for millions. We want every CEO, HR and wellness director to improve the health of their employees and we've created a tool for them to do so."

VIDEO INTRO 

Companies that implement the app will be provided with marketing collateral and proprietary cumulative data on their group's overall engagement and health improvements. The itself app features hundreds of SPARTAN videos on providing instruction on habits, teamwork, mind, body & diet, including food planners and workout plans. SPARTANFIT saves HR teams significant time and makes it easy to motivate their workforce, while the modular nature of challenges makes It easy to integrate into a wellness program of any maturity level. An organization code is all a person needs to register, which makes it easy to roll out virtually anywhere.

Within the app, employees form teams with the goal of working together to complete wellness activities over set period of time, for which they are rewarded with points. The interface encourages employees to interact with teammates to ensure that their team reaches their daily goals. Spartan video-based health education is delivered through daily tips and surprise challenges, helping the participants along as they go.

Praktice Health has had great success with early versions of the app, tracking increased employee engagement rates over traditional wellness programs. The majority of participants reported improved lifestyle habits, reduced stress and an improved culture of health in the workplace. The social component of sharing healthy choices with the educational videos and tips creates engagement and motivates employees to continue their health journey long past the initial 30 days.

The kick-off SPARTANFIT inter-company challenge begins May 6^th 2019 and is based on the "Five Pillars of Health" - walking, hydrating, exercising, breathing and proper eating. The winner of the competition will receive $5,000 for the charity of its choice. To register and learn more, visit SPARTANFIT.app.

The Current State of Corporate Health - Seeking a Cure:

There has never been a better time to pay attention to corporate wellness. According to the New York Times, nearly four out of ten adults are obese. It is clear that a lack of fitness is causing the growing burden on our healthcare system, with growing in-hospital stays and mortality rates for diabetes, fatty liver disease and heart disease. According to the American Diabetes Association, the annual burden for medical intervention is $327 billion annually, leading to a gross loss of $90 billion in reduced worker productivity.  Overall, the total direct impact of obesity and its related complications have been estimated at between 4-8 percent of America's total Gross Domestic Product. Even on the lower end, that's comparable to the U.S. national defense budget ($643 billion) and Medicare ($588 billion).

Government Leadership Lacking - Private Sector Fitness Initiatives Needed:

Currently there is no overarching government policy or commission to encourage healthy diet or exercise to fight obesity. Indeed, farm policies have made low nutritional commodities exceptionally cheap, providing the food industry enormous incentives to market processed foods with refined grains and added sugar. Alarmingly, cheap calories are flooding the market, while the opportunity to burn them off is becoming slimmer and slimmer. Fitness opportunities at schools and workplaces have declined with the underfunding of gym programs and the overall decline of workplace corporate wellness initiatives.

With the absence of government leadership, there is a major unmet need for improved private sector initiatives that offer employees easy-to-use and effective workplace fitness programs.  These incentives will ultimately shine a light on the growing issue of obesity and its effect on corporate America's bottom line. 

About Spartan

With more than 250 events across more than 40 countries on six continents, Spartan is the world's largest obstacle race (OCR) and endurance brand. Providing transformation through sport, Spartan attracts more than one million annual participants across all fitness levels, from beginners to elite. More than five million participants have finished Spartan events, creating a lifestyle that extends beyond races including health and wellness products, training and nutrition programs, and popular media content, which has made OCR one of the fastest growing sports in the world. Spartan events feature races at various distances: Stadion and Sprint, 3-mile/5-km and 20 Obstacles; Super, 8-mi/13-km and 25 Obstacles; Beast, 13-mi/21-km and 30 Obstacles; and Ultra, 30-mi/50-km and 60 obstacles.  Visit spartan.com for more information and registration.

SOURCE Spartan

Related Links

https://www.spartan.com