Reed Hanoun has dedicated his professional career to helping individuals and organizations get fit and live healthier lives, and in 2004, Reed seized an opportunity to shift from managing injury to helping people avoid them. That was the catalyst for founding MYTRAK Health System Inc.
Today the MYTRAK Health System Inc. is dedicated to standardizing the process of making people healthy – guiding success by engaging and motivating people to stay physically active at home, at work and at play through the use of our state-of-the-art technology. We spoke to Reed about what MYTRAK can do for you.
KineticShift: How has technology changed the way we work out?
Reed Hanoun: Technology has created the opportunity to influence behavioral changes by offering prompting and various metrics to the user to help keep them accountable for the goals they create. Ultimately, in most cases however, technology is just a tool for collecting data compared against some, often times, arbitrary goals. Most technologies end there, but in the right hands technology can analyze data in real time and make timely health coaching interventions as opposed to simply reporting them afterward. Mytrak looks at the heart of health change by literally looking at heart activity. Along with other collected data and incremental activity prompts Mytrak literally changes metabolism by further monitoring the hearts adaptation to exercise.
These fundamental physiological adaptations target the three major disease states of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and, obesity . Our unique proprietary algorithms set out a health journey for the users based on personal biometrics, their current lifestyle and realistic attainable goals. At that point the device itself becomes your portable health coach with everything programmed into it to guarantee success by simply fulfilling your daily dose of activity at the appropriate intensity levels. So , YES , in a word , Technology has changed the way we work out.
KS: Some devices however can be too complex? Is the SlimCoach for those who don’t want a heart rate monitor type device that provides too much information? Can that be overload for some users?
RH: The SlimCoach can be used with or without a heart rate belt. The engagement on the device is very simple – by turning your health circle to green, you have met your daily goals. The online Dashboard, where you access your data is fluid, taking the user through all adaptive body responses to a healthier lifestyle. You are able to see a high level overview of your progress or drill down to 5 minutes increments to analyze your data. The user determines how much information to access.
The complexity of some technologies is often to mask the fact they don’t really do anything of great value, Mytrak intentionally kept it simple but with options for users who want to take it deeper. Having said that, the user who wants to train with Mytrak , having charts or reports to base their success on, can take their training to a whole new level. They make that decision however, Mytrak provides the tools, prompting and programming when needed.
KS: Do you think devices such as the SlimCoach help motivate users? You can’t tell yourself you’re doing enough or have gone far enough if the device doesn’t agree with you, right?
RH: Tracking user results and reporting back to them in real time , similar to what a personal trainer does, is an effective initial behavioral prompt but it is only the beginning of the Mytrak engagement . When you say devices similar to SlimCoach we don’t believe anything is in fact similar. Any device can report calories or some other metric like steps but eventually that is all just numbers and that novelty and motivation wears off. For example all prepackaged foods are labeled with calorie values but that clearly has not been effective in the war against obesity.
So what have we done that’s different? We have created a cultural shift away from numbers to something much more intrinsic and intuitive, Green, “ Go for Green” in fact. We have used colors to indicate where you are during the day and what you have left to do with a simple one push button feature . It’s simplicity is its greatest value. That color, Red , Yellow or Green, embodies a whole host of metrics in the back end that determine your success but without burdening the user to interpret them. Going for Green simply means you have hit all your targets for the day without having to drill down to all the numbers individually. You’re Green you’re there.
Behaviorally, much like Pavlov’s dog , we have conditioned people not to go to bed that night until you are green. Motivationally we have attached an emotion to our technology, we hear from our users that they get mad at themselves when they come up short but they also celebrate their victories. Two opposite ends of the emotional scale but both equally effective in changing, then sustaining behavior. There is no stronger motivational driver then emotion, it is visceral. Not dissimilar to the bull that sees a red cape and wants to charge with rage, Mytrak targets your primal instincts to react to things that push our emotional buttons . Green is yours and our success, pure and simple.
KS: And how important do you think tracking progress can be for users?
RH: Without tracking results it would be like steering a boat in the dark . Eventually you’ll get somewhere but where? Or maybe you’ll just drive in circles. Your history doesn’t necessarily determine your future but knowing where you have come from helps you to predict where you will end up or allows you to make the changes now to where you want to go. Mytrak tracks every workout and predicts your future based on those workouts.
“ Progress is the activity of today and the assurance of tomorrow” ( Ralph Waldo Emerson)
KS: Does community also help with these devices? MYTRAK’s SlimCoach does add that community?
RH: Communities are a force of nature. The collective voice of others who support your vision , your goals , your destiny is stronger than any pill. Similar to Facebook, Mytrak communities provide the opportunity for our users to have a voice, to ask and receive help, to participate, to challenge and to learn. The list of course goes on and on but basically a Mytrak member can join or create groups, look for friends, participate in events and receive coaching.
Thank you to Reed for talking with us.