Break Pal Review & Giveaway

I got the opportunity to test out Break Pal. This marvelous little creation is a widget that pops up and reminds you to exercise at regular intervals when you are working on the computer. You click through the pop up into a list of quick exercises and stretches that can be done in a small space (such as your cubicle), many while you are still sitting in your chair.

From their website:

No Time To Exercise? Then Deskercise
Desk Exercises let you get in Shape Right at Your Desk!
Get the Same Results as if You Drove to the Gym every Day and did a 45 minute Aerobics Class. (Without driving to the gym or spending 45 minutes.
Have better mental clarity throughout the day.
Get more done.
Avoid desk related health problems
All with a very simple idea

I was getting so out of shape and the more out of shape I was the harder it was for me to motivate myself to exercise. I felt like a slug. I knew that I had to get my body back in shape. I mean people came to me for fitness advice and here I was, getting fat. I felt embarrassed. I was not practicing what I had been preaching and I felt it.

Finally A Solution- Office Exercises
I realized that if I had this problem, with the opportunity to work out merely 20 feet away, then it must be 1000 times worse for the average desk worker. That's when we came up with the idea. Build a software program that would not only remind you to take a few minutes to exercise every 30 minutes, but would actually teach you a new full body workout right at your desk.

Together, my husband and I designed Break Pal, the world's only fitness at your desk software. It was an absolute breakthrough. It was exactly what I needed. My fitness level increased dramatically, my productivity shot through the roof, the aches and pains from sitting at my desk too long, all went away.

I received a Premimum membership, and on day 1 started to notice a difference. Luckily for me I work for a fitness company, so no one thought it was strange to see me stand up and do some stretching exercises in the middle of the day (there were 4 people in visual range when I did it the first time, and no one gave me a second glance or asked what I was doing). About 5 hours into that first day, I noticed that I had a lot of energy, and had to make myself sit to work. If my desk had been higher, I'd have stood up the whole day. After a few days of using Break Pal, I realized my back wasn't hurting as much, and my wrists weren't bothering me like they normally do after a long day at the computer.

It's really easy to use Break Pal. I signed up, installed a widget, and every 30 minutes Liz pops up on my screen and tells me it's time to exercise. Then I click in to the exercises, pick the one I want to do, a quick 3 minute exercize and I'm done. It was a little difficult at first to tell myself it was OK to interrupt what I was doing for the quick exercise, but knowing that the break would increase my productivity and actually help me finish the project sooner, I forced myself to do it. After a few days, it's not so much of a forced thing, I just got used to the idea and it became normal. I would love to see a way to track the exercises that I've already done, but you do get a point for doing the exercises every half hour, so you can have a little friendly competition with your friends.

I believe this would be beneficial to anyone who sits at a computer, or desk for many hours during the day. A great way for companies to get a workplace wellness program in place and improve employee productivity too. I can't help but wonder why no one thought of this sooner!

They offer a Free membership version so you can trial the program and get a good feel for how it works. The big difference between the Free version and the Premimum version is how many of the exercises you have access to. You get a small selection with the Free, and a larger and varied selection with the Premium.

Here's the best part. The folks at Break Pal have offered to give one of my readers a free Lifetime Premimum membership to Break Pal!

Here's how to enter (this first entry is mandatory, you need to do this one before any of the Additional Entries):

*Go to BreakPal's website and sign up for a Free membership - leave your Break Pal user name in your comment.

Additional Entries:

{Be sure to leave a seperate comment for each entry}
*Join the Break Pal Facebook group
*Fan the Break Pal facebook page
*Comment on Liz's Blog

*Add me as a Friend on Break Pal so I can verify your signup.

*Follow me on Twitter (leave your Twitter ID in your comment)
*Tweet about this contest (max one Tweet per day)

*Follow this blog

*Add my button to your blog (see my sidebar)

*Blog about this giveaway with a link back to Break Pal and to this post

That's 10 ways to enter! Giveaway will run until September 6th, 2009 11:59 pm PST. Winner will be selected on the 7th via Random.org Random Number Generator. All entries will be verified before the drawing and unqualified entries will be deleted before the random number is generated.

As seen on CashNet Sweepstakes

Good luck everyone!

Healthy and Happy Living