At a recent meeting of the Association of Meeting Professionals in Washington, D.C., I had the pleasure of being introduced to Kim Bercovitz, Ph.D. (aka “Dr. Kim”), President and Chief Exercise Officer (CEO) of a very interesting company called Exercise Bytes. Their company offers a quick and efficient solution to the problem of attendee fatigue. As you probably know, between lots of sitting and too much eating attendees can see their energy levels drop off quite a bit – especially in mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Coffee breaks are often seen as the remedy, but the caffeine boost will usually wear off by the middle of the next session.
X bytes addresses this problem through its entertaining short fitness videos. The typical video is less than seven minutes, with the fitness part itself coming in at five minutes. The short length makes the video a perfect transition between sessions or just to provide a little variety, all the while taking care of the attendee fatigue issue.
At the AMPS meeting I was able to experience the video first hand. Right of the bat, almost everybody became engaged with the video and participated. The room grew boisterous as we got out of our chairs and performed a variety of easy to perform routines. The video takes into account that attendees have different fitness levels, so people were not put into a potentially embarrassing situation. An atmosphere of camaraderie developed as people performed the routines. After the video we all sat down feeling energized for the rest of the evening.
There are some obvious concerns with the idea of people exercising at a meeting. First of all, most attendees are in business dress. There is also the concern that people are sitting pretty close together and so do not have room to perform the exercises. Worst of all, there is the valid concern of stench created by active people.
The fitness routines are more in the mode of “stretching” positions than overly active exercises such as jumping jacks. From the start, X bytes designed its videos with an understanding of the ergonomics of the meeting attendee.
You can find out more about X bytes at http://x-bytes.com/ or reach out to Dr. Kim at kim@x-bytes.com or 1-855-8xbytes.
