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The number one reason why people are not active today is that they say they do not have enough time. The 7-minute workout helps solve that problem! Who doesn’t have 7 minutes to spare?

At Sprout we are all about making time in our day to be active! Incorporating activity into your daily routine will provide numerous benefits to your life – at work and home. 

Read more about Sprout’s cofounders Martha Switzer and Christina Winkels in this recent Globe and Mail article:

Excerpt from Globe and Mail

Western grads win spots at Nike’s first accelerator program 

“Martha Switzer and Christina Winkels were both sports buffs in the most un-sporty of environments: the high-stress executive offices of corporate Canada. Winkels was a competitive swimmer who found herself pulling 24-hour shifts in investment banking, while Switzer was a marketing executive who ran marathons on the side.

“We were working for multinational companies for 10  years, watching fellow employees at work more and become less active,” says Switzer. It wasn’t just employees’ health that was suffering: The high-stress, low activity, lousy-food lifestyle that comes with cubicle was taking its toll in other ways. Sedentary lifestyles lead to more sick days, lower productivity, higher staff turnover. It was a business problem – which meant there was a business opportunity.

Read More Here

Sprout can help solve these inactivity problems that many companies are facing by introducing a fun and interactive solution! Contact us today to see how easy it is to enhance your workplace wellness!

Most days we are sitting longer than we sleep! This is becoming a growing health concern for many people, but simple changes to how we spend our days at work can help solve the problem.

Create a movement for movement in your organization! 

• Instead of booking a meeting room, plan out a walking route with your colleagues and walk while you talk
• If a walking meeting won’t work – encourage everyone to stand up and walk around the room or play musical chairs and switch spots throughout a longer meeting
• Encourage active breaks throughout the day – even a quick spin can boost productivity!

Check out this great TED video that perfectly captures what the Sprout movement is all about - Got a meeting? Take a walk.

Sprout is a user friendly online platform that can help you plan your “walk and talk” meetings, invite your co-workers and measure the impact of movement in your organization! Contact us today to learn how you can get Sprouting!

Losing weight (and keeping it off) is a health concern for many people these days – likely including some of your colleagues. Providing an encouraging environment at work for weight loss can help everyone win at losing!

Excerpt from Greatist

In one study, researchers recruited overweight and obese employees at four different companies (they worked in insurance, loan companies, or for non-profits). Workers at two of the companies participated in group sessions on nutrition and behavior modification and were instructed to follow a low-calorie diet. Workers at the other two companies did not receive any intervention and followed their typical health routine. Results showed employees who participated in the interventions lost significantly more weight than those who didn’t. Moreover, employees at the companies where the intervention was held who didn’t take part in the intervention also lost weight.

Read more here.

Sprout can help you bring employees together in an interactive online platform, allowing them to keep track of weight loss and encourage each other in achieving health goals. Contact us today to learn how you can get Sprouting!

Working full time means most people spend the majority of their days with their co-workers. Having a workplace that supports a friendly environment not only makes coming to work more fun and enjoyable for employees, but it can also improve longevity!

Excerpt from the New York Times

Researchers at Tel Aviv University found that people who felt that they had the support of their colleagues and generally positive social interactions at work were less likely to die over a 20-year period than those who reported a less friendly work environment. Over all, people who believed they had little or no emotional support in the workplace were 2.4 times as likely to die during the course of the study compared with the workers who developed stronger bonds with their peers in other cubicles.

To study how office politics influenced health, the researchers recruited 820 adults who visited a local health clinic in 1988 for routine checkups, then interviewed them about their jobs, asking detailed questions that delved into whether they found their supervisors and peers approachable, friendly and helpful to them. The subjects worked in a variety of different fields — like finance, health care, insurance and manufacturing — and ranged in age from 25 to 65.

Read more here.

Let Sprout help bring your employees together in a fun, interactive, and online platform by contacting us today!

Many recent studies suggest that long days spent sitting are doing more harm than good – even if you hit the gym after work.  Luckily, getting up out of the desk chair periodically throughout the day may help counteract sedentary ways, potentially boosting employee productivity in the process. That’s a win-win!

Excerpt from the Wall Street Journal

Working out at the gym might not be enough to stay fit if you spend much of the rest of the day sitting down.

Americans are more sedentary than ever, government surveys show. That is a problem even among people who exercise regularly.

“Our results suggest that exercise alone may not be enough to eliminate risks associated with too much sitting,” says Charles Matthews, lead author of the study and an investigator with the National Institutes of Health.

In a 2007 analysis of several studies, people who used pedometers increased the number of steps taken by an average 2,491 a day and boosted overall physical activity by about 27% from previous levels, says Dena Bravata, a senior science affiliate at the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research at Stanford University.

Read more here.

Sprout can help get your employees moving more throughout the day with an interactive online platform that takes workplace wellness to the next level.

Contact us today and learn how you can get started!

How do you get a return on your wellness investment if employees don’t participate?

Excerpt from HR.BLR.com 

The top three methods used by employers to drive participation in wellness programs are: encouragement by management, lower health insurance costs to those who participate, or allotted time during the workday for participation—each cited by 20% of surveyed workers. Other methods include:

• Contributions into a health savings account or health reimbursement account (17%),
• Financial incentives (e.g., gift certificates or discounts) (16%), and
• Additional paid time off (10%).

Tip: To ensure the success of wellness programs, employers should provide incentives for employees to participate.

Read more.

Sprout makes wellness fun and gets everyone involved – because they want to, not because they have to. We work with your leaders and champions of wellness to drive a cultural change in your organization.

Contact us today for more information on how Sprout can help you take wellness to the next level.

We all know exercise is good for our bodies, but did you know it could help boost productivity too? Walking is a great way to take a quick break and enjoy a little fresh air, all the while making for a more productive day.

Excerpt from Greatist

The New Key to Office Productivity? Walking

Participants who ended the program reporting 90 percent productivity or more increased an average of 41 percent productivity over the course of the program, and employees who hit the 10,000-step goal felt more productive than those who didn’t. Those who hit the goal also reduced their systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading) an average of eight percent, more than twice the reduction of those who came in under 10,000 steps.

Only 18 percent of employees walked 10,000 or more steps per day before the program, and 58 percent were hitting that goal by the end.

Read more here.

Wondering how you can get your employees back in step? Contact us us today and learn how you can start Sprouting!

We are so excited to be one of the 10 companies selected out of hundreds of companies to participate in the Nike+ Accelerator!

Excerpt from Fast Company 

Nike, TechStars Unveil Startup Accelerator Winners

The companies selected underscore the accelerator’s goal of “helping people lead more active lives.” Training and coaching services are part of this, as are gaming applications. Some of the startups even mirror ideas that were once internally batted around at Nike, but later cut, such as earning rewards for performance or raising funds for charities based on fitness data. “You have the whole Nike+ portfolio at your disposal basically: GPS data, distance, pace, Fuel, all the running data,” Olander says.

There are also a few surprises, such as the activity-driven fantasy sports league service and the corporate wellness startup. Each signal potential future revenue streams at Nike. “Our starting point for this wasn’t primarily revenue,” says Olander. “[But] since the day we launched the FuelBand, we’ve been asked: What are we going to do about health? What are we going to do about corporate wellness? What are we going to do around the whole insurance sector? For us, it’s just a good test to see what will come out when you leverage social and gamification tools to inspire employees.”

Read more.

Contact us today for more information on the Sprout solution to corporate wellness.

Are you sitting down for this? That’s the problem.

Excerpt from the Globe and Mail

Why the sedentary life is killing us

Sitting is the new smoking.

Get used to that expression because you’re going to be hearing it a lot. Inactivity has become public enemy No. 1.

The reason sedentary behaviour is so worrisome is well-illustrated by a new study, published on Monday.

The research, led by Dr. Emma Wilmot of the diabetes research group at the University of Leicester in Britain, analyzed 18 existing studies involving almost 800,000 people. The paper, published in the medical journal Diabetologia, compared disease rates between the most active and least active among a broad cross-section of adults.

The researchers found that the least active, essentially those who sit all day, had a:

147-per-cent increased risk of heart attack or stroke;

112-per-cent increase in the risk of developing diabetes;

AND the list goes on! Read this article  from the Globe and Mail and take a stand!

Sprout is creating a movement for movement in Canadian workplaces. Get moving today!