Reddit ad that got a very positive community response
Hi reddit,
My name is Justin Fauci and I'm one of the founders of Caliber.
First of all, yes, this is an ad. I've been active on reddit for over 8 years and I don't like ads either, so sorry for invading your feed.
But we've been hard at work for years building the Caliber workout app and I want to get the word out.
More importantly, I want to help people get better results from their fitness routines. Or even just discover a really cool workout app built by people who are in love with strength training.
Now onto the good stuff.
Caliber is a workout app for iOS and Android with evidence-based workout plans, seamless tracking, lessons on strength training and nutrition, specialized metrics, Apple Health & Google Fit integration, and more.
The app is 100% free with no ads, no paywalls, and no 3rd party tracking (see "How do you make money?" below).
What's included:
Evidence-based workout plans. Caliber workouts are based on fundamental principles of strength training. Think compound lifting, progressive overload, proper rest times, mastery over variety, etc.
Don't want to use our pre-built plans? No problem, you can still track your own in the app.
Workout tracking. Easy entry for sets and reps, quick access to historical exercise data, one-tap autofills, exercise substitutions, and custom notes for each exercise (I like to use this to keep track of the power rack setup for specific exercises).
Detailed instructions for 500+ exercises. Nearly every exercise in our database has detailed written instructions, a short video showing the form, and “takeaways” that you can use as a quick reminder on the most important form pointers to remember.
A bunch of exercises have more detailed videos with breakdowns on setup and movement, and we're continuing to work on expanding these.
Strength Score and Strength Balance metrics. People tend to get hung up on scale weight, especially when you're trying to both build muscle and lose fat. We created Strength Score as a way to measure relative strength, or in other words, how strong you are relative to your body weight. It's a great way to measure your progress that goes beyond just looking at the scale.
Strength Balance shows you how well-balanced you are across major muscle groups.
Weekly lessons. It's not enough to just blindly follow a workout plan, it's important to understand some basic principles around training and nutrition to ensure that you keep making progress. Education is a big part of what we do, and helps people from getting sidetracked by the latest fitness fads.
Data integrations. The app syncs with both Apple Health and Google Fit, allowing us to pull in data from nutrition tracking apps (i.e. Cronometer), step counts, body stats, and cardio workouts not logged directly in Caliber. This means you can see all of your fitness data in one place.
Groups. This is a new social feature we've been working on that allows you to work out virtually with friends, seeing real-time workout activity and PRs. Kinda like Discord but built for fitness. This feature is in its early days but we're already having a lot of fun with it.
If the app is free, how do you make money?
I get it, the whole "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product" thing. But that's not how we work. We don't have any ads in the app at all, nor do we lock off any functionality.
If you're on iOS, you won't even see the dialogue box that asks you whether or not you want to allow this app to track you. That's because we don't even have the framework that allows for this type of tracking in our codebase (IDFA for those of you who care).
The way we make money is that a small percentage of our users choose to pay for Caliber online coaching. For people who want additional motivation, more personalized guidance for their fitness goals, or are working around specific injuries or limitations, coaching is a great option. But it is absolutely not required to use the free app.
Next Steps
Come join us over at r/caliberstrong.
There, you'll find instructions for downloading the app, tips to get started, and personal help from me and the Caliber team.
We'd also love your help.
We've come a long way with the app, but we're not even close to being finished yet, and we'd really appreciate your feedback on how we can make it even better.
If you just want to download the app without joining the sub, you can find it here: https://caliber.app.link (or search for Caliber on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store).
Feel free to comment if you have any questions!