Reach Your Peak Panel Review

Reach Your Peak was founded in 2016 by physiotherapists Maria Lewis and Sally Tawhai.

Sally started off her career working with high-performance athletes while Maria spent 17 years in the NHS working with people with different chronic progressive conditions.

Together, in 2016, they began running a small in-person exercise class in Wales for people with Parkinson’s. While the class was a success, the 2 physios quickly realised that 1 session a week wasn’t enough to meet the recommended exercise prescription. They also saw that Parkinson’s symptoms can fluctuate, making it difficult for participants to commit to a fixed time each day.

This led to an idea: creating flexible, accessible programmes that people could follow at their own time and pace from home. From this idea, Reach Your Peak was born. The pair have dedicated the past 8 years to working with people with Parkinson’s and understanding the needs of people living with this challenging condition.

Reach Your Peak told the Tech Guide: “For someone to use exercise effectively to treat Parkinson’s they need education, access to experts, scheduled exercise and a supportive community of people on the same journey.”

Reach Your Peak offers evidence-based exercise programmes for people living with Parkinson’s. The online exercise programmes and educational content aim to empower people to manage their Parkinson’s through exercise.

The Tech Guide review panel tried out Reach Your Peak’s award-winning ‘Get Started’ programme. The founders say this programme is “the first step towards achieving the right dose of exercise to meet the recommended guidelines for Parkinson’s” by gradually building strength, mobility and confidence through tailored workouts.

Set up

To access the ‘Get Started’ programme, you have to download the Reach Your Peak app to a smartphone or tablet. The company uses a third-party platform called ‘Everfit’ to host its app. One reviewer did recall they were “a little confused at first” by the absence of the Reach Your Peak logo. “However I continued to follow the instructions and arrived at the Reach your peak section. Perhaps mention of ‘Reach your peak’ at an early stage would have helped.”

All reviewers found setting up the app either “very easy” or “fairly easy”.

The app starts with a ‘dashboard’ that is split into 5 areas:

Today: today’s exercise session, a step tracker, notifications and the community forum

Coaching: all of this week’s exercise sessions

Inbox: messages sent by the Reach Your Peak team and others

On-Demand: a list of additional support material

You: a summary of your exercise history and step count

A demo video of how to use the app is included in the app. A 65-year-old reviewer commented: “Everything was very straightforward to use.”

Support material

In the On-Demand area of the app, there are 2 resources included in the programme

1) A handbook to Parkinson’s-specific exercise

This 50-page handbook explores the benefits of Parkinson’s-specific exercises, explains different exercise elements and shares other useful information about working out when you have Parkinson’s.

“The handbook was very helpful and I referred back to it a few times,” a reviewer told us.

2) A video tutorial on the 30-second sit-to-stand test

The sit-to-stand test is used by healthcare providers to understand the strength and endurance in a person’s legs. The test can be self administered by recording the number of times you can stand and then sit again from a chair (like a dining room chair) inside 30 seconds.

Reach Your Peak provides a video demonstrating the test. You are prompted to record your sit-to-stand score at the beginning, middle and end of the programme. This is to help to track improvement in strength across the programme.

The workouts

Each exercise video starts with a health and safety disclaimer along with safety tips, and includes a warm up and cool down. The workouts can be done standing or seated, depending on your ability. Sally takes you through the standing moves while Maria demonstrates the chair-based modification and simplified moves.

“I liked that there were seated and standing options for each exercise and that various different versions of each exercise were shown in the videos,” a reviewer told the Tech Guide.

The reviewers praised Sally and Maria for their “warmness” and “supportiveness”.

“I really appreciated the supportive nature of the programme. It was not ‘boot-campy’,” said a reviewer. “The presenters were very clear and kind.”

The ‘Get Started’ programme focuses on progressive workouts. The 10-week programme is designed to start gradually, building your strength and stamina week by week.

“The difficulty increased each week at a sensible pace and I always felt I understood what I needed to do,” a reviewer shared. “As the intensity and complexity of the movements increased over the 10 weeks, my fitness improved. Also, my sit-to-stand test improved after the 10 week period.”

The 10-week fitness programme consists of 10 workout videos. You do the same new workout for the whole week, with rest days on Saturday and Sunday. Two reviewers were not keen on the repetitiveness of the plan.

“I found the exercises quite repetitive and boring although good progression was built in from week to week,” said 1 reviewer.

“The negatives for me were that you had to repeat exactly the same programme with the same video 5 times each week where I would prefer more variety,” explained a reviewer who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in their early 30s.

They added: “It also seemed quite prescriptive to have the exercise on Monday to Friday and rest days on Saturday and Sunday. I would have liked some flexibility here as this may not work for everyone.”

Feeling fitter

All 6 review panellists said they found the exercise programme helpful in some way, with 5 saying they felt their fitness levels had improved.

A reviewer who has a right-hand tremor and is experiencing a loss of speech volume said: “It has made me exercise more and this in turn has helped with my fitness and stamina.

“It was great to see that their exercises have been designed with Parkinson’s in mind and that they did not require any equipment other than a chair for seated people.”

Another reviewer, whose main Parkinson’s concerns are rigidity, slowness and sleep problems, said that “The programme improved my fitness and motivation to exercise. The exercises are good – challenging but doable and well explained. It is hard to say whether it has benefited my symptoms but I found the workouts provided a good level of challenge and I enjoyed doing them.”

A reviewer who was diagnosed 3 years ago, said the programme made them feel “energised”. “The workouts definitely increased my heart rate which I know is beneficial to me.”

Half the review panel commented that they found it “difficult” to watch the exercise videos on a phone.

“Watching the exercises on a phone screen it was rather difficult to see some of the finer details of the individual exercises,” said 1 reviewer.

Another added: “I installed the app on both my phone and tablet, and I ended up using my tablet most of the time as the exercise videos were much easier to watch on its larger screen. People with only a phone might find the videos more difficult to watch.”

A reviewer who also does a weekly online Pilates class, said that, “Even though the app was simple to use it took me an hour or so to get used to the exercise videos themselves, working out where the best place in my house to do the exercises and what to wear.”

Keeping motivated

Before starting their trial, all the reviewers shared what they hoped to achieve from the programme. All 6 said they wanted to improve their fitness levels and 3 added they hoped to slow the progression of their Parkinson’s symptoms. There were also some reviewers who said they hoped the ‘Get Started’ programme would motivate them to exercise more regularly.

Throughout the video workouts, motivational messages and tips pop-up on screen. Reach Your Peak also shares videos each week to inspire and motivate you to complete your daily tasks. Some of the reviewers did indeed find the programme motivated them to exercise more.

“I generally find it difficult to motivate myself to exercise and found the discipline of a daily exercise routine helpful,” explained a 66-year-old reviewer.

A 64-year old reviewer, who was diagnosed 9 years ago said: “It was great to have the daily exercise routines a part of my life. It was comforting to see the same instructors in the video as they sort of became a part of my daily routine.

They added: “Having a daily exercise routine Monday to Friday helped with my motivation and I think that would only improve more as I intertwined the sessions with my daily life more and more.”

Another reviewer agreed that the programme improved their fitness and their motivation to exercise. They said: “It tracks your workouts and progress with other tasks, I found that this motivated me to complete them. I only missed a couple of workouts during the whole 10 weeks. The Reach Your Peak team messaged weekly and occasionally cheered on good progress.”

Online community

Within the app, people can direct message Sally and Maria for advice and talk in a community forum called ‘Get started’. The space was created so that you can share your progress, find support from others on the same journey and access tips and guidance.

While reviewers liked the feature, they all commented on the lack of interaction within the forum.

“The community features are nice but don’t seem particularly active,” said a reviewer.

Another shared: “I found that there was little activity in the community. I think it would be better if Reach Your Peak posted a lot more and encouraged others to do the same. Some general chit chat and tips would have been good.”

The reviewers tested the 10-week ‘Get started’ programme, which costs £120. Reach Your Peak offers an installment plan to split the cost into 3 monthly instalments of £40. Other Reach Your Peak programmes are also available; prices vary.

Our review panel had mixed thoughts on the value of the programme. Some felt it was good value for money but others felt it was expensive.

A reviewer, who said they would recommend Reach Your Peak said: “It would be worth it if you weren’t paying for a membership elsewhere, however I probably wouldn’t want to pay that as I work out three times a week at exercise classes and I prefer the group sociability and the face to face instruction.”

This sentiment was shared with another reviewer. They said “For the price, I think you could attend a live class and get some feedback on how you are performing and potentially also get some social interaction.” They added: “This is a good product, I just think it is a bit expensive for what it is.”

Two reviewers were not too bothered by the price, describing it as “fair” and “reasonable,” respectively.

A 65-year-old reviewer said they thought the programme was “rather expensive”. But they added: “I am glad that I did the programme and would consider their follow-on programmes.”