Grokker Has It All — Food, Workouts, Yoga, Fun! #beabetteryou

Do you ever have days when you want to workout, but just do not have much time? We all do. On those days I find that a quick at-home workout does the trick. Having a few options can go a long way to helping you achieve your fitness and health goals.

Grokker is on online health and fitness service that offers expert-led streaming workouts and cooking instruction.

Many of these workouts are just 20 minutes long. With 20 minute workouts in the comfort of our own homes, we can all find the time for fitness! Grokker is perfect for busy schedules.

You can access Grokker from your computer, smart phone, or tablet. AppleTV users are able to stream Grokker to your big screen.

I received a complimentary Premium subscription to grokker.com through Grokker and the Fitfluential ambassador program.

My Experience Using Grokker:

The Grokker service offers thousands of videos to choose from. They offer a surprising range of topics and the stunning videos.

Grokker is known for their yoga videos and I expected other fitness videos, but I did not expect to see baking, cooking, relaxation, and wine among the topics.

Oh, did I mention food? Grokker has an extensive collection of cooking demonstrations and video recipes. The recipes include both healthy clean eating options and a few “sometimes treats” using both common and more unusual ingredients.

Grokker offers two levels of membership — free and premium. The free membership provides access to curated content from all over the web. I noticed many of these videos on YouTube or Vimeo, but it is nice having them curated. The premium membership offers access to Grokkers own workout, cooking and healthy living content, community and experts. This is where Grokker really shines…

 

 

I use and enjoy a few different streaming yoga and fitness services. One thing I like about Grokker Premium is that you can interact with their experts and ask them for advice. Grokker could be my one-stop-shop for online health and fitness. I probably won’t, because I enjoy a lot of variety (perhaps too much as I am a perpetual beginner!) I do expect to continue using Grokker, so don’t be surprised if I mention this service again!

 

 

Grokker Streaming Service Summary:

Instructor: Varies, a mix of instructors with their certifications listed
Difficulty Level: Beginner – advanced, it covers a range of intensities and skill levels
Runtime: Varies, some workouts were as short as 8 minutes some an hour-long. Cooking videos also vary from about 1 minute to over 10 minutes.
Purpose: Varies they have cooking, educational, relaxation, flexibility, cardio or aerobic exercise, HIIT (high intensity interval training), various styles of yoga, athletic conditioning, barre, strength training, dance and more. Main content includes follow along workouts, video follow-along recipes and cooking demonstrations.
Music: Varies, mostly instrumental
Equipment Used: Varies, many require no equipment and some  use equipment such as a yoga mat, kettlebell, weights
Menus and Chapters: The site menu is detailed and attractive.
Impact Level: Varies  ranges from no impact yoga to high impact plyometrics
Setting: Varies, some in a studio, some outside in a park like setting, some in front of a pool, some are cooking instructional videos in a kitchen setting.

 

 

Pros – What I Liked About Grokker:

• Grokker includes a planner with reminders on the dashboard
• Live group classes, I have not tried them as I am more interested in on-demand content and the timing was not quite right — yet!
• Food, fitness, healthy living videos, workouts, recipes, articles and experts all in one place
• Social media integration – you can follow instructors and users, build your own collections, post pictures, comments and reviews. Grokker will also share to Facebook for you.
• Attractive well-organized interface
• Forum and community section to ask experts and other users questions (in premium section)
• Free or premium membership options
• The videos I have watched are clear, attractive and well composed. They look great in full-sized mode on my laptop monitor
• I really enjoy the cooking media, you can watch a video and print or email a written recipe. I like the combination of written word and video image. I am a visual learner, but am too impatient to follow a video recipe while cooking (I prefer to go my own pace but to have the option to watch new techniques).
• The user can curate their own collections of Grokker content for future reference or to share with the community.

 

 

Cons – Any Downsides?

• There is a mix of content from Grokker and elsewhere on the Web. Some of the content from elsewhere is not available. I chose a few fun-looking  workouts that were on YouTube or Vimeo only to find the content was removed on the source site. This is not a problem with the content labeled “premium”, but is a small issue.
• They have an almost over whelming assortment of videos, I see this as a plus for long-term enjoyment of a subscription service however it can be over whelming. If you are someone that stares at your Netflix or Hulu menu for a long time before choosing you may have a similar experience with Grokker. The good news is it recommends workouts for you and you can pre-select and schedule workouts and there is always fresh content.
• Sometimes the video cuts off and says that only a preview is available for non-premium subscribers, I actually have a premium subscription so this seems like an occasional technical glitch.
• Since it is mainly streaming media, you need a decent internet connection. I have one, but at one time my Internet connection would stall with this type of streaming video content. I would love to use this in the gym, but my gym’s guest wifi is so slow that I cannot stream video (sometimes even streaming audio like Pandora has issues). I wish their was a temporary download option for off-line access while traveling or at a gym.

 

 

For More Information About Grokker:

Grokker offers both free and premium levels of membership. The best way to see whether Grokker is for you is to visit their site and preview the content that interests you! For more information visit grokker.com