Students compete in fitness challenge

Sound Body Challenge, LLC, an incentived, competitive fitness program, inaugurated its second year of participants with a kick-off banquet last Wednesday. 142 Hopkins students registered to participate this year, a jump from last year's 92 participants.

Founded by four Hopkins students, the Sound Body Challenge (SBC) is a fitness software design and marketing company. The relatively new company's philosophies include creating new tools for professionals to use to evaluate health gains and changing the mindset about exercise within the "younger demographic," according to the SBC website.

SBC employs a point system to encourage participants to exercise. Participants gain points by participating in designated SBC fitness activities, demonstrating physical fitness improvements and donating to SBC's philanthropic fund.

"Participants can earn up to 150 participation points by attending activities, such as daily fitness classes, the charitable moon bounce at JHU's Spring Fair, a local 5K and by completing weekly health quizzes," senior Alex Villa, who co-founded the group, said.

Through an online profile system, students can keep track of how they're doing and determine what works best for them based off of real data from assessments and participation in the program. Participants can keep track of their assessment data, as well as monitor their efforts through a GPS participation-tracking device.

"Students can also utilize our Facebook and Foursquare check-in feature to quickly and easily inform SBC about all of the things they are doing to work towards their individual goals," Villa said.

At the end of the semester, the participants with the highest three scores win a variety of Apple products. The highest individual score wins a 16GB iPad, the next highest wins a 8GB iPod Touch and the third greatest score wins a 8GB iPod Nano.

In addition to the individual competition, the SBC includes a team component. Teams consist of six people, and the team score is the average of all six participants. The participants of the top two scoring teams win iPod Shuffles, and the third highest scoring team wins $35 gift cards to the Hopkins Technology Store.

Last year, over one-fifth of the participants earned prizes from sponsors that included iPads, iPod Touches and iPods donated from the Hopkins Technology Store.

Participants can choose from three participation packages: bronze, silver and gold.

"Bronze is $30 and includes a drawstring bag, various sponsor giveaways and entrance into the competition," Villa said. "Silver is $70 and includes everything from the Bronze package plus a Fitness Class Pass from the Rec Center.

"The $250 gold package includes everything from the Bronze package plus a weekly training session with a certified Personal Trainer."

Last year, all the proceeds were donated to Athletes Serving Athletes. According to Villa, this year the proceeds will either be donated to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation or a local Baltimore public school.

Villa, a former varsity wrestler and football player, co-founded SBC as an outlet for his athletic interests after choosing to no longer participate in Hopkins athletics after his sophomore year.

"I discussed the venture with my fellow brothers at SigEp. One of the brothers had done a biggest loser competition, and I wanted to take it to the next level," Villa said.

Villa noted how the the Ralph S. O'Connor Recreation Center at Hopkins provides fitness classes, personal trainers, rent-able sports equipment and extensive weight and cardio machines to Hopkins affiliates.

"These facilities are readily available to the student body but are under utilized," states the SBC website.

Villa saw an opportunity to work with the assistant fitness director at the Recreation Center to improve the fitness and health habits of Hopkins students and promote the existing programming available to students.

"I worked tirelessly throughout the summer and fall of 2010, applying for grants, locating sponsors, creating a point system and formalizing the structure," Villa said.

With this year's growth, Villa is looking to further expand.

"We are looking to expand to other local gyms, and, if we are able to build up enough sponsors, possibly to other universities as well," Villa said. "The main obstacle to expanding to other schools is that most of them don't want students to be charged for any programs out of their fitness center."