THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW ME BEST SHOWED UP FIRST.

When I launched the Slowfit Method® app, I wasn’t sure who would show up first in the reviews. What I didn’t expect — and what means more to me than I’ll probably admit — is that the first people to leave public reviews in the App Store are people who actually know me. A couple former clients. A current client. Good friends.

These aren’t strangers being generous to a product they stumbled across. These are people who have trained with me, withstood my harangues about mobility and sleep, and have a very high bar for what good coaching looks like. No BS. When they put their name on something publicly, they mean it.

We’re nearly 100 downloads in. Every review so far is five stars. Here’s what they said.

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“Great app, great coach” — Lhitchcock

“Just used the Slowfit Coach to design a custom workout with my specific fitness issues and goals. I also work with Coach Keir in person and this app is a great extension of his expertise. Perfect complement…”

A current training client. Someone who knows exactly what my in-person coaching looks like — and is telling you this holds up against it.

“Yes!!!!” — Govivo

“Love this app!”

Short, enthusiastic, unambiguous. From a good friend who has watched this project develop for a long time and knows what went into it.

“Impactful App” — dgathlete

“Coach Keir has nailed it w this app. Super engaging w insights honed over decades training athletes (and non athletes!) alike. Highly recommend!”

A buddy and former athlete of mine. Someone who trained with me and has been in the trenches of the Slowfit Method® framework firsthand. “Insights honed over decades” — that’s someone who has experienced what that actually means.

“Get this app!” — Past Foghorn athlete

Another former athlete. Four words. No ambiguity.

Four written reviews. Nine five-star ratings. All from people with direct experience of what this coaching framework looks and feels like in practice. That’s the kind of signal that matters.

Then something shifted.

This past week, a number of new downloads came in from people I don’t recognize. Not clients. Not friends. Not bootcamp group exercise regulars. Strangers. People I have never met, who found the app on their own and decided to download it.

I’ll be honest — I have no idea how they’re finding it. My marketing budget is zero dollars. There are no ads. No paid placements. No influencer partnerships. Just this Substack, word of mouth, and apparently the universe doing its thing.

People are finding the app.

That is an extremely rewarding thing to sit with. It means the work is traveling on its own. It means someone told someone, or a Substack post landed in front of the right eyes, or someone searched for something and the app showed up. Whatever the path, they found it. They downloaded it. And presumably they’re using it.

That’s the whole experiment. And it’s working.

What people are actually doing with it

Folks are using the app exactly as I intended. As a tool, not as an infinite scroll machine.

My niece Mackenzie and her new husband Jimmy were on a family vacation — 2,500 miles from their human coach uncle — when she opened the app and typed one sentence to Coach Keir AI: “I want a 20 min body weight strength workout to do on vacation today.” What came back was a complete structured session with warm-up, a three-round circuit, coaching cues, and a cool-down. They did it outside in the grass by a lake together. She texted me a sweaty selfie afterward. That’s the whole point of everything I’m trying to build.

Chili is a Tuesday morning bootcamp regular at the Presidio YMCA. He showed up to class, trained hard, and then — that evening — used the app to ask Coach Keir AI how to optimize his sleep after a tough workout. He got a specific, science-backed protocol tailored to the physiological demands of what his body had just been through. Not a generic sleep tip. A coaching answer to a coaching question.

Then there’s the trio I wrote about in the Ten-Question Rule post a few weeks ago. Kari asked for a 10-minute mobility flow she could do anywhere and got Kelly Starrett’s Ready State protocol with the science behind it. Alicia asked about the Nutrition pillar of the Slowfit Method® and one action she could take today, got three words — “eat real food” — and a full framework, and went to read ingredient labels. Andy asked what the most important thing he could do tonight to improve his sleep was, got a complete downregulation breathing protocol, and went to bed. None of them needed a follow-up. None of them stayed on the app longer than they needed to.

Ten free exchanges with Coach Keir AI. Used wisely. Like wishes from a genie, not chips at a casino.

The real Coach Keir is going on vacation. The AI one isn’t.

Here’s something I’ve been thinking about as I pack for a month away (and prep for a cross-country solo drive with our new puppy).

I built The Slowfit Method® app specifically for moments like this one. Clients, group exercise athletes, and others are already telling me they’re planning to use it while I’m gone — to help them sleep, eat well, train smart, and recover properly, all while their human coach is physically unavailable. That is exactly the use case I built this for.

The real Coach Keir needs to unplug. He needs to recharge. A month away on a beach, away from the bootcamp, away from the Zoom calls. Quality family time. That’s not a bug in the coaching model — it’s a feature of being a sustainable human being.

The AI Coach Keir doesn’t need a vacation. He’s available at 11pm when you can’t sleep. At 6am when you’re deciding whether to train. On a Tuesday afternoon when you’re trying to figure out what to eat before a long run. When you’re freaked after a tough work conversation and need a quick downregulation breathing protocol. He’s there. He doesn’t get tired. He doesn’t need to recharge. And he’s drawing on the same decade of methodology that I bring to every in-person session and every Zoom call.

I built the app for exactly this purpose. I’m about to prove it works.

What this is and isn’t

The Slowfit Method® app is not a generic AI fitness tool that aggregates whatever is trending on the internet this week. It is not a chatbot trained on Wikipedia and Reddit threads about protein shakes. It is a decade of training and coaching methodology, pillar by pillar, encoded into an AI system that responds the way I would respond — because it was built on the framework I use with real clients in real sessions.

That’s what dgathlete means by “insights honed over decades training athletes (and non athletes!) alike.” That’s what Lhitchcock means by “a great extension of his expertise.” The app doesn’t replace the human coach. It extends him into places and hours the human coach can’t be. 2,500 miles away. 11pm on a Tuesday. A month away on vacation.

The Vault inside the app contains 300+ personally curated books, podcasts, gear, and supplement recommendations organized by Slowfit pillar. Coach Keir AI draws on all ten pillars — Purpose, Mindset, Breathing, Sleep, Nutrition, Movement, Recovery, Hydration, Community, and Strength — in every conversation.

The free tier is real. So is the upgrade.

The free tier gives you ten exchanges with Coach Keir AI. Use them wisely and you will get genuine value. Treat them like chips at a slot machine and you’ll burn through them on questions you could have Googled.

Slowfit Pro is $29.99 a month — a dollar a day — and gives you unlimited coaching conversations, full Vault access, and a growing library of on-demand workout videos.

Plus, I’m gonna keep this t-shirt thing going, since I love seeing Foghorn schwag out in the wild. So I’m offering a Foghorn Fitness t-shirt to the next two people who upgrade to a paid subscription. I’ll mail it to you personally. To upgrade, open the app, go to Settings, and tap Change Plan. Thirty seconds.

Download the Slowfit Method® app here:

GET THE APP

I’ll be writing from the road with Ellie. More use cases, more Slowfit pillar posts, and more from the other side of the country where I end up.

Stick around.

Best,

Keir

Foghorn Fitness

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