It’s officially been three weeks since I started Centr by Chris Hemsworth & co. Sadly, I do not yet look like Thor the God of Thunder, but I am extremely sore. Which is a good thing, considering the hype surrounding the launch. And while it has only been two weeks, I wanted to share my initial thoughts and reactions. Because who wouldn’t want to look like Chris Hemsworth? I mean, look at him!

What is Centr?

Centr is the brand new health and fitness app by Chris Hemsworth. Chris’ career in acting has allowed him to work with some of the best trainers and chefs in the world. With Centr, Chris has grouped those trainers, chefs, and mindfulness experts into one convenient location; your phone! Subscription options include 1 month, 3 month, and 1 year periods, and are priced exceptionally well when you consider all you are getting with the membership.

I believe we all have untapped potential. And we all need support to achieve our goals. Centr puts the world’s best in the palm of your hand, to help you develop a healthier body, stronger mind, and happier life.

Chris Hemsworth

The Centr app is comprised of three parts: Train, Eat, and Live. Within the app these three elements work together to create a well rounded and complete approach to healthy living. I was excited to see an app that focuses on more than just the workouts themselves. I whole heartedly believe that embracing all three of these elements is the key to success.

Centr utilizes a daily planner format that includes one workout, three meals, two snacks, and a mindfulness exercise per day. With 11 trainers, 6 chefs, and 6 mindfulness coaches to choose from, no two users day will look the same. The program is meant to be completely accommodating and adaptable to everyone’s preferences and lifestyles.

My first impression has been very good, but I also know there is room to grow. Especially now that the app has been tested on real life, non-norse God type humans. As time goes on I will obviously have a much greater sense of its effectiveness. Honestly, I was too excited to not share my reaction! Without further ado, here is my personal list of pros and cons of Centr.

Train

Through all of the promotion Centr has boasted about the flexibility and convenience the app provides. Work out with world class trainers at home or the gym with quick 20-40 minute workouts. Practice boxing, HIIT, yoga, strength training, MMA and more. You can log your goals and set workout intensity from beginner to advanced. There are also new workouts being added weekly to help keep things fresh and challenging. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, you’ll be happy to know these workouts live up to the hype.

For my first week I completed 6 workouts, each with a different trainer and training style. By Tuesday I was feeling it- that good kind of sore we all look for and secretly love. I had a hard time picking my favorite, but the most intriguing workout was the RFT with Da Rulk, who works with the best of our military, firefighters, law enforcement officers, and celebrities like Chris. This workout completely kicked my butt, and required next to no equipment. Just two dumbbells and the space at the end of my bed was enough to burn nearly 500 calories in 35 minutes.

Three weeks in and I can confirm that all of these trainers and their workouts are truly great. The fact that new workouts are being added weekly is a huge pro for me personally. I tend to get bored of repetitive plans, but the variety found within Centr is definitely one of its strongest attributes. No smoke and mirrors here!

Pros:

• Excellent variety. No two user’s weeks will look the same thanks to the option to swap out workouts.
• The program is completely customizable. Each workout can be set to Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced intensity. You can also set your training goal to one of three options: Get Fit & Toned, Lose Weight, or Build Muscle.
• The workouts are short and effective. All are under an hour with most right around 30 minutes long. They also include a warm up and cool down, which is great for beginners who might not take the time to otherwise.
• The app also offers short, 10 minute bonus challenges each day if you’re ever feeling extra motivated (or have the energy).
• On Friday’s there is bonus content. The first week it was a funny video with Chris and his trainer Luke, along with a new smoothie recipe that Chris likes to have post workout. It’s great to actually see Chris within the app in these fun little videos and I hope they continue!
• Many workouts can be self-guided or coached with a video that you can watch on your phone or computer screen. There is also the option to put it on your TV if you have a smart TV.
• All of these workouts can be performed at home or at the gym, and can be done with or without weights.

Cons:

• To the disappointment of many, Chris is not featured in the actual workout videos. However his wife, Elsa, does make an appearance with Tahl in one of the Yoga bonus challenges. Perhaps in the future they both will be featured, but for now it is just the trainers. In some of the feedback I have seen people seemed genuinely annoyed by this, but it’s not a make or break for me. He is not a personal trainer, so I never expected him to be coaching the workouts.
• Centr does sync to Apple Watch, which was exciting as a Watch wearer! That said, the watch does not record the calories burned from your workouts in your activity feed. It also breaks the workouts into three parts; the warm up, the workout, and the cool down. These aren’t huge make or breaks for me, but minor tweaks and changes that will likely be made later on.
• If you are watching a workout on your phone, it will automatically sync with your Apple Watch and start recording. If, however, you are watching the workout on your laptop, it will not.
• Some of the video content is broken up into multiple parts and has repetitive voice overs with little instruction. This might not be the case for the beginner workouts, but is just an observation for those out there who may need or prefer more verbal direction.
• It would be nice if there was an option for text on the screen during the videos for those with hearing impairments. This was an issue brought to attention in the groups Facebook page.

Eat

This section of the app is one of my favorites. Eat promotes easy, healthy meal plans you’ll actually love that are dietician approved and created by world class chefs. With plenty of options for those with food intolerances, practicing vegans, or the pickiest of eaters, there is something for everyone.

Within this section of the app you can create your own meal plan for the week, swap meals to suit your taste and mood, choose from hundreds of great snack options, and automatically create shopping lists.

As an avid snacker, the snack section of Centr has proven to be a great resource of inspiration. With plenty of options for pre and post workout smoothies, sweet and savory bites and suggestions to utilizing leftovers, it perfectly rounds out Eat. The shopping cart is another great addition that I have been avidly using since downloading Centr. Best of all? These recipes won’t break the bank; my weekly grocery shop expenses have stayed the same!

Pros:

• There are hundreds of recipes to choose from and new items are being added weekly. It’s safe to say that you will never run out of ideas.
• Plenty of variety and ideas to get you out of your comfort zone, while also including many classic and simple favorites for those with a more picky pallet (or picky family members).
• Many of these meals can be made in a half hour or less and require no fancy kitchen/cooking utensils.
• There are options within each recipe to increase or decrease the number of portions, which is great for those with families or who like to meal prep for the week.
• There are plenty of options for people with dietary restrictions (gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, vegan, vegetarian all included) and each recipe offers suggestions for ingredient replacements.

Cons:

• This app isn’t ideal for meal prepping, per say. At the beginning of each week, meals suggestions are pre placed into each day for you. The annoyance is that you have to manually swap each individual meal if you want to make something else. I would prefer a blank week with the option to drag and drop meals into place.
• While the snack section has been an excellent resource, it is not pictured or incorporated in the daily planner. I eat 2-3 snacks daily so I would have liked to be able to see those, too.
• A nice feature would be a daily/weekly calorie and macro calculator that automatically totals your meals. Because there is so much flexibility to create your own meal plan within the app, it would be useful to see this information make make sure you are on track. Manually entering these recipes into MyFitnessPal has been an annoyance I’ve sure lots of users would prefer to avoid.
• I would love the option to save my favorite recipes in a folder that can revisited. At the moment you have to scroll through all of the recipes every time you want to select a new meal.

Live

The third component of Centr is Live. In this section you will find guided meditations to get you centered, confidence building articles, sleep visualizations and tips to reduce stress. In all of the promotional videos, Chris stresses how important daily meditation has been in creating a healthy, balanced life. Keeping a positive and healthy mindset is also hugely important when making any changes to your lifestyle and especially when starting a program like this.

Because meditation is such a prominent part of the daily planner, it really encourages even the biggest of skeptics to give it a try. There are six instructors to choose from and an assortment of topics. My favorites have been the sleep meditations, but I also really enjoy those which teach proper breathing techniques to help reduce anxiety.

Pros:

• All of the audio is located in one spot on the app, which makes it easy to add additional meditations to your day if you would like to.
• Every day the app automatically offers you a different instructor and topic, which means you rarely repeat a meditation.
• Plenty of topics to choose from and times to practice; some encourage morning meditation while others are for before bed. For meditation newbies, it is a great way to incorporate mindfulness into all aspects of your day.
• Guided meditation is very personal, which is why it is great to have multiple instructors to choose from. Overtime I will likely find one instructors voice or content more relaxing or helpful to me, so I can begin to personalize my content.

Cons:

• Many of the meditations are very short (roughly 10 minutes) and can feel fairly generic in script. I listen to meditations on other apps that can be up to an hour long, so I hope they will expand upon this area of the app to include longer or more unique content.
• Some of the blog posts offered as supplemental reading focus on topics that may not apply to you, like relationship advice etc. My advice is to swap it for a different blog post, but some people on the Facebook group have stated that as an annoyance.

Bugs

Some basic bugs that users have been experiencing with the app include:

• The app is only available for iOS at the moment, but an Android app is in the works and expected later this year. In the mean time, you can log onto your account on your phone and use it through the internet. The website is fantastic and very easy to use! I use it primarily to plan my meals and follow along with recipes.
• Not all changes made to your planner while on desktop mode will save on the mobile app, and if they do there is a delay. This is also a typical first generation app hiccup, and will likely be fixed soon.
• While in the app, you must scroll all the way back to the top of the page in order to go back to the previous screen.

Final Thoughts

Overall I am incredibly impressed by and happy with Centr! For a first generation app it checks all the necessary boxes. Sure there are a few minor issues, but none that can’t be fixed. Any future changes will only improve upon the solid foundation they’ve created. In the three short weeks since the launch I have seen multiple questions posed in the Facebook group remedied in the app. This accessibility between user and app is just one of the many impressive qualities that helps set this program apart.

The workouts themselves truly are excellent. Very rarely will you find a program that exposes you to so many different training styles and personalities. The overall flexibility offered within the app is the biggest difference maker for me. If there is ever a day where I’d rather try Yoga instead of MMA etc., I can simply switch the workout. The same goes for the recipes, which have blown many of the users away.

You’ll be happy to learn that taking on the Centr recipes won’t break the bank. This seems to be one of the biggest concerns out there. The recipes are simple, clean, and offer plenty of suggestions for alternative ingredients for those who may not be fond of quinoa or almond flour. While I do hope they make it easier to pre-plan your weekly meals in future generations, I look forward to giving each and every one of these recipes a try as time goes on.

While the Live portion of the app was the weakest for me, I still love the fact that it is part Centr. By no means are these meditations bad, but there is little to separate them from any found on the other meditation apps out there like Headspace or Insight Timer. As time goes on I will be curious how they expand and build upon this section. What makes me happy is reading user experiences in the Facebook group. So many people have never tried meditation before downloading the app and have already found it makes a huge difference in their day. Kudos for that, Centr!

Last but not least, pricing. I find pricing for Centr extremely reasonable given the amount of content and information you receive daily. Right now Centr starts at $19.99 per month, $47.99 for 3 months, or $119.99 USD per year. The app also offers a free 7 day free trial with a credit card, so you can give it a go before committing. I am currently signed up for the yearly membership and can’t wait to log my progress for the next 12 months.

Are you ready to find your #centr?