Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about workout formats, health step synchronization, communities, and account management.
General & Getting Started
What is Hot Potato Training? ↓
Hot Potato Training is a social fitness app designed to turn daily workouts into motivating group challenges. Instead of working out alone, you challenge friends or coworkers, complete exercise sets, and build daily habits together. It combines team accountability with habit streak tracking and structured bodyweight programs.
Do I need an account to get started? ↓
You can start immediately as an anonymous guest! To sync your workouts, streaks, and community memberships across multiple devices (or when upgrading phones), you can link your account with an Email & Password, Apple Sign-In, or Google Sign-In at any time from your Profile settings.
Is Hot Potato Training free? ↓
Yes! Hot Potato Training is free to download and use for individual workouts, habit tracking, and friend challenges. We offer optional corporate wellness plans for companies wanting custom domain onboarding, dedicated team structures, and company-wide challenge automations.
Challenge Formats & Workouts
What are the 6 distinct workout formats? ↓
Hot Potato Training offers six distinct challenge formats:
- Daily Streak: Consistent daily exercise goal with rest-day support and streak protection.
- Hot Potato (Turn-Based): Complete your reps and pass the turn before your personal timer expires. Fastest cumulative times take top rank!
- Knockout Countdown: Timed chess-clock stamina challenge. Each participant has a countdown bank (e.g. 60 mins). Your clock ticks only while it is your turn; last survivor with time remaining wins.
- Ticking Bomb: Sudden-death workout with a secret randomized countdown timer. Complete your set quickly to pass the turn before the timer expires!
- Ramp Up (Progressive): Incremental daily escalation (e.g., 10 pushups on Day 1, 15 on Day 2).
- Flex Routine: Flexible schedule (e.g., Mon/Wed/Fri or every 3 days) that preserves your streak on rest days.
What are Workout Stacks? ↓
Workout Stacks allow you to combine multiple exercises into a single turn for a complete circuit routine (for example: 20 Pushups + 30 Air Squats + 45s Plank). You must complete all stacked exercises before passing the turn to the next participant.
Apple HealthKit & Android Health Connect
How does automatic step tracking work? ↓
Hot Potato Training connects with Apple HealthKit on iOS and Android Health Connect on Android using strict read-only step count permissions (READ_STEPS). When you participate in step challenges or daily step commitments, your steps automatically count toward your goal throughout the day.
What is the 48-Hour Retroactive Grace Window? ↓
We know you don't always open your fitness app right before midnight! With our 48-hour retroactive catch-up grace window, any steps recorded by your phone or smartwatch during yesterday's or previous day's window are automatically credited when you next launch the app, keeping your daily streak safe.
Is my health data shared or sold? ↓
Never. Your step data is strictly used to evaluate challenge completion and contribute to shared company goals. We do not sell, license, or share your HealthKit or Health Connect data with third-party advertisers or data brokers under any circumstances.
Communities & Corporate Wellness
How do Company Communities and Domain Matching work? ↓
Companies can register their corporate domain (e.g., @acme.com). When employees sign up with their corporate email, they are automatically routed into their company's private wellness community. Members can also join via a 6-character alphanumeric Join Code or invitation link.
What are Company Goals and Milestones? ↓
Company Goals allow an entire organization to work toward shared fitness targets (e.g. "Walk 5 Million Steps this month" or "Complete 10,000 Pushups"). Progress updates live on the community dashboard, and automatic feed celebrations are triggered at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% milestone completions.
What is Team Auto-Balancing? ↓
For internal company fitness competitions, community admins can use Auto-Balancing. Our algorithm distributes employees into balanced rosters based on historical activity levels, ensuring fair and motivating competition across departments and teams.
Data, Privacy & Account Deletion
How can I delete my account and associated data? ↓
You have complete ownership and control of your data. You can delete your account instantly and irreversibly at any time by navigating to your Profile > Settings > Delete Account within the app. Alternatively, you can email us directly at hotpotatotraining@gmail.com with the subject "Account Deletion Request" and we will delete all Firestore data associated with your user ID.
Where is my data stored? ↓
We use secure Google Firebase Cloud Firestore and Firebase Authentication to manage social workout challenges, push notifications, and community leaderboards. Detailed workout logs and offline history are also cached locally on your device for lightning-fast responsiveness.
Still have questions?
We're always here to help you get the most out of Hot Potato Training. Reach out to our friendly support team anytime.
Contact Support (hotpotatotraining@gmail.com)