2. Program generators. I have {equipment} and n days per week. Which programs work for me? Or, I have {goal} and n days per week, what should I do? The programs would be populated with exercises from the DB, programs could be exported, etc.
3. As much ELI5 info as possible - the barrier to exercise for a lot of people (myself included despite my experience) can be not knowing wtf something is, or why to do it, and generally what the benefits are.
4. Treat warmups like any exercise - a critical part of the routine. Include lots of warm up exercises, whether it's something you make quantifiable progress with or not. Everything from skipping rope and light jogging to dead bugs. Include these as part of program generation.
Maybe something does this, but my favourite tracker (Strong) doesn't cover all of it and I'd switch in an instant if something did. I like the idea of switching programs every year or so, experimenting with warm ups, having convenient access to understanding programs and lifts better, etc. As it is, working out requires a crazy amount of research. Or a coach.
And all the possible mistakes explained thoroughly. What I want of an exercise database is detailed information on how to do the exercises right so I would use proper muscles and prevent injury.
Definitely a good thing to include in these databases. If you have a regular gym membership too, they usually offer a free personal training class. Using this to just ask how to use proper form on exercises is a great way to learn a bunch. My gym offers 2 free classes and I basically got full workouts with explanations on how to do everything from the trainer.
If you want to feel like you’ve discovered a superpower, pay for “programming” on a marketplace like TrainHeroic.
Lots of trainers actually buy their programming from other trainers, since good programming is a lot of work, so you might as well go straight to the source.
You’ll probably need to buy more gear but that’s kind of unavoidable.
You should look into the FitBod app. You tell the app what equipment you have and it does the programming for you, with short videos and text descriptions for form.
I also recommend Fitbod. Excellent tracking and use of watch and workout plans generated for you but plenty of options to customize to get rid of exercises you can’t do it want to avoid. I love that it generates the workout for you and then forces you to max out on a few exercises to calculate your max strength which can be used for suggested weights in further exercises. Can have multiple gym setups with excluded exercises (in case you have a regular gym but also use something much more limited like home.)
As mentioned the videos are great and explanations clear.
I'll second that, FitBod was the single best investment I made during the pandemic. Partially because I didn't invest in AMD, Netflix, Zoom, Gamestop, AMC, Bitcoin or Doge; but also because it taught me how to work out!
Fitbod is great, but no significant updates in a year. No additional exercises in the database from when I started, can’t log over 29 reps of a weighted exercise, lots of other niggles. Has this been your experience?
This has been my experience. Fitbod is a good example of solid product-market fit (for me at least) without followup execution.
After the first use I was sold and paid for the annual subscription. But it's so buggy (especially when paired with an Apple Watch) that I've nearly stopped using it.
When I first started, I used the app DESPITE the bugs. Eventually the bugs got too painful to deal with. Now I do What Feels Right when I work out. Probably a worse strategy, but I prefer it over fighting through the bugs. (I keep the subscription in hopes that they will improve their app.)
How I love Apple's new 'App privacy' cards. The app you recommended seems to have pretty decent privacy practices, there doesn't seem to be tracking outside of the app, nor tracking for advertising. This is rare in fitness apps, some of which use health data for advertising, which I find appalling.
As it is, working out requires a crazy amount of research. Or a coach.
This is my biggest problem with all these apps and videos.
I have trained with a great coach with a good track record of training serious athletes and rehabilitation.
In my opinion, all of these apps are useless at best (unless you already have a good idea of what you’re doing) and dangerous at worst because none of their instructions are complete.
I agree - I’m meeting with a coach to get programming because I’m kind of tired of researching to get the best results. It’ll cost a fair chunk of change, but it’ll save me a lot of time and energy too. I just want to focus on doing a great program to the best of my ability, not actually programming it all. Or failing to.
1 and 2 are ok, i'd also ad a bit about nutrition which is around 50% of the work
3: oh come on... if your actual limitation is entering the name of the exercice in the google bar literally ONCE IN YOUR LIFE, then your ACTUAL limitation is a base level of motivation and you should rather find another activity.
4: warmups are WAY overrated for fitness. Just don't push too much with max weight and that's all, and listen to your body. I've injured myself way more in my youth where I was doing warmups but egolifting instead that now where I do 0 warmup but work at 90% max.
I'm half with you and half not on point 3. I've been working out for a long time, and I still need to refresh myself and review stuff quite often. Maybe my memory is terrible. I also want to be certain I'm getting form right and using all exercises I do as productively as possible though, so I feel the research is warranted in many cases.
I don't mind doing it, my health is worth it. I suppose this is my point though: In programming, I need to research constantly, but the internet is full of bad ideas and red herrings and half truths when it comes to solving all kinds of problems. Fitness is a little more cut and dry in some regards, but the misinformation and low quality is similarly very widespread. I'm very tired of the sifting and sorting, and I'd LOVE to have a resource I knew to come back to for all manner of things fitness. Many things try to be that, but they tend to fail in my experience.
I disagree on 4 - I've become a strong proponent of warm ups as I've gotten older. I focus a lot on locking in good form using lighter movements, loosening up, and getting acquainted with how my body feels that day. I don't think it's only an asset in injury prevention, but also in keying into your performance and how your body's feeling. Definitely less critical for young ones, but I've found it to improve my time at the gym very consistently.
Like nutrition though, we've all got a different set of preferences and needs. If you don't feel like you need a warm up and your track record proves it, I'd skip it. What I'd like to see though is the ability to insert a warm up I love into a routine I do as though it's part of that routine. Then it's very take it or leave it, but supports the shitty inflexible tree people like me who need to be coerced into moving their bodies.
I was wondering if https://musclewiki.com/ was going to pop up. My wife had just sent it to me earlier this week.
It lets you pick gender, muscle group, exercise type (stretch, bodyweight, barbell, dumbbells, kettlebells) and has detailed instructions and videos. (It does not have sets/reps like the shared site.) Perhaps they would be good to use in tandem.
Personally, I think for sets/reps, it follows most exercise advice. Choose what you'll actually do. If that's 3 sets of 5 reps, fine. Do that. If you can get yourself to consistently do more than that over time, you'll benefit from the increase in volume. (When I'm active, I follow Starting Strength style - increase warm-up weight while decreasing reps; then a bunch of working weight sets.)
I was just reading that the optimum reps count was somewhere between 8 and 12. I was doing something that suggested 16 reps and that felt a little more like cardio or something, and I dug into it and it is a whole debate, but what I got out of it was that for what I was doing eight or so is about right.
Just do whatever's difficult. Some days show up and do 10 sets of 3, some days show up and do 6 sets of 4. Total volume is the deciding factor (other than, of course, recovery).
Mike Isratel's work on Maximum Recoverable Volume is probably the best piece of work for deciding things like rep ranges.
There is no optimum number. There are optimum numbers for specific goals. List your goals, your hormonal and diet context, some genetic factors, and then people could propose optimal reps for you.
Unfortunately, a lot of exercise studies use untrained people. How that extends to even moderately trained people is usually pretty problematic. I'd say "forget it, just listen to people that have been doing it for a couple of decades" is probably better advice.
The primary mover of all set-and-rep ranges is going to be goals and hormonal context, so make sure that when taking advice from someone, know what they think those two things are.
I think 8-12 is optimum if you’re reaching failure by that point. If you can lift something more than 12 times you’re building endurance not muscle mass. Of course, it has to be said, all of this is not scientifically backed and is hotly debated between fitness experts (if you wanna start a fight between a room full of fitness experts ask how many reps is optimal.)
But in my experience lifting heavy for 8-12 reps one day and then lifting ~80% for reps (I go for 30) after a rest day has had good results.
It depends on what your goals are, lower reps with heavier weights will give you more strength. Higher reps with lighter weights will give you bigger muscles.
This isn't true. Lower rep ranges will better acclimate the CNS to higher bar-weight, but that's not really the same as "strength".
On the flipside, higher rep ranges don't give you bigger muscles - overall training volume (total weight moved per movement) is moreso the determining factor on "size"[0]. In general it's best to just do whatever you find difficult. Lots of "powerbuilders" use Undulating Periodization (sometimes Daily) to try and get the benefits of the CNS acclimation + the increased work capacity that higher rep ranges bring.
The OP might have meant sex, but actually now that I think about it gender is probably more important here since that will be more closely linked to your hormones (have natural or supplemented testosterone or not) as well as what exercises you want to do (more lower body or more upper body, higher reps or higher weight).
In reality their is no reason for any difference in training across sexes/genders. It’s about goals and performance not sex differences - my wife’s training has always looked very similar to mine (strength and hypertrophy phases) but we end up with different physiques.
Doesn’t your anecdotal evidence exactly contradict your claimed point? If there was no difference between gender/sexes then you and your wife would end up with the same physique doing the same exercise.
If you wanted to reach the same physique you would have to train differently, which is again, exactly what you are arguing against.
If we wanted to reach the same physique she would need to take a lot of PEDs. My point was poorly articulated - in reality if men and women train the same they will end up with different physiques based on the chemical make ups in the body. However if men and women want to “be strong” they should train the same, if they want to “run fast” train the same, “be lean and muscley” train the same. The idea that men and women should train differently (women do cardio and men do weights) is the biggest disservice that the fitness industry has done for the health of both groups. I guess that is what I think of when I hear “the sexes should train differently”
Ultimately the filter boils down to how much T you have, which (at least from the context of strength training) isn't necessarily linked to gender or sex. I'm not sure how you'd communicate that from the context of a web UI filter, though.
That would be an oversimplification. Physical development depends on other factors besides testosterone level. Men and women are different genetically, even if they have unusual hormone levels.
I'm very tempted to add mine which I would call "the lazy lifter: build a nice body with 4x30 minutes per week" (a very efficient, leangains-based routine).
That said i'm very sad by the abscence of likes. What dopamine rush can i hope to get by contributing to your database :( ?
I started with a trainer one year ago next week, doing 2 days per week with him and one day of "plyometric" drop-set/super-sets (which seems to be a fancy way of saying workout almost to failure).
Total time investment? 30 minutes, 3 times per week.
My entire physique has changed, including greatly increased muscle mass, energy levels, and stamina to do whatever physical activity. I've also dropped 30 pounds and have completely eliminated back problems.
I, likewise, would be VERY interested to know more. Time is a precious commodity and anything to maximize the gains for the time spent would be appreciated!
I can attest to Stronglifts 5x5, which takes only 45 minutes 3x a week, and can keep you going for 6 months with amazing results. Pure strength weight lifting has the biggest impact on health out of any fitness activity I've ever tried.
One thing to note as with all lifting especially squats, depending on age, DOMS may be severe. The program starts as light as possible but even that may be too much. If starting from a very sedentary lifestyle it's probably best to start with a couple of weeks of cardio and light movement before lifting.
This may be a little pie-in-the-sky, but I've found myself disliking the "upvote" or "like" mentality. Instead, maybe a "I use(d) this!" functionality, as well as talk sections for each routine?
This is really cool. When there a good bit more workouts having likes/upvotes would help users not get overwhelmed by choices and they can sort by most liked.
I would also look into 5/3/1! It's a very easy to follow program, and doesn't take much time at all. Slow and steady gains.
Granted, if you're a beginner, there are much quicker programs (since noob gains are a very real thing), but 5/3/1 is a very simple program to follow, can be repeated for an extremely long time, and isn't very intense stress on the body. I increased my lifts pretty drastically over 2 years, but it felt incredibly slow/gradual - until I looked back over my increases from 2 years prior.
I just tried looking up 5/3/1 and although I believe you when you say it’s “easy to follow” I’m not sure if it’s beginner friendly or not. I don’t know most of this DSL. I still don’t even know what the numbers 5 3 and 1 are for sure in reference to, although my guess is reps (ie repetitions). And apparently it’s supposed to have a corresponding percentage of Max Single Rep, but what is it?
What is a core lift? Parallel squat? Standing shoulder press? Do I need equipment for this stuff? If I do require gear what do I need to get, how do I choose, what’s minimal? What is a safe way to find my “max lift”?
Etc.
I would find it useful if these kinds of workouts were prefaced with their end-goal in mind: general wellness? To bulk specific areas? To maximize real strength? To have trim and endurance strength? To increase resting metabolic burn?
Personally, I want to lose body fat, decrease body aches/pains, and make my brain sharper with minimal investment of time. I know strength training is a key component of this goal. But that’s about it. When I look into strength training, it often seems the advice is focused on strength enthusiasts, which is not me.
Older newbie dripping my toe into the water, I’ll listen!
5/3/1 is primarily a strength program, but it will definitely benefit general wellness and resting metabolic burn.
In terms of barbell-oriented strength programs, 5/3/1 is a good program to do after you've mastered the basics and started to plateau with something like Starting Strength [0] or Stronglifts 5x5 [1]. Those two programs take advantage of the linear gains that are possible for people in their first year of training, and 5/3/1 is a methodical approach to continuing to improve strength when simply adding 5lbs to the bar every workout stops working.
Starting Strength is a great book for understanding the principles and benefits of barbell lifting (and the videos from the old DVD are very good). The introductory essay is considered to be one of the best summations of strength training and its benefits. A lot of people believe that they aren't interested in strength training because they don't feel attracted to the extreme manifestations of the sport, but then discover that it delivers mental health and brain sharpening benefits in ways that they didn't expect.
All of the programs I mentioned are built around the core barbell lifts, which are squat, deadlift, shoulder press, bench press, cleans, and rows.
I do 5/3/1 and it does have it's tradeoffs but I've seen gains while on it. Basically the goal is to make you stronger, it was developed by a powerlifter and is heavily influenced by traditional american football training. I've linked a PDF below[1] which explains the whole thing in language anyone can understand.
Core lifts: Bench press, Squat, Deadlift, Overhead Press. Some people choose a different set of lifts.
The 531 thing means week one you do 3 sets of 5 on the core lift, week two you do 3 sets of 3, week three you do a set of 5, a set of 3, and a set of 1. Week four is deload, you do lighter weight for three sets of five. In all cases (except deload) the last set is actually for "AMRAP" i.e. as many reps as possible.
Ultimately weightlifting is not a modern science, it is an ancient practice akin to meditation or running or martial arts. There is ongoing research to optimize it but nobody here is going to the league and for us the most important thing is to show up consistently and track progress. The most impactful thing I ever did for my lifting was to create a spreadsheet I could update from my phone and write down how much I lifted and how many reps every time I went to the gym. I do something like this:
I'm proud to say I reached the end of my google sheet and had to start a new one. I am fortunate I was exposed to weightlifting early in life but after neglecting my training for most of my twenties (I'm 32 now), most of my current gains happened with 531. I hope you will start lifting! The benefits weight training has brought to my life can hardly be overstated.
Oh and stay away from planet fitness, that's not a gym[2]. Their business model is based on appealing to people who don't work out. You want to work out, go somewhere else.
For recording your work, I've built a simple language and some libraries around it: https://traindown.com. I am hoping to add some additional I/O utilities like "export to csv". I'd love any feedback you may have on it. Totally OSS now and forever.
I primarily do CrossFit as it's really the only thing that keeps me consistently going to the gym - I'm a sucker for the community.
That said, while I'm able to generally sprint things quite well, my strength was always suffering as it's not a primary focus, so I do 5/3/1 alongside it and it works very well. I've definitely seen steady gains coming from it, and because of the low volume it's really sustainable.
This is in no way a critique of this project (which looks nice!) but my dream fitness program would be something like, "do all the things in this book, in order, and by the end of the book you'll be mostly fit". I'm sure it works great for some people but I get bogged down by choice paralysis when I'm presented with a list of workouts.
1. Start today by doing literally anything active.
2. Do it again tomorrow.
3. Repeat.
There is no magic. Once you’ve got a habit of showing up, you can worry about exactly which fitness routine to use. Most programs get repetitive after 6-8 weeks anyway, so you need a foundation of a stable habit to fall back on when switching routines or burning out on one.
The secret is to show up. Every day. Just keep stacking those good days.
(This applies to a lot more than just fitness, btw)
> The secret is to show up. Every day. Just keep stacking those good days.
This is just not true. The most popular beginner weight lifting programs are comprised of ~3 workouts a week of ~30-60 minutes each. There's a reason for that. Exercising every day sure sounds nice, but it increases the chance of injury and often is too great a commitment for people with a sedentary lifestyle.
> Most programs get repetitive after 6-8 weeks anyway
You can easily follow a beginner program for many months before linear progression stops. Switching programs after 6-8 weeks as a newbie is absolutely pointless when you do compound exercises.
> (It’s also much easier said than done)
Yeah, it is when you force yourself to work out every day. 3 days a week though? Far more manageable.
Personally I think it’s a lot harder to build a habit 3 days a week than every day.
You don’t need to do stressful exercise every day. But if you can get yourself to show up to the same location, and do anything – whether that’s stretching, or exercising, or going for a walk – you’re going to build a more sustainable habit than you would if you allowed yourself to skip it four days a week.
100%, showing up and making yourself go is the hardest part when you're starting.
I've always thought body building is one of the hardest habits to start because your body punishes you when you do it the first few times. It's hard to feel motivated after it hurts to go up or down the the stairs. If you make it over that hurdle it's easy to keep up.
I like the way it’s written. As someone who’s been hitting the gym pretty hard for just about 90 days I can confirm that I really have seen huge results but I also didn’t take a rest day for the first 6 weeks.
A few years ago I found a book which is basically this, called You Are Your Own Gym. It's full of body weight exercises, plus a 10-week program built on these exercises. It seemed like it was written for exactly me -- someone who doesn't like going to the gym, and doesn't like long boring cardio. I had some good success following the book's program on and off for a few years.
Then a couple months before the pandemic I joined the author's new subscription service called Mark Lauren On Demand. It's a library of workout videos and programs, organized by difficulty. It's like $8.99/month and I think it's the best thing I pay for. I'm definitely in the best shape I've ever been.
Workout videos are surely not a new idea, but I hadn't tried that format before this, and I like that the videos are literally him doing the exercises along with you, including warmup and cooldown. It means I can look at the timestamp and know exactly how long it'll take to do a workout that day. And I like that it's all scheduled out for me. I just have to show up (in my basement).
A good training template is basically what you’re looking for. Providers of such templates that are evidence-based will also explain the reasoning behind the structure of the template/program; I’d recommend starting with Barbell Medicine, for example (though there are others I am most familiar with BBM).
It doesn't teach you how to do any particular exercise, you'll need to geta that elsewhere. But what it does do is provide a number of templates for programming, with different endurance / strength / mass requirements in mind. And it tell you why the programming is the way it is, and expects you to start modifying it once you're more advanced. Kind of a "teach-a-man-to-fish" approach.
I'll make it simple for you: do Starting Strength. Three 45 minute workouts per week, 3 exercises per workout (you have to do all 3 of them, so no choices to make here).
There's a reason why this is, by far, the most popular choice for beginner weight lifters.
I've done Starting Strength, and I don't think it's good for beginners - imo the exercises are too technical, and the focus on heavy weight encourages injuries.
I mean, it's OK if you want to start a career as a powerlifter, but not if you're just looking to slightly increase general fitness and not get injured.
For true beginners, classic light weight exercises with dumbells and cable machines, plus bodyweight exercises like pushups and unweighted squats are probably better choices.
I'm going to plug Renaissance Periodization again. If you want a safe, science-backed program with built-in progression and no overcomplicated exercises, spend $40 on their gym-free template:
I see this criticism often, but the program focuses a lot on proper form, starting with relatively light weights, and only increasing weights when you can complete all sets, so I don't really agree with it.
However, I do agree that if you want to get just a bit more in shape, a simpler program without barbell compounds is a better choice. I was assuming that the grandparent wanted to get into weightlifting, as most people in my age group mean that when they talk about wanting to get fitter.
That's true, but so much time is spent on proper form for the prescribed movements precisely because they are so complicated.
> starting with relatively light weights, and only increasing weights when you can complete all sets
Which discounts progression via adding volume and keeping the weights relatively constant (which - unless the volume is extreme - is safer), and that's one of my main beefs with it - for people who want to get in shape casually and for whom significant strength increase isn't a primary concern.
But I agree that if you want to get into powerlifting as a sport, Starting Strength is probably not a bad idea for your beginner program. (actual powerlifters might want to chime in on that.)
One thing I'd love to see here is better formatting of the instructions. The content is great, but I found it a little jumbled to read. Here's an image of the current format, and an image of a proposed format as an example of what I mean.
darebee.com (similar website in terms of being a database of fitness stuff, mostly bodyweight-oriented) does a great job of this with some of their videos.
Hey, I'm working on a community sourced fitness routine database where users can upload and share routines. Does this site seem useful to you? https://routinedb.com/routines
The world is filled with workout routines. They're everywhere. They're in books, they're on sites, they're in magazines, they're on forums. They've been explained a million times -- PPL, 5/3/1, bro-splits, kettlebell routines, WODs, etc.
My recommendation, if you're really a beginner, just go buy one book that explains these things. They're all based on the same principles. The same knowledge is being repackaged, re-sold, re-presented by each subsequent personality.
You don't need more routines. You need the routine you'll do 50 or 100 times.
> You don't need more routines. You need the routine you'll do 50 or 100 times.
Honest question from someone with just anecdotes and no data: Is it preferable to do the same routine regularly over different routines (equally often)? Last year, a friend sent me a link to https://darebee.com/ where I've been choosing different routines almost every time (or a program, which consists of different routines for each day). This seems to me more effective for me, but maybe it's just more motivation to do different things.
Goals goals goals. The implicit assumption is that your goal is to develop something specific over time. You want to get stronger, you want to get bigger, you want to increase your endurance, for example.
Since those specific goals are so common, they fade into the background. But if your goals are more or less one or more of those goals, then yes, do the same set of exercises 50-100 times (progressing weights/intensity/etc). That will stimulate improvements. Doing a bunch of different things every time is 100% better than sitting on the couch, but won't allow you to progress very much. You'll essentially only be progressing e.g. strength when you happen to overlap some motion with the right amount of increase to cause improvement.
But something that you'll do is better than a perfect thing that you'll get bored of and stop doing. Existence is the primary predicate and all that.
Incidentally, Starting Strength (the book) talks about this somewhat. He distinguishes between 'training' and 'exercising'. Training is about progressive overload. Exercise is about moving your body. If you want to change your body, you'll want to train.
Routines should be a mix of things you develop expertise and efficiencies at (say, compound barbell movements or heavy KB base movements), and other things that you aren't efficient at. Strength training (simply one modality) is about progressive overload. So, it helps to get better at some of your exercises, but it's also advantageous to stress your body in ways that you're not efficient at -- but, if that's all you're doing, you'll never truly push yourself because the progressive overload gains won't come.
My advice in the past is that 60% of your time in training should be for things you like and you're getting very good at. The non-compound movements have benefits, but unless you're competing at something, the benefits are across a broader impact spectrum.
How will this translate into a fitness routine? If you look at some of the 5/3/1 periodization routines, it'll be something like: bench press, shoulders/chest, lats, triceps. Doesn't matter as much which shoulder/chest or lat exercises, just take them to a proper RPE (search it).
Routines, in and of themselves, aren't super helpful if you don't understand some of the basic principles. For which some deeper resource -- a book, possibly -- is a wise investment.
Thank you (and also the responders, u/Afton and u/jnosCo) for your help!
While I have certainly a lot to learn on that topic, I feel like I haven't failed completely - of course all kinds of exercises come around again, and I'm increasing difficulty/number of sets. So there's room for optimization, but it's not a bad start, I think.
If we're talking about lifting, It's better to switch your routine after a while to avoid "plateauing", but not so often as to not be able to track progress and perfect form in lifts.
This is one of those 'true but' statements. I think it's actively harmful to provide it to beginners who don't have the context to understand what that means. Vanishingly few beginners are running a routine long enough or hard enough to suffer from this problem.
Thanks for the feedback. "They're everywhere. They're in books, they're on sites, they're in magazines, they're on forums." - this is the problem I'm hoping to solve with RoutineDB.
I think the hard part is knowing which routine will be appropriate and effective for a given person. What's their existing fitness level/experience? Do they use a gym and if so, what equipment do they have? What are their goals? What's their injury history?
And while adding a likes/ratings/whatever system might be helpful, I'd much rather see a system that considers actual information about people's progress. Did you get stronger? Leaner? Did your mile time improve? Did you get bigger delts? At a high level, for a given goal, routine selection is a contextual bandit problem, but so far as I can tell no one treats it that way.
What I want is an app that counts reps/sets for me. I.e., point phone camera at self, the apps starts counting down (using a voice), and stops when I'm done. It should auto-detect the exercise.
Right now it's more focused on form feedback, but adding live audio cues is on our roadmap. I'd love to know what other features you'd want us to build.
Not really screaming but in VRWorkout the computer voice combined with the visual cues are as direct as it gets :)
So if you need some motivation to get your bodyweight training done maybe check it out ( https://vrworkout.at )
I’d go for a Peloton but for weight lifting for sure!
I know there are some of those but haven’t found any for free weights, can’t say I have been looking too hard yet however.
I am working on an app that does this: automatically counts reps from camera. The counting for basic exercises like squats, dips, push ups, pull ups, kb swings is decently accurate. No voice at the moment.
You can email me at my HN username @gmail.com, would be great to hear what you think!
Runtastic had apps that used to do this, where you held the phone and it counted the reps, push-ups, sit-ups etc. There were apps for each activity, which gave you reps, a count, and a timer, along with cooldown, with voice prompts.
Then Adidas bought them out and closed the individual apps and released a replacement for the main Runtastic app.
There were numerous threads on reddit asking for similar replacements, and I don't think there has been one. So I gave up looking.
My Garmin watch (Forerunner) does this (well, not audio prompts). It will start rep count when I start the exercise and end it when I stop and guess the exercise. The exercise guessing is spotty at best but you can also pre-program the workout and use is that way. Rep count is much accurate (if not perfect).
The goal is to make these more accessible to everyone and demo exactly what each movement takes.
Would love any feedback on things we can improve. We're 100% bootstrapped and are adding new movements + routines every week. Happy to add anything that the HN community would think is useful.
Anecdotal - In Excel I can have one cell to track my 1RM in KG, and then use a percentage of that weight on any particular workout routine.
i.e. I follow a 10 week program that I repeat (you guessed it) every 10 weeks. At the end of the 10 weeks I will update the 1RM and the entire spreadsheet of ~120 rows of exercises, stretches, and warmups will immediately update to show me the correct weights to use.
Once you get past the beginner stages of exercise (learning movements, stretches, etc) fitness routines are just numbers on a page. For that reason I'll stick to Excel.
But this seems like a useful tool for those very new to the scene.
A good resource, thanks for putting it out there! I'd suggest that having an idea for a reasonable program might be more useful for a beginner, i.e. a series of routines to be carried out over the next n weeks. I feel that it's more useful to point a beginner to a well-thought-out program than a grab bag of movements to follow for a single session. My go-to program for anyone setting out to improve their fitness is the Barbell Medicine Beginner Prescription https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/the-beginner-prescripti... It includes four weeks of programming (which can be repeated), background context, advice on warming up and weight selection, videos for how to perform the movements, and nutrition advice. All the most-important basics are there in one place.
There's a lot of conflicting advice on this thread, and some that (I'd say) was questionable. On the other hand, it's apparent that humans can improve their physical fitness using a wide variety of different methods and modalities. That old adage about the best fitness routine is the one you stick to holds true, I think.
I'm betting more than a few people have used the below link as a jumping-off point for their lifting career. It would greatly help its longevity to post it on RoutineDB to avoid the inevitable heat-death of BlogSpot.
If anybody is looking for a routine database that supports more complex routines like the Wendler's 5/3/1 variations with Training Max percentage based weights then check out the [Hardy.app](https://www.hardy.app/howitworks). The routines can have progression overload based on AMRAP, deloads, etc. And the workout tracking app calculates changes in your TM based on AMRAP and other rules in the routine. Just enter you 1 rep maxes and hit "start".
Full disclosure though, it's kinda self-promotion because I've been developing [Hardy.app](https://www.hardy.app) with a friend for over a year now. It's free and we're adding more features all the time, check it out if interested. :)
Looks like a great app! I run 5/3/1 and this is perfect. Currently I use https://strong.app but I'd love to see a way to see my weekly volume per muscle group. Is that something you are planning to add on Hardy?
Thank you for the kind words! Ah yeah, strong.app is very popular. We have many cool features planned that should allow us to give value to even the most serious weight lifters who are not supported by the strong app, like autoregulating based on RPE/RIR, routine snippets, supersets, dropsets, private trainer profiles, etc, but we have a lot of work ahead yet.
At least when I've joined a gym, a person there would assess your fitness, ask what your goals are, and based on that you would get an exercise routine.
Following a random exercise routine can result in injury.
You should at the very least talk to a lawyer and put a disclaimer in that page.
It might not be super clear from the site shared here, but most of these exercises are done with barbells with weights, or dumbbells. It's not hard for a beginner to do these with incorrect form, and then increase the weight over time, until bad form plus weight results in injury.
When you make a website, you have to think out of the box.
Your audience will not necessarily be a 20 year old in good physical condition. It may be as well a 10 year old that doesn't know what to do with the information you are giving to them. Or someone with a pacemaker, or someone with some medical condition that puts them at risk.
Then... Not only people can get injured by following an exercise routine in good-faith... some people may injure themselves on purpose so they can sue you.
Will people be able to injure themselves anyways if you add a disclaimer to the website? Absolutely. But it won't be your fault anymore.
But that's only the start. If you allow people to write anything they want in a textbox, bad things can happen. People can write ANYTHING, not only exercise routines... And by anything, I mean, very illegal things.
And if you allow people to upload pictures, well... that can go very wrong as well.
Now that we're on the subject: Does anyone remember the Strength Standards site? strstd.com [0]. It computed your 1RM from your stats and then created customized weight lifting programs, like Starting Strength. I used it a lot when I started lifting. A part of it was similar to this: https://athletegrade.com/powerlifting/
This is good. Some things I think you should consider:
- Get users (hah, easier said than done of course).
- Comments will help people find variations (not everyone has the same equipment, or have physical issues that require a variation of the workout, comments will fill that void).
- Split this up into categories (core, legs, etc)
- Link this stuff to YouTube videos (it’s just easier to watch someone doing it with proper form)
- Last but not least, become an app. A routine is a checklist, so make it so people can hit ‘done’ on a completed rep, maybe input the weight lifted. Track it, charts.
Love the idea, although it is indeed quite similar to liftvault without the routine names.
Might be worth considering having a centralized repository of exercises with curated links to videos which demonstrate how to perform that exercise with proper form. Then when creating the routine, you select from that list of exercises. This allows for a bit of consistency and quality control so people aren't throwing in random exercises.
Might also help to have an upvote feature so garbage routines aren't given too much weight.
I was wondering if https://www.jefit.com/ was going to pop up. Sounds quite similar and has been around for quite some time.
There are probably more similar solutions out there. Fitness apps are definitely an interesting space, where there are tons of them, but they seem to rarely marketing themself. Probably the customer acquisition cost would be higher than the custom lifetime value, i guess...
I've lifted weights pretty regularly for some years, some years ago. However, the first program I click is gibberish [1] to me (I did olympic weightlifting too, so that's not the problem). Is there some quality control in place?
At some point in the past, I had spent... maybe 10-12 hours putting together a number of bodyweight + dumbbell exercises I picked up from YouTube. I used Giphy to record GIFs of the movement, and saved them all in a Trello dashboard (tagged and everything).
I used it every time I went to the gym to figure out what exercises I could do for a particular muscle group.
Once I discovered Darebee, https://darebee.com/workouts.html, I don’t need any other fitness workout database. The size of the set of exercises, the clarity of instructions and the fee (zero) are hard to beat.
I have an open source app that uses a language called Traindown to record exercises. It might be of interest for folks who prefer text or more "free form" recording of workouts: https://traindown.com/transponder/.
Interesting, I tried the create a routine but it required a login, that seems uncessary that early.
Especially because I assume (since I can't easily check it now) that it can't be used to put together a routine for people who are just terribly out of shape.
The login is currently just an email token so you can edit your routines after they've been created. I am working on reducing the friction for this. Any suggestions?
My of-the-top suggestion would be to put it at the end, that way there would be some value in it (as I would want to keep the routine going), and I can test-drive the editor first, to see if it makes sense to me.
When I clicked on the Sign In button from the email it took me to a page that showed another Sign Up button even though when I navigated to the homepage I was already signed in, this was very confusing and made me enter my email like 10 times.
Thanks for the info. I think the email is redirecting to the wrong page. It should still sign you in though. Do you appear signed in on this page? https://www.routinedb.com/routines
Genuine question: is it not better to have a workout a routine as routine implies you are exercising the same muscles over and over again at the expense of the remaining neglected muscles?
Its known as the mind-muscle connection. What helped me was visualization, slow eccentrics have helped me with some body parts (also, instead of dropping to the bottom of a movement, like a push-up, try to pull yourself down; if you're squatting, pull yourself down using your erectors instead of just dropping, etc...), and a lot of time. I'm still not there with some body parts / movements, but I have muscle development on those areas, regardless.
Have you added any crossfit routines to routinedb? I would be interested in knowing how well they fit in to this format. Let me know if you have any feedback!
I'm consolidating feedback from other comments into this one, so it's in a single place.
First, "Have you added any crossfit routines to routinedb?"
There are at least two on there as of the time of me writing this. The Murph [1] and Strict Nicole [2]. I hope you come up with a way to credit the originators of programs / workouts that people submit.
Some programs / workouts are given away for free to drum up business for trainers; others, such as crossfit WODs (work outs of the day), are used in competitions, and other programs are documented in a book that is sold and is a source of revenue for the author.
> Thanks for the feedback. "They're everywhere. They're in books, they're on sites, they're in magazines, they're on forums." - this is the problem I'm hoping to solve with RoutineDB.
What is the problem you're trying to solve for? Discoverability? If that's the case, then why don't you create a flowchart linking to various resources on the web.
Who is your audience?
I assume you're in tech, so you know there are some criteria for success and goals that should be set before going on to build something. There are different approaches depending on the constraints. Similarly, this applies to training. There is no "best program". A flowchart would be able to help people with identifying goals up front and then determining the appropriate on-boarding point.
As someone who has spent a lot of time reading blogs, forums, magazines, and books on strength and conditioning I don't see how this will help someone progress. This seems more like a dictionary of "workouts" than anything structured and progressive.
If you're not already familiar with some of the online strength communities, then I can offer up a few suggestions to look over ways that they structure training programs as opposed to workouts.
https://www.strongfirst.com/
- minimalist training in terms of equipment (focus is mostly body weight and kettlebells) and time investment. aimed at "general physical preparedness"
https://www.crossfit.com/
- following the crossfit WODs (work out of the day) isn't what the top crossfitters do. The top crossfitters (as of a few years ago) focused on doing some sort of progressive overload of the big compound movements (squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, pull ups) followed by what they call(ed) "metcons" or metabolic conditioning sessions. That's where they would complete the "WODs". The metcons would follow some prescribed patter, too, they wouldn't be random.
http://danjohn.net/
- "the goal is to keep the goal the goal" pretty much sums up his no nonsense routines. coaches and competes at a lot of different levels
https://gymjones.com/
- responsible for the 300 physiques and Henry Cavil in Superman. Or at least Mark Twight the founder was
There are some good reads on those sites about programming and progression. There are trainers that maintain blogs discussing how to take untrained individuals and get them up to speed without hurting them. Going from 8-12 hours slumped at a chair to lifting weights off the floor definitely requires some progression.
There are also numerous websites dedicated to training for specific sports. So, going back to goals can help to figure out where to go.
Interesting. I'll add my email. I have been working on an open-source, self-hosted recipe/calorie tracker dealy that my spouse and I have been using for macro tracking during weight training. Haven't put much effort in to "advertising" it but we have been using it quite successfully for a few months now.
EDIT: side note -- when signing up for the email the MailChimp landing page has a "return to site" button that points to "https://sites.cx/" (which is an NXDOMAIN for me).
So.... This is good as in it is a good aggregate, but it is, well, useless for the goal at hand if the goal is to be fit.
Why? Because you can do every single one of these sequences slightly wrong and that slightly wrong would completely destroy 99% of the benefits of doing it.
Why do I say that? Because I was in an excellent shape in my twenties and by the mid forties it was, objectively, terrible even though I ate right and I was active. Very active. Amazingly active. I could do twenty knuckle pushups and be just in the "probably can't do more" state. I'm also someone who paid about $1k a month for a trainer for his ballerina wife's 2x a week training because "It is easier than hear her whine but I dont get it"
I'm also someone who was a semi-pro downhill skier during the time. I fucked up badly on slopes two years ago. I did everything wrong. Like 6 things. If I did not do 1 of those things, I would have been fine. It was utterly stupid. MRI said fractures, MCL, ACL tears, meniscus trashed - think fucking up at 68 mph on a Super G course because you think you are 25 and not 43 year old now slob.
So the ballerina wife goes:
-- Get your dumb ass back into the shape you were in I met you or my little ass is gone. Get the damn trainer. Real trainer. You workout regiment does not matter if your form is not perfect.
But I got a PT who was an athlete rehab trainer. She put me back together to a point where I nearly cleared the FIS qualifier.
I hired her personally. It has been two years. I shed 20 lbs. I'm about where I was at 30. I do 5x a week 15-20 minute workouts every morning ( warmup + plyometrics + strength ) and I do 1h a week warmup + plyometrics with her. We are doing pretty much the same things I used to do except that she says "I want you to look there when you are doing it. It will create the right line for you to properly engage the right muscles rather than compensate." That's what makes a difference. Do you, for example, know that then you do a renegade rows you really should pull your arm straight up with a neck turn slightly up because if you don't you will not actually engage the right muscles in your core ( you would either do no neck turn and or you would do it too much which in both cases will not get you into the right line for your body)
TL;DR: hire a real trainer. They are expensive ( $1k/month for 4 sessions ) but they are what makes your regiment work, not the "regiment"
1. Images/videos showing the exercises
2. Program generators. I have {equipment} and n days per week. Which programs work for me? Or, I have {goal} and n days per week, what should I do? The programs would be populated with exercises from the DB, programs could be exported, etc.
3. As much ELI5 info as possible - the barrier to exercise for a lot of people (myself included despite my experience) can be not knowing wtf something is, or why to do it, and generally what the benefits are.
4. Treat warmups like any exercise - a critical part of the routine. Include lots of warm up exercises, whether it's something you make quantifiable progress with or not. Everything from skipping rope and light jogging to dead bugs. Include these as part of program generation.
Maybe something does this, but my favourite tracker (Strong) doesn't cover all of it and I'd switch in an instant if something did. I like the idea of switching programs every year or so, experimenting with warm ups, having convenient access to understanding programs and lifts better, etc. As it is, working out requires a crazy amount of research. Or a coach.