Programs

A program is made of blocks, run one after another. A block has sessions, each the plan of one workout: A, B, C and so on. A round is one pass through every session of a block, in order, and a block repeats its sessions for its number of rounds, 1 to 32. A round is not a calendar week: the next workout is simply the next one.

A block of 4 rounds with sessions A and B makes 8 workouts: A, B, A, B, and so on. A program holds up to 12 blocks, 14 sessions a block, 30 exercises a session and 448 workouts in all.

On every plan, Starter included, you can run the team’s ready-made programs and keep the workout log and the activity. Building your own programs, changing them and copying a ready-made one to change it come with Athlete. Pricing lists what each plan includes.

When Athlete ends, the programs you built stay yours: you can open them, run a ready one, finish a run and delete them, but not change or copy them. A run is never stopped by a change of plan.

In Programs, press Create a program. Choose how many sessions you train in turn and for how many rounds, keep the name “My program” or type your own, and press Create program. The draft saves itself a moment after each change, and the line under its name says so: “Saved”, or what to do when it couldn’t save.

The plan reads as a sentence: “Train A, B and C in turn for 6 rounds — 18 workouts, about 6 weeks at 3 a week. Weights build up from easy to hard.” Each underlined part changes it: the sessions, the rounds, and how the weights move:

• Build up: easy first, a little harder each round;
• Steady: the same weight every round, rising as your base does;
• Waves: a harder round, then an easier one, climbing.

Each is worked out from an exercise’s reps, so every round asks a weight you can lift for them with reps to spare. Fewer sessions, fewer rounds and a new effort apply at once, with Undo.

Under each session, Add exercises opens your library beside the plan: Add puts an exercise at the end of the session, and the library stays open for the next one. A search that finds nothing offers to create the exercise. Each exercise starts with its default volume and rest, and its row says its sets × reps and its weight: “from 62.5 kg”, or “find your weight” before it has a base. Open a row to set its sets × reps once for every round and its rest; its ⋯ swaps the exercise for another in the same place, moves it or removes it, with Undo.

A session’s ⋯ renames it, sets the same sets × reps for all its exercises, copies, moves or deletes it. Muscles worked, in the plan beside the sessions, counts how many exercises work each muscle group, primary or secondary.

Advanced, beside Mark ready, shows every number: each round’s volume and percentage, the curves, more blocks and Bulk volume. Turning it on or off changes nothing in the program, and your browser remembers it for the next one.

Every exercise has its volume and its intensity for each round. Volume is sets × reps: 1 to 20 sets of 1 to 100 reps. Same volume for several rounds sets a range of rounds at once, and Bulk volume changes sets, reps or both across the whole program, a block, a session or single exercises.

Intensity is a percentage of the base 1RM, 1 to 100%, drawn from a curve. Change curve offers three:

• Ramp: from a start to an end percentage, bent earlier or later by its shape;
• Wave: a heavy round, then a lighter one by the drop, from a heavy start to a heavy end;
• Custom: type each round’s percentage, or drag its point on the chart.

Dragging a point makes any curve custom. A bodyweight exercise has no intensity: its rounds are reps only.

Each round’s target is the base × the percentage, rounded to a load you have. It can read “No load available” when none of your loads fits, “No base yet” before the exercise has a base, “Bodyweight only” when no added load is left, or “Add your body weight” for an exercise with added load. With Athlete, each target also shows its intensity zone, 1 to 5.

Programs plan an exercise from your base 1RM and the loads you have. Both are yours alone, set on the exercise’s page under Planning, with Edit:

• Base 1RM: take the suggestion, your best e1RM of the last 90 days or, without any, ever, with Use it; work it out with Work it out from a set; or type it. An exercise with added load has its base in added load; a bodyweight exercise has none.
• Loads: a Step, every multiple of which is a load, or a List of loads, typed as single loads and ranges with a step, like 5-35/2.5 40-60/5 37.5. A setup keeps the unit it was entered in: plates are what they are.
• Rounding: up to the next load you have, or down to the one before. Your default is in Settings › Training; an exercise can override it.
• Default volume and Default rest, what the exercise starts with when you add it to a program, 3 × 8 and 90 seconds until you change them; and a note only you see.

The star on an exercise’s page, or in the list, makes it a favourite: the library can show favourites alone, and Home’s Main lifts start with them.

Your records raise the base by themselves: see Runs and workouts. A draft follows your bases as they change, with a notice that its targets moved; volume and curves stay.

Only a ready program runs. While you build, the plan beside the sessions lists what keeps the program from being ready, each leading to its place: a name, a session, an exercise in every session, every volume and percentage in range, no archived exercise. “No load available” and “find your weight” are no problem. Mark ready checks once more; once the program is ready, its page opens, where Run starts it.

A ready program keeps the bases it was made ready with. To change it, press Change: it becomes a draft again, and a run made from it keeps its own copy. Delete removes a program for good, but not while its run is active; its runs stay in your log. You can keep up to 100 programs.

The team writes ready-made programs, in English, Russian and Ukrainian, and lists them under Ready-made in Programs. Each shows its sessions, rounds and the muscles it works.

Run starts one as it is, on every plan. Nothing is asked first: each exercise uses your own base, loads and rounding, so two people see the same program with their own loads. An exercise without a base shows its percentages, and its first result with an e1RM sets the base.

Copy to change, with Athlete, makes a draft of your own from it. The original stays as it is.