Workout mode: one exercise at a time, with the rest timer

Most beginners at the gym are not short on effort. They are short on structure: how long to rest, what weight to use, what to do when the bench is taken. Workout mode is the answer to those three questions, and this post walks through one session from Start to Finish.

Starting a session

On the Today tab, the session card shows the focus for the day, a summary like "6 exercises · 18 sets · 45 minutes", and a Start button. Tap it and the app goes full screen. You see one exercise at a time: the name, the target sets and reps, and the steppers for weight and reps.

If you leave mid-session, the button on the Today card changes to Continue, and the sets-done ring shows how far you got. Nothing is lost if your phone locks or a call comes in.

The rest timer does the counting

Here is the flow for one exercise:

1. Do the set.
2. Tap "Set 1 done".
3. A rest countdown starts automatically. The length comes from the plan's rest time for that exercise, so a heavy compound movement gets longer rest than a cable curl.
4. In the last three seconds the phone vibrates and beeps 3-2-1.
5. Do the next set.

If your rest time is up early, or your partner is waiting, tap Skip. I made the timer automatic because when I was starting out my rest was whatever my phone scrolling decided, sometimes 40 seconds and sometimes 4 minutes. Consistent rest makes your numbers comparable from week to week.

Weight and reps remember themselves

The weight and reps steppers are prefilled from the last time you did that exercise. So if you did lat pulldown at 35 kg for 10 reps last Tuesday, that is what you see today. Adjust with the plus and minus, or tap the number to type it.

Above the steppers you may see a progressive-overload hint. Example from the app: "Last time 20 kg for all sets at 10+ reps. Go up to 22.5 kg today." The rule is simple. If you completed every set at the top of the rep range, the hint suggests the next small increase. If you did not, it says to stay. This is the whole idea of progressive overload: add a little, often, and let it accumulate.

Here is a sample for one exercise across three weeks:

The hint is advice, not a rule. If your shoulder feels off, stay where you are and tap the sore chip before the next session so the plan adjusts.

When the machine is taken

Tap Swap exercise. The app picks a replacement that works the same muscles and is not already in today's session. Leg press busy? You might get goblet squat. Cable row busy? Dumbbell row. Your sets for the swapped exercise are logged under the new name, so your history stays honest.

If you want to see how the replacement is done, the exercise guide is one tap away from the exercise name, with 3D and 2D views. There is a separate post on that.

Finishing and personal records

After the last set, tap Finish. Confetti. Then two things happen behind the scenes.

First, the session is marked done on Today, which feeds your streak and the training half of the weekly score. Second, every set is checked against your history. If you beat your best set, or your estimated one-rep max for that exercise goes up, a PR toast pops up right there. All personal records live on the Progress tab, best set and estimated 1RM per exercise.

The estimated 1RM is a formula based on weight and reps, not a test. Please do not go and try to lift it.

Warm-up, cardio, cool-down

Workout mode covers the main Workout block. Warm-up, Cardio and Cool-down are collapsible sections on the Today tab with their own done counts. Tick them there. The warm-up matters more than most beginners think, and skipping it is the fastest way to end up with a note in the Injuries field.

One honest limit

The timer, vibration and beep run in the browser. On some phones, if the screen locks for a long time during rest, the beep can be late. Keep the screen awake during the session, or glance at the countdown when you rack the weight. I am working on making this more reliable, but I would rather tell you now than have you miss a set.