Training article
Why There Is No Target, No Streak And No Score On Your Training
What the app leaves out on purpose, and the reasons
General information about training and eating, not personal advice. It is not medical or dietary advice and it cannot account for your circumstances. If you are pregnant, have a medical condition, take medication, or have a history of disordered eating, talk to a GP or a registered dietitian before changing how you eat or train.
Our app sets your training no target and no streak, and puts no score on it. It is also free, and it asks for no account. None of that is a gap waiting to be filled: each one was left out on purpose. This is the reasoning, so you can judge it for yourself.
What it does instead
- Free. Everything in this app is free, and nothing you use now will ever be moved behind a payment. The shop is what pays for it.
- No account. There is nothing to sign up to and no password to forget, and logging works without a signal.
- The log lives on your phone. Nothing you log is sent to us. The catch is that a lost phone takes the log with it, so the Backup screen makes a copy you keep, as text or as a CSV any spreadsheet opens.
- Last time, in front of you. While you log, each exercise shows what you did last time and your best, because that is what you need to choose today's weight.
Why no streak. A streak turns a missed session into a loss. The easiest way to protect one is to train on a day you should rest, or through a pain you should stop for, and both cost more than the session is worth. The Log counts the sessions you finished this month and nothing more: the count starts again each month, and there is no chain to break. The article When Life Gets In The Way says what to do when a week falls apart.
Why no score on your training. A single number for your readiness, or for your day, can only be built from what a phone can measure, and that is not how your legs feel under a bar. A number that rises and falls invites you to chase the number instead of the lifting. The first warm-up sets of a session are a better readiness check, and the article Training By Feel: RPE and RIR explains how to read them.
Why no target in the gym. The programme is the plan and the log is the record, and between them they already say what to try today: the programme's sets and reps, and a little more than last time if last time went well. A target on top of that would be one more number to fail. The rest timer counts up rather than down for the same reason: it shows how long it has been and leaves the decision to you.
Why no target in the Food tab. For someone vulnerable to an eating disorder, a calorie figure to stay under can feed restriction. We cannot see how anyone uses the food log, because we never receive it, so the design has to be safe for everyone by default. The food log has no calorie target and no way to type one. Protein is the number it leads with, because the reason to look at protein is to eat enough of it. Energy figures appear only where you open them, the log keeps 14 days and no more, and the Hide energy figures switch on the What this app keeps page takes them away altogether.
If counting any of this starts to feel compulsive, stop using the numbers. In the UK, Beat runs free helplines and online support at beateatingdisorders.org.uk, and a GP is a reasonable first conversation.
The shop follows the same rule. The bag states the delivery price and the free-delivery threshold, and there is no bar to fill and no countdown.
What it costs. Leaving these out has a price, and it is fair to name it. There is no copy of your log in a cloud, no reminder to come back, and nothing that celebrates a good week for you. If a number to hit is what keeps you training, keep one, on paper or in your head. The app will not set it for you.