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Show HN: Workout.cool – Open-source fitness coaching platform

827 points by surgomat 1y ago

I was the main contributor to workout.lol, an open-source fitness app to easily build a workout routine. The project had traction (1.4k GitHub stars, 95 forks, ~20K visits/month), but was eventually sold due to video licensing hurdles. The new owner stopped maintaining it, and the repo went abandoned. Over the next 9 months, I sent 15 emails to try to save it : no replies. Feature requests & issues were ignored. The community was left with a "broken" tool let's say. I couldn't just let it die So I built the new version from scratch with the same open-source spirit, but a better architecture long-term vision, more features and no license problems. It's called : Workout.cool (https://workout.cool https://workout.cool). What it offers: 100% open-source, MIT-licensed - 1200+ exercises (with videos, attributes, translations) - Progress tracking - Multilingual-ready - Self-hostable I'm not doing this for money. I'm doing it because I believe in open fitness tools, and I’ve been passionate about strength training for 15+ years. If this resonates with you, feel free to: - Star the repo - Share with fitness/tech friends - Suggest features - Contribute code/design/docs Together, we can build the open-source fitness platform we all wanted to easily build a workout routine and get in shape Website: https://workout.cool https://workout.cool GitHub: https://github.com/Snouzy/workout-cool https://github.com/Snouzy/workout-cool

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tonyhart7 1y ago
wow, its great tool has muscle selection is so much more help full than 80+% apps on app store right now
- surgomat 1y ago
  Does that mean that i got to do a mobile app? Do you think its worth it ?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - billyjmc 1y ago
    It could potentially help with discoverability. As it stands, I’d imagine it takes a very particular sort of search query (either “open source fitness” in Google or “fitness” on GitHub) to have a chance at finding this. Unless your target audience is only the intersection of FOSS-advocates and fitness folks, you might be limiting adoption. With that said, the website works just fine on my phone.
eitally 1y ago
Thanks for sharing -- I'm a personal trainer and will give this a shot. Is there any plan to allow users to create workouts to share (or does it already and I haven't discovered it yet?)?, or API integration with common platforms like Strava, Garmin Connect, Healthkit, Google Fit, Coros, etc?
- surgomat 1y ago
  Thanks to you ,really cool to have a personal trainer trying it out. Yes, sharing workouts is on the roadmap. Users will be able to create routines, save them, and share them with others (even with public links) as the previous workout-lol project. As for API integrations (Strava, Garmin, HealthKit, etc.) definitely something I’m open to. Curious to know : what kind of data would you want to sync or pull in? Workouts? Step counts? Heart rate zones?
  - eitally 1y ago
    For your reference, Medbridge is one of the leading players in this market, for trainers creating prescribed programs for their clients/patients. The mobile app does everything you've created so far, but adds a governance and analytics layers for the trainer to specify sets and reps, track weights, and for the client to assess their rpe/comments/feedback. Think of it similar to the Strong app, but aimed at trainers/PTs. https://www.medbridge.com/care/home-exercise-program https://www.medbridge.com/care/home-exercise-program
adobrawy 1y ago
It looks promising. I retrieve error response when fetching exercise: 0:{"a":"$@1","f":"","b":"eETmgndxtv4Ar0i8Wync1"} 1:{"serverError":"An unexpected error occurred."} My request: curl 'https://workout.cool/ https://workout.cool/' \ -H 'accept: text/x-component' \ -H 'accept-language: en-US,en;q=0.9,pl-PL;q=0.8,pl;q=0.7' \ -H 'cache-control: no-cache' \ -H 'content-type: text/plain;charset=UTF-8' \ -b 'Next-Locale=en; _fbp=fb.1.1750253718188.954698194752805529' \ -H 'next-action: 7f80b017f78704b00d2411aebde5ba8318b475de6d' \ -H 'next-router-state-tree: %5B%22%22%2C%7B%22children%22%3A%5B%5B%22locale%22%2C%22en%22%2C%22d%22%5D%2C%7B%22children%22%3A%5B%22__PAGE__%22%2C%7B%7D%2C%22%2F%22%2C%22refresh%22%5D%7D%2Cnull%2Cnull%2Ctrue%5D%7D%5D' \ -H 'origin: https://workout.cool https://workout.cool' \ -H 'pragma: no-cache' \ -H 'priority: u=1, i' \ -H 'referer: https://workout.cool/ https://workout.cool/' \ -H 'sec-ch-ua: "Google Chrome";v="137", "Chromium";v="137", "Not/A)Brand";v="24"' \ -H 'sec-ch-ua-mobile: ?1' \ -H 'sec-ch-ua-platform: "Android"' \ -H 'sec-fetch-dest: empty' \ -H 'sec-fetch-mode: cors' \ -H 'sec-fetch-site: same-origin' \ -H 'user-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0; Nexus 5 Build/MRA58N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/137.0.0.0 Mobile Safari/537.36' \ --data-raw '[{"equipment":["PULLUP_BAR","BANDS","BODY_ONLY"],"muscles":["TRAPS","BACK","SHOULDERS","TRICEPS","FOREARMS","GLUTES","HAMSTRINGS","CALVES"],"limit":3}]'
- surgomat 1y ago
  Thanks a lot for reporting! The traffic from HN hit hard (which I didn’t expect tbh). I’m working on stabilizing it and will have a fix in the next minutes / hour Appreciate you testing it out! thanks again.
  - mandeepj 1y ago
    HN Kiss of death or love :-). You are #1 on the front page now, so that was expected. Can I say the HN audience is very health-conscious? :-) Selected a few workouts and got this error - Error loading exercises. I'll try again after a few hours. Congratulations on the launch!!
    - surgomat 1y ago
toyetic 1y ago
This is cool, as someone whose been lifting for ~5 years its nice to see a fleshed out opensource tool for weightlifting. The main problem with any app I've tried is that after enough experience the bells and whistles of the app don't really matter and mostly what you care about is consistent tracking for progressive overload. I think this is a good app for people who want to get started weightlifting I would say the two main things needed for wider adoption would be 1. A mobile app ( or pwa, I've made and used my own personal workout app for a while as a PWA and its been just as good as any native app I've tried) 2. A way to save specific workouts as routines and track those for long periods of time
- LostMyLogin 1y ago
  Hesitating to write this because I don't want to push back at all on OP but I'm not sure I agree that something like this is a good option for people wanting to get started in weightlifting. I'm not sure it's a good option for anyone really. I applaud OP for the effort but this is recommending some pretty awful workouts. For example if I select back and bi, it's giving me nine different exercises with complete disregard for the order they are in or what other exercises are in the workout. Why are compound lifts in the middle of the workout and why am I doing three different types of chin ups? There are also no reps / sets calculated nor are there 1RM percentages for weight. Bro splits are some of the lowest quality routines you can use and this somehow makes them worse. You could replace all of this, remove the bells and whistles, and create a bare bones PPL app that determines exercises based on equipment available and it would be light years better than this.
  - duxup 1y ago
    Were those intended to be "do it in this order" or were they just options? I got the feeling they were more options and you could reorder them if you wanted or shuffle or just do one or another. To me a more casual / getting started is just about doing the thing.
    - LostMyLogin 1y ago
      I'm not sure a beginner would know what order to place them in nor would they recognize the potential injury risk associated with stacking some of these exercises. Beginners should be focusing on form and simple compound lifts. Throwing them into things like heavy accessory lifts with no regard for exercise choice or format is a quick way to get hurt. Again, I want to applaud OP for doing this. The fitness industry is in a terrible place and tools like this have a great place. I just think it needs a ton of work to make it useful. Maybe if I find some time, I'll try and contribute but in it's current state I would never recommend something like this to anyone.
atrus 1y ago
I was just poking around, but how/why aren't there issues with the videos now. Sure you're just embedding youtube videos, but what's to stop them from taking that down? Are there really no open licensed workout-movement animations out there? That sounds like a fun beginner animation project honestly.
- surgomat 1y ago
  The videos currently embedded are "watermarked" and come from a partner app that granted permission to use them for this open-source project. I wanted to make sure everything is legally safe and not just scraped or reused without rights. Producing proper 3D exercise videos is actually VERY expensive we’re talking €10–20 per animation, or thousands of euros per month if you go through a good/high quality API provider. That’s why it's such a tough space for open-source tools to compete in. Long-term, I'd love to help build a community-driven, open-licensed library of movement animations but until then, this partnership was the best balance between cost, legality, and quality. Thanks for raising it
mariotacke 1y ago
Love it! Would be cool to be able to optionally select muscle groups first, i.e. before selecting equipment. Also, seeing all available exercises for a muscle group rather than the pre-defined 3 would help tailor the experience more.
- davidmurdoch 1y ago
  Why muscles first?
  - kleiba 1y ago
    Because the purpose of exercising is usually not to use a certain machine but to train a certain muscle (group).
    - davidmurdoch 1y ago
      The feature is definitely not meant to serve as option for what you want to use, but what you can use. You could use it that way, of course, but that's not what it's there for.
  - pc86 1y ago
    You generally want to make sure you're working out specific muscles or muscle groups a certain of times each week and with a certain number of working sets, rather than "I have used $MACHINE recently so I need to do that today."
    - Zananok 1y ago
      I only have dumbbells, so selecting the equipment first is actually ideal for me
      - pc86 1y ago
        Ah yes that makes sense! I would think of that as more of a pre-workout filter? Where you select the equipment you have available and it automatically filters out everything that requires equipment you don't have access to.
jcmontx 1y ago
"Error loading exercises". Are you getting hackernewsed?
- nsagent 1y ago
  Just ran into the same issue. The start of the flow certainly looked interesting. Too bas I couldn't get further along. I'll try to look at it again later.
- miltonlaxer 1y ago
  same
minimalist 1y ago
It does not appear to be working for me right now, I get "error loading exercises". What are your thoughts about the wger project [0]? It is a FLOSS AGPL-licensed self-hosted fitness/workout/nutrition manager that has existed for almost a decade (I think?) It's a django app and has a companion flutter app that runs on android/ios/windows/linux/macos. It supports multiple users and could even be used to run a gym. Body.build [1] is a newer FLOSS project (also browser-based) that is focused around building a weight lifting program. The author of body.build also contributes to wger. I'm using wger in my homelab and while there are a lot of moving pieces to the self-host process, it works well. I'd say the biggest limitation is the comprehensiveness of their exercise database, but that is something that many people have recognized and are steadily expanding. If anyone is willing to contribute exercises (and exercise media) to this AGPL licensed project, they would definitely appreciate it! [0]: https://github.com/wger-project https://github.com/wger-project [1]: https://github.com/Dieterbe/body.build https://github.com/Dieterbe/body.build
- riedel 1y ago
  I got the same error.
  - surgomat 1y ago
    Yes totally unexpected! It is fixed right now. Traffic spiked and my backend rate limits kicked in too hard. Thanks so much for trying it out
    - gonzalohm 1y ago
      I'm still getting the same error
      - surgomat 1y ago
        maybe some weird cache?? sorry about that é_è... cannot see the error anymore in the logs
duxup 1y ago
I like the idea of some of these every day basic information type things having nice free sites.
- surgomat 1y ago
  yup, glad it resonates with you :)
stephenhandley 1y ago
I don't get the pick the muscles thing almost as much as I get the open source fitness thing.
- marcuskaz 1y ago
  Agree, it seems like a mismatch of features and audience. As someone who doesn't know much about working out or what exercises to do this sounds like a good app. I need help, but picking based on muscles is off. My thought and goals are not by muscle group, but losing weight or getting more toned. Conversely, someone who knows what muscle groups they want to target, probably already has some sense of the exercises to target and thus less likely to need the app.
  - dybber 1y ago
    For someone like me, who have had an accident (dislocated kneecap) and need to focus on special muscle groups to compensate it makes sense to search for exercises based on muscle groups.
    - jhaile 1y ago
      Interesting, although I wouldn't say that's the audience that the author says he's targeting. Also - for most people who had accidents they'd probably rather click on "Dislocated Kneecap" and then have the software suggest exercises to help with that condition - vs needing to bring that knowledge to the app.
  - surgomat 1y ago
    great feedback and I agree that (i forgot tbh..) most beginners don't think in muscle groups, but in goals like "lose weight" "feel better", "beginner friendly", etc... The goal is to make the app more welcoming by offering goal-based (or filters,let's see) entry points like "fat loss" "beginner full-body" or "3x/week routine" and not require anatomy knowledge to get started. The muscle filter will just be one of many ways to browse, not a gatekeeper i guess. Thanks a lot for highlighting this!
- 1y ago
nickjantz 1y ago
Thanks for doing this! I recently was looking at enhancing workout.lol and noticed that but was wondering what happened. I have some enhancements and think still an open PR on the original repo I will port over.
- surgomat 1y ago
  That would be amazing I’d love to see your ideas make it into Workout.cool!! Let me know if you need help porting the PRs îll support and merge contributions quickly.
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SeeManDo 1y ago
Looks a lot like https://workout.lol/ https://workout.lol/
- SeeManDo 1y ago
  Ah I see he mentions this
- derbOac 1y ago
  It reminded me a lot of https://musclewiki.com/ https://musclewiki.com/ (or vice versa).
kylebenzle 1y ago
Is this not just more AI slop? Why is anyone commenting or voint it up?
- mrln 1y ago
  How do you even come to that conclusion? There's nothing on that page that screams "AI slop" to me.
  - blitztime 1y ago
    The readme and the emojis seem heavily AI.
    - edude03 1y ago
      Could be, I've seen a weird trend of using AI to write content when it doesn't make sense. Sure, using it to write a blog post about a topic is "slop" but I can see arguments for it. Using it to improve thoughts you have in your head, by making up details and add emojis however, I can't understand. For example as a heavy FB Market place user I see a lot of stuff like: [picture of an iPhone 12] - iphone 14 - new battery - delivers to [enter your state here] - comes with [enter accessories it comes with] Like they were too lazy to even fill in the brackets or ensure some level of accuracy. What's the point?
      - throwawayoldie 1y ago
        That's a problem that was solved in the 1980s with the introduction of "mail merge" functionality in word processors. Using an LLM to do this is like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly.
    - RankingMember 1y ago
      I hope people come to realize that this kind of stuff is a major turn-off right out of the gate.
  - deleted 1y ago
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Sander_Marechal 1y ago
It would be great if the equipment and muscle selection wasn't mandatory. For example, I have a pull-up bar but I have no idea what muscles I can train with it. Why not let me filter on beginner exercises instead?
- lifesaverluke 1y ago
  then you should choose your pull-up bar as equipment, right?
  - Sander_Marechal 1y ago
    In my specific case, yes. But you could also flip it around. Maybe select some muscles and not select any equipment. They you can see what kind of equipment you might want to buy.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    A pull up bar is the first thing you should get since it can target muscles that are hard to do any other way. For most other muscles you can find some other way to strengthen them just using body weight exercises. For most people a pull up bar plus body weight exercises will get them everything they want: enough fitness for good health. If you want to win competitions you need the right equipment (different competitions need different equipment).
- surgomat 1y ago
  Mh yeah i didn't expect that but it shows that the current flow assumes a bit too much knowledge up front, I"ve heard similar feedback from others. I'm already planning to make the filters optional, and add things like "beginner-friendly", "popular exercises", "calisthetics", ... Thanks for pointing it out
  - flkiwi 1y ago
    This is the number one complaint I have with all of these solutions (and my tone here is friendly, not irritated): they assume you're already far along your fitness journey. Watching Apple's iOS updates talk about AI coaches to "help ensure you stay in your max results zone" or whatever ... my dude, that person doesn't need an AI coach. That person is already optimizing by fractions of a performance percentage point. People need, and benefit from, tools and coaching when they're starting from zero.
abtinf 1y ago
Just out of curiosity: if the original project was open source, why did you decide to restart from scratch?
- surgomat 1y ago
  I actually tried really hard not to sent 15 emails over 9 months to the new owner, offering to help or even take over the repo but i had no replies. Issues and PRs were ignored(you juste have to see the issues section of the report). Rebuilding from scratch was the only way to fix the licensing & continue the project i guess
  - Asraelite 1y ago
    So why didn't you fork it? And what specifically were the licensing issues? workout.lol is MIT from what I can see.
    - surgomat 1y ago
      the code was indeed MIT. The licensing issue I referred to was about the videos: many of them came from paid/licensed sources
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - cAtte_ 1y ago
    just fork it?
    - surgomat 1y ago
      the original project was built in javascript with a NoSQL backend (mongo). I wanted to move to a more "new", (robust?) and maintainable stack with TypeScript and a SQL-based backend (PostgreSQL)
olliejennings 1y ago
Am not sure what your data source is, but l run the following: - https://wrkout.xyz/ https://wrkout.xyz/ (exercise database api with images and videos) - https://github.com/wrkout/exercises.json https://github.com/wrkout/exercises.json (open source exercise dataset) If they are of any interest / help
- surgomat 1y ago
  Hey actually came across wrkout.xyz a while back, really cool project! For this, i rebuilt the entire dataset from scratch with a partner to avoid any licensing ambiguity (especially with videos), and to have full control over attributes, translations, etc. But I absolutely love seeing other open projects in this space and I'd be happy to explore possible synergies if it can help both communities. DMs open !
- desireco42 1y ago
  This is how you do contribution. Thank you. Everyone has ideas about fitness, but this makes it super easy to start because you already did a collection for us.
unstppbl 1y ago
Wow! You're a legend! Thank you!
- surgomat 1y ago
  Thanks for your comment !
paul7986 1y ago
I count calories and use chatGPT to do so by taking pics of my meals / what I eat. I'm looking forward to Meta adding this feature to their Ray Ban smartglasses so the glasses automagically count my calories each time it sees food on my plate or going into my mouth. A feature they possibly should make optional, but for me who has prescription Metas it would be a big time saver (try to eat 1500 to 2000 calories a day and burn 250 to 500 in exercise). I think the knowledge of how many calories you consume done automagically would prompt 1/4 of people thinking and or on Ozempic to not do it.
- edude03 1y ago
  You know counting calories by taking a picture literally doesn't work right? In fact, I'd argue it's one of the best examples of when an LLM confidently feeds you misinformation. An obvious example, a chicken breast fried in oil and a chicken breast air fried look identical, yet the oil fried one would have 3-4x the calories at least. Don't take my work for it though - this was just on HN the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44220135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44220135
  - toyetic 1y ago
    What happens if you give it that context though? Or prompt it to search the web for comparable meals?
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - cogman10 1y ago
      At that point I just have to ask what the AI is actually doing for you? I can just hit a search engine and say "number of calories in X" and get a precise answer with 2 seconds of calculator math. If I have to take a picture, send it to ai, but then amend it with "This is air fried chicken, it weighs x, it's a breast cut. I didn't add salt." Why do all that when a single search will give me the answer I want without the picture upload or context?
daxaxelrod 1y ago
I don't want to track any of this myself. I want to walk into a gym, have some cameras follow me around, and have it analyze what I did while I was there, including statistics over time.
- ctxc 1y ago
  Well if I had to do this, I'd build the whole system just procrastinating walking into the gym :P
- ashwinsundar 1y ago
  Wow I really do not want this…cameras to track you in a gym? What kind of dystopia is that?
  - stevesunderland 1y ago
    To be fair, the cameras are already there. This would just make them more useful I guess?
bityard 1y ago
Do we have any assurance that you won't sell it again?
- surgomat 1y ago
  To be clear: I never owned workout.lol, I was just the main contributor. For the sell process, like with any open-source project whether it's an NPM package or anything else, there are no absolute guarantees... that's just the nature of open ecosystems... But I've built Workout.cool with transparency in mind, no hidden business model, and self-hostable. Just what I can tell you is this : I've been passionate about fitness my whole life let's say. I started sports at 3 years old, and I've been into strength training for over 15 years. I didn't build this to make money. I built it because I genuinely care and because I see more and more people missing out on the benefits of training, often overwhelmed by complexity, closed ecosystems, or paywalled apps, including people close to me, like my sister. Hope that my reply counts for something...
ryanwhitney 1y ago
This looks great. Yours isn't loading for me, but workout.lol looks like it'd provide the perfect level of instruction. (I'd skip the exercises/sets screen and DIY, but picking muscles and getting ideas/examples is helpful.) One note: if you're using the same video set as workout.lol, the one that loaded for me (male_dumbbell_hammer_curl_front_ani.mp4) could be compressed from 3.3mb to <300kb with little quality loss.
- surgomat 1y ago
  Hey, the issue is fixed. I’m only embedding YouTube videos now, all with permission or public use from the original author. If you’re into 3D or want to help create open assets, I’d love to chat!
Vincenius 1y ago
Oh funny to see it here. I'm the original author of workout.lol. I sold the app to a guy who seemed to just abandoned it. I also texted him multiple times if he needs support, but he didn't answer anymore. It makes me really happy to see it being maintained again! Great work on the UI improvements.
- surgomat 1y ago
  Ohoh ! Vincenius !! You have no idea how happy I was when I saw your name pop up ahahha Yeah, no luck either. It really broke my heart to see the project stall like that. That's what pushed me to rebuild everything, keeping the same open spirit you had from day one. Thanks a lot for the kind words about the UI it means a lot coming from you. And if you ever feel like jumping back in (I totally get that it might be tricky, especially since you sold the original project and this one is so close) but you’d always be welcome. Your input, ideas, or even just your presence would mean a lot ! Cheers !
  - higgins 1y ago
    yo @dang, a section on HN for missed-tech-connections would be RAAAAAAAAAD
    - dang 1y ago
      What do you have in mind?
      - iKlsR 1y ago
        Could be a new tab "collab" or something to do with joint work maybe, one could post a site, repo or detail a past work experience and anyone who was around or passed thru could reconnect, discuss stuff and share anecdotes. Thinking long dead internal faang tools, stuff like op's post, abandoned repos, old shareware etc. Could also be a place to find cofounders or people interested in starting or working on stuff together.
        1y ago
cssanchez 1y ago
I started working out without a trainer a few months ago as well as doing rehab for a nasty shoulder tear. Today I see the benefit of targeting precise muscles and muscle groups, unlike other beginners in this thread. One feature request I'd add to the pipeline is to filter exercises available by Gym. Planet Fitness is ironically super unfriendly to beginners and limited in what they offer. People could add the exercises available at their gym and grow the database. Conversely, this could help beginner home gymmers plan what machines / weights to buy to maximize their routine.
- surgomat 1y ago
  Thanks for sharing your experience I’m glad to hear you're finding value in understanding muscle targeting. Bcs It's true that most beginners tend to think in terms of "full body" or "upper body" rather than doing a structured split let's say. They don’t usually say "I want to train my posterior deltoids and lats" lol I love the idea of filtering exercises by gym type or gym but can be hard to handle for "private" gyms and will also need some kind of moderation... Could work for large branded gyms though.
timmyers 1y ago
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captainkrtek 1y ago
This is awesome! Thanks for sharing :-)
- surgomat 1y ago
  Thanks mate.
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_justroy 1y ago
Awesome tool. Thanks for Sharing
- surgomat 1y ago
  Thanks to you for testing the app !
czhu12 1y ago
Got an error when trying to build a workout. Looks useful though! When I travel I only have bands if there are no local gyms offering reasonable prices, and doing the same 3 workouts gets boring https://imgur.com/a/Z71iT65 https://imgur.com/a/Z71iT65 One thing that would be super nice, make the back button and forward button work. Its really tempting to want to hit the back button when you select equipment, click next, and realized you missed one.
- surgomat 1y ago
  The error should be fixed, thanks for the screenshot mate. As a digital nomad, i totally hear you on the traveling with bands situation and yeah, repeating the same 3 workouts gets old reeeeally fast. One of the goals with Workout.cool is to offer more "variety" and inspiration let's say. Planning to add 5 to 10 exercices per week.
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sergiotapia 1y ago
"Error loading exercises" on what should be a simple SQL where query? and no way to retry the selection without refreshing the page.
- surgomat 1y ago
  Yeap,was due to some backend rate limiting issues (got unexpectedly HN'd lol), but should be fixed ! Thanks for calling it out !
zeta0134 1y ago
As a fitness newbie, my first and most immediate feedback is confusion at the otherwise delightful muscle selection interface, which seems to be required during onboarding before I can see what the product does. I'm loosely aware of "push", "pull" and "leg" groupings, but I'm not personally familiar with what specific muscles each routine is actually meant to target. This seems to mean the app is currently only meant for those who want to seriously study their anatomy. Would it be possible to ease a novice into things more gently somehow? Perhaps with recommended muscle groups?
- surgomat 1y ago
  Thanks so much for this feedback The current onboarding assumes a bit too much knowledge up front (didn't expect that). Bcs yeah, most beginners don’t think in terms of "rear delts" or "lats" they just want to "get stronger", feel better i guess I'll be adding: Optional muscle selection (or skipping it entirely) Beginner-friendly presets like "Full Body", "Upper Body", etc. OR suggested muscle groups with labels like "Chest + Triceps (Push)" / back-biceps... etc. The goal is definitely not to make you study anatomy before you can get started lol and your feedback helps to build a smoother, more welcoming flow Thanks again for that ! And welcome to the fitness journey! Hope to see you soon
- aio2 1y ago
  push and pull i can understand struggling on, but if you don't know legs that's kinda on you
deadbabe 1y ago
I struggle to see the point of most fitness apps. Fitness really is a solved problem. The fitness apps and influencers will try to convince you that you need a whole database of “creative” and new exercises to see progress, making it seem like there’s “secrets” to getting the body you want fast. There are no secrets. The truth is, you just have to do the same dozen or so “boring” exercises that everyone already knows. But you have to do them consistently, and you have to increase their difficulty over time. And then make sure you eat right. A lot of coaching should just be on getting the numbers right and correcting your form. But once you learn how to get that right, you can pretty much be on your own, and fitness apps become little more than a place for you to track progress, if you even care about tracking progress. Progress will happen whether you track it or not, you can just go by feel.
- bschwarz 1y ago
  The boring exercises too were once novel but you're right in that continued progression is the most important thing. However, you can't improve what you don't measure.
atum47 1y ago
Damn, I made an app to track gym progress back in college; I've made a deal with the gym owner so I could workout for free. I hoped one day to polish it up and release it to the public. Mine had some good features, like the ability to share your protocol with other people
- surgomat 1y ago
  Awesome would love to see this app! The idea of sharing your protocol (or full workout templates) is something I'm definitly building into Workout.cool as well. Users will be able to create routines, save them, and share them publicly (or privately) super useful for friends, coaches, or even just "community inspiration"?. If you ever feel like revisiting your old project or contributing some ideas/features, I'd love to hear more!
  - atum47 1y ago
    mine was a php mysql backend with a js spa running on the browser. back then I got a cheap server to host everything, but once the app (pwa) was installed there were only a handfull of requests per user. my idea was to actually have a centralized backend and distribute the app. I need to take a look at the source code for that project...
mywittyname 1y ago
This is great! I've been looking for an alternative to Strong, since it has a limit on the number of workout templates that you can have in the free version (and $100+ for such a simple app feels excessive). I added a link to my home screen to make it feel like an app and I'll give it a go for a week to see how it goes.
- surgomat 1y ago
  Really appreciate you giving it a shot! Adding it to your home screen is exactly the right move ahah i've done the same Would love to hear your thoughts after a week of usage feel free to drop feedback anytime, i will add a button in the topbar called "Feedback" by the end of the week. Thanks !
- eclat 1y ago
  I feel like strong strikes the right balance of simplicity and features. It has everything one needs and no bloat. The sign up flow on workout cool is really strange - I just want to input my regime and record sessions.
Eric_WVGG 1y ago
Wow, this doesn't suck at all. The thing that's missing for me is suggestions on how much to lift / how many reps. There's a fitness program called 100 Pushups that came up with a good solution for that… - Repeat the exercise (in this case, a push-up) as many times as possible until failure. A person might achieve 8, for example. - The app comes up with a schedule; every other day, the user is expected to do a set of 3, 4, 3, 3, 5 (with a 2-minute rest between each set) - The app's schedule has an algorithm that ramps up the reps at a pace that the user can manage — and self-adjusts if the schedule is too easy or too hard… - until the user can do 100 push-ups at the 6-week period. If there's any interest in this, I'd be open to discussing a UI and contributing.
- Eric_WVGG 1y ago
  If you wanted to ditch the backend, you could hook this up to AT Protocol, have all the users’ data in a PDS. No need for servers — ever — and if this project fell to a similar fate of the old one, it could keep working forever.
- surgomat 1y ago
  I love that idea. Yeah i know this app : it is a great example of how simple, adaptive progression can really motivate people (specially beginners). And yes I'd absolutely be interested in discussing a UI + flow for a self-adjusting progression system like that. Yeah. Let's talk about that, drop me a DM? I can think about some (ugly) alhorithm first
  - Eric_WVGG 1y ago
    I don't think they do DMs here? but anyway I posted on the Github issues with some thoughts on UI and basic sketch of data needs
- planetpluta 1y ago
  Curious about the 100 pushups program app — do you have a particular one you like that you can share? Edit: Followed the github issue and found the link!
ZeWaka 1y ago
Curious on the design decision to have a server backend, instead of just offloading everything to the client to avoid the hug of death issue and server costs.
- surgomat 1y ago
  Great question i definitely considered going fully client-side at first to avoid backend costs and "risks" lets say. I choose to keep a server backend for a few key reasons: - Centralized updates to the exercise database (videos, translations, attributes) without shipping a new frontend each time. (The goal is to have 5 to 10 new exercices per week) - The ability to offer shared features like community workouts, saved routines, and (eventually) syncing across devices, etC... Room to grow into more advanced features like progression tracking, public/privates APIs (strava, garmin, ...), and integrations all of which are much harder to manage purely client-side in my humble opinion.
jahrichie 1y ago
Ironically I made something just like this 2 years ago, but much less sophisticated and pretty. If you want any help or to collab on future iterations please shoot me an email. https://compute.rorwashere.com/ https://compute.rorwashere.com/ cheers@rorwashere.com
- surgomat 1y ago
  Awesome, love seeing others exploring the same health/dev space! FYI your link is bringing me to a Typeform (?) feel free to resend a link For collaborating, yes i'd be up or even just bounce around ideas for future iterations. I’ll shoot you an email soon so we can chat more Would love to collaborate. In the meantime PRs are always welcome if you ever feel like contributing directly :D Cheers!
crossroadsguy 1y ago
I guess Sign in with Apple costs money compared to Sign in with Google, right?
- surgomat 1y ago
  Technically sign in with Apple doesn't cost money (directly) it's free to implement But you do need to have an active Apple Developer account (which is $99/year) to set it up and maintain it.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
R_khameshra 1y ago
It looks promising. I retrieve some error response when fetching exercise, will check again
nerevarthelame 1y ago
I ran into a handful of technical issues, which are understandable at this early stage. But on a more fundamental level, the exercise recommendation doesn't seem like it demonstrates a good knowledge of fitness program design. So I really would not recommend anyone use it to design a fitness program, at least in the current state. It might be better to focus not on generating routines from scratch for users, but rather logging existing workouts, and importing routines/templates other people have designed. (I know you expressed interested in working on the latter in the comments here.) Some specific issues I encountered: 1. I said that I wanted a full-ish body workout, and it recommended 33 distinct exercises for a single session. That's wildly impractical. 2. The exercise selection seems to just pick 3 random lifts (based on available equipment) for each selected muscle group and ignores the fact that many lifts hit more than one muscle group at a time. It also disregards the widely accepted notion that certain muscle groups respond better to different training volumes. 3. The selection of specific exercises seems arbitrary, recommending some that are very far out of the mainstream and with poor resistance curves. 4. It recommended exercises with equipment I do not have (I'm a home gym person - no way to exclude machines) 5. It suggests strange branded equipment (e.g., "Dynaband Shoulder Press") 6. If you go back to select different equipment, it will continue to recommend exercises with that equipment. 7. Can't delete recommended exercises, nor even add new ones.
- surgomat 1y ago
  Wow, Thanks a lot for taking the time to write this seriously. This kind of detailed feedback is incredibly valuable, especially at this early stage. Thanks ! So, yeah you're absolutely right: the exercise suggestion logic is very basic for now, and doesn't reflect proper programming principles (volume, movement patterns, recovery, compound/isolation balance, etc.). It’s more of a discovery tool than a real "smart" coach let's say. I probably need to make that clearer in the current UI. To your specific points: 1. 33 exercises for a single session YES that's overkill, lol. 2. It currently just picks 3 per muscle group, with no upper cap or "contextual logic" let's say, and that'll change soon. 3. I'm already working to "categorize" the exercises by introducing metadata like compound/isolation, primary/secondary muscle groups, movement patterns, and tags for resistance "quality" let's say or "popularity". 4. I’m not sure I fully understood your expectation here. Do you mean you'd like to explicitly exclude certain machines or "types" of equipment, even if others are selected? (e.g. : "I have dumbbells and a pull-up bar, but please exclude all cable or machine-based exercises"). If so, that makes total sense. I'd love to clarify and improve that part of the UI. Thanks. 5. OK 6. Changing equipment doesn’t fully update the list : bug confirmed, I'll fix that. (For the moment yes you have to do it 2 time - render problem). 7. It's high on roadmap. You'll be able to fully edit your routine very soon. Really appreciate the critique. No ego here I want this to be useful and respectful of good training principles. If you're ever up for helping shape that direction (even just high-level ideas), I'd love your input, what do you say?
apineda 1y ago
If I were to want to experiment with my own gym app idea, would I be able to license the data set?
- surgomat 1y ago
  Are you speaking about videos ? If yes, it comes from a partnership, and while it's allowed for use within this open-source project, it’s not automatically "sublicensable" let's say. That said, if you’re interested, you can either: Reach out directly to the partner for permission, or Let me know more about your project idea, and I'd be happy to introduce you or ask on your behalf to see what's possible.
sfblah 1y ago
I was interested in making an open-source version of strava, so along the same lines. I hate how strava blocks so many features if you don't pay. The idea was to make a lichess to strava's chess.com. I'm just not sure if there are people who would want to work on such a thing, though. I built a few pieces, but kind of got stalled out.
- surgomat 1y ago
  I love that idea making a "Lichess for Strava" lol. I totally relate to your frustration so many basic features are paywalled on Strava (i paid...lol) and there's real room for a community-driven, open alternative. Can't encourage you more to continue ! I felt the same way when starting Workout.cool. On the old app, I realized a lot of people want open, transparent tools in the fitness (bodybuilding / weightlifting specially) space. If you ever feel like picking it back up or want to brainstorm how pieces of what you built could plug into something broader I'd be super happy to chat?
jimmcslim 1y ago
Some of the other comments have identified the priority of proper form when lifting… are there any accurate and effective computer vision solutions for checking correct lifting form and posture throughout different types of moves? Preferably open source and deployable with off the shelf consumer hardware.
aagha 1y ago
Tried to register. Error: window.fbq is not a function
ugh123 1y ago
Amazing! For the muscle group selector, could it have an option for things like 'full body', 'core', etc?
ericzawo 1y ago
Got an error immediately.
- surgomat 1y ago
  Uh, sorry about that we got hit with a "surge of traffic" let's say (earlier). It should be back to normal now! Mind giving it another try é_è? Keep me posted !
victor22 1y ago
Fuck yeah us nerds are working out, the bullies are so cooked
- surgomat 1y ago
  Ahahah hell yeah! Nerds with routines, spreadsheets and gains let's keep pushing both code and plates Honestly, I think it's also tied to growing awareness around how much time we all spend sitting. Yesterday i was sitting 19h. More devs and tech folks are realizing that staying active is kind of essential if we want to feel good and stay "sharp" long-term let's say.
sirjaz 1y ago
Make it a desktop app also, not just mobile
nittanymount 1y ago
error loading now, 4:40PST thanks. :-)
nittanymount 1y ago
possible to use sqlite for simplicity? really need postgresql ?
- surgomat 1y ago
  not "really" let's say but we chose PostgreSQL mainly for scalability and flexibility long-term. Features like JSONB, advanced filtering, full-text search, and complex joins are key to how we handle (-exercises specifically- but also user data, and routines in the future) That said, I totally get the appeal of SQLite for quick local setups. I might add an experimental SQLite mode in the future for simple and/or personal use cases but for now, PostgreSQL is required to support the full feature set Appreciate the interest (and open to suggestions on making setup smoother) :D Cheers
surgomat 1y ago
If you'd like to chat, ask questions, suggest features or just hang out with other fitness & dev folks we’ve just opened a small Discord server: https://discord.gg/NtrsUBuHUB https://discord.gg/NtrsUBuHUB feel free to join!
vinnski 1y ago
Incredible! Would like to see workout animations without having to watch a YouTube video though. Is there no currently existing free library?
- surgomat 1y ago
  M'yeah... having clean, native workout animations would make the experience muchhhh smoother. Right now, the videos are embedded from a partner app that kindly gave me permission to use them for this open-source project. I really wanted to avoid any gray areas around licensing or scraping/unapproved reuse. The challenge is this: producing quality 3D exercise animations is very expensive often €10–20 per animation let's say, or thousands per month via "proper/serious" APIs. That's part of why it's so hard for open-source fitness tools to offer the same polish as commercial apps. That said, I'd love (will?) to help kickstart a community-driven, open-licensed library of movement animations long-term something reusable by anyone building fitness tools. it's a REAL need. Appreciate you bringing it
admiralrohan 1y ago
I like the youtube videos, how each exercise is highlighting the engaged muscles. Would like to see the whole list (searchable) of exercises for quicker access.
- surgomat 1y ago
  Glad you liked the videos And yes, you're totally right: having a searchable, complete list of exercises is something. We are working on it. The current experience is a bit too "filter-dependent" let's say and I want to make exploration more "flexible". Thanks for the feedback it's definitely coming soon!
matiascoin 1y ago
thank you
- surgomat 1y ago
  You're very welcome mate:)
lorepieri 1y ago
I suggest https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine/ https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommend... , they also have a spreadsheet to track sessions.
- surgomat 1y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion, yeap their resources are definitely solid for beginners That said, I'm not sure how directly it would help in the context of Workout.cool, can you provide more context ? Maybe when adding structured training plans? is that the kind of use case you had in mind? Would love to hear how you think it could fit! Thanks
midenginedcoupe 1y ago
Interesting timing, Stronger By Science have just made their programme bundle free for every body: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/program-bundle/ https://www.strongerbyscience.com/program-bundle/ Maybe making use of these could solve the exercise selection and programming issues in the app?
- surgomat 1y ago
  Awesome move from Stronger By Science That said, they're mostly full training programs i guess, while what Workout.cool or the old Workout.lol project needs is more at the "individual exercise level" let's say. Videos, metadata, structure, etc. If they ever open-source a library of exercise videos with clear licensing, that could definitely help yep
  - midenginedcoupe 1y ago
    But I think that's my major issue with the app as I understand it. Starting by choosing which muscle to work is a really odd choice. If you're novice enough that you don't know which movements to choose then you're also likely to not know which are the most effective muscles to target for your goals. Then the app gives you a bunch of exercises to target that one muscle, but doesn't tell you which other muscles the exercise also targets. Or any clues on suitable weights or rep ranges, never mind progression. It also seems it's suggesting doing all the suggested movements. I picked barbell and pecs and it gave me three exercises. Then, even more weirdly, I came in again to write this comment and selecting the same options it gave me a different set of three exercises. First time around it didn't even suggest barbell bench press - the most obvious and common exercises for that muscle and equipment. That's all really confusing and un-obvious. Being able to pick a template programme and tweak from there seems a much friendlier way of getting started.
gregwebs 1y ago
Liftosaur is an interesting project in this space that I use for tracking my weight lifting. The lifting routine is programmable and shareable. They have a database of exercises that are based around linking to YouTube videos. https://www.liftosaur.com/ https://www.liftosaur.com/
- surgomat 1y ago
  Thanks for sharing. I actually didn't know about Liftosaur before, but I just checked it out and I love their UI! Super clean and well thought out. Definitely going to keep it in mind. Thanks for the discovery
- TychoCelchuuu 1y ago
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taegee 1y ago
The login seems broken. I always get "Invalid credentials or account does not exist", even after password reset.
- surgomat 1y ago
  Thanks for flagging that and sorry you're running into login issue mate. That error can sometimes appear even after a password reset due to a session mismatch (I'm working on improving that flow this afternoon). In the meantime, you can try logging in with Google? it should work smoothly and skip the password altogether...
Dusksky 1y ago
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DinoNuggies45 1y ago
Love seeing open-source takes on things like this. Curious how you’re handling progress tracking over time are you storing data locally or syncing with a backend?
- surgomat 1y ago
  Thanks mate! Right now, it's a mix of both let's say. first, local storage during the session (useful for example in gyms, garages, or basements with poor or no connectivity) second, syncs with the backend once the session ends and if failed, periodically. For the tracking, the idea is to eventually generate progress graphs, track "volume" over time, and visualize trends for each exercise or muscle group. More to come on that front :D
FinnKuhn 1y ago
Would be cool to see some sort of difficulty/strength setting as I'm definitely not able to do handstand push ups to train my shoulders. ;)
- surgomat 1y ago
  Yes. Planning to add difficulty levels and progression-friendly alternatives (e.g. pike push-ups, dumbbell presses, etc.) so you can train the same muscle group at your current level with the same button as you can see "Shuffle". I can imagine some "Decrease difficulty" button. (or inverse). Appreciate the feedback
pwillia7 1y ago
This is rad -- I loved workout lol and was sad all the videos stopped working. Thank you!
- surgomat 1y ago
  I felt the same way when workout.lol went quiet! really pushed to rebuild something that would last without video licensing issues this time. So welcome back glad to have you with us again :) !
dankwizard 1y ago
has open source fitness app -> sells when big has asked us to come together to build an even bigger open source fitness app -> ... profit?
8mobile 1y ago
Hi, congrats for workout.cool I really like that it lets you build workout plans and track progress, super useful for my projects. It would be great if it also had a way to sync with wearables or import data from fitness trackers in the future. Keep it up! Thanks
- surgomat 1y ago
  Hey thanks a lot. If you have specific trackers or APIs in mind, feel free to share would love to hear more about your use case. Strava/Garmin/Apple? What do you want to see in workout.cool : hearthbeat, steps, .. ?
fullofdev 1y ago
that's a really cool project! thanks for sharing!
- surgomat 1y ago
  Thank you! Really appreciate.
orlando252 1y ago
This is pretty cool! It would be great if there was a functional trainer, cable machine in the list of equipment.

827 points by surgomat 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

tonyhart7 1y ago

wow, its great tool has muscle selection is so much more help full than 80+% apps on app store right now

surgomat 1y ago
Does that mean that i got to do a mobile app? Do you think its worth it ?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- billyjmc 1y ago
  It could potentially help with discoverability. As it stands, I’d imagine it takes a very particular sort of search query (either “open source fitness” in Google or “fitness” on GitHub) to have a chance at finding this. Unless your target audience is only the intersection of FOSS-advocates and fitness folks, you might be limiting adoption. With that said, the website works just fine on my phone.

eitally 1y ago

Thanks for sharing -- I'm a personal trainer and will give this a shot. Is there any plan to allow users to create workouts to share (or does it already and I haven't discovered it yet?)?, or API integration with common platforms like Strava, Garmin Connect, Healthkit, Google Fit, Coros, etc?

surgomat 1y ago
Thanks to you ,really cool to have a personal trainer trying it out. Yes, sharing workouts is on the roadmap. Users will be able to create routines, save them, and share them with others (even with public links) as the previous workout-lol project. As for API integrations (Strava, Garmin, HealthKit, etc.) definitely something I’m open to. Curious to know : what kind of data would you want to sync or pull in? Workouts? Step counts? Heart rate zones?
- eitally 1y ago
  For your reference, Medbridge is one of the leading players in this market, for trainers creating prescribed programs for their clients/patients. The mobile app does everything you've created so far, but adds a governance and analytics layers for the trainer to specify sets and reps, track weights, and for the client to assess their rpe/comments/feedback. Think of it similar to the Strong app, but aimed at trainers/PTs. https://www.medbridge.com/care/home-exercise-program https://www.medbridge.com/care/home-exercise-program

adobrawy 1y ago

It looks promising. I retrieve error response when fetching exercise: 0:{"a":"$@1","f":"","b":"eETmgndxtv4Ar0i8Wync1"} 1:{"serverError":"An unexpected error occurred."} My request: curl 'https://workout.cool/ https://workout.cool/' \ -H 'accept: text/x-component' \ -H 'accept-language: en-US,en;q=0.9,pl-PL;q=0.8,pl;q=0.7' \ -H 'cache-control: no-cache' \ -H 'content-type: text/plain;charset=UTF-8' \ -b 'Next-Locale=en; _fbp=fb.1.1750253718188.954698194752805529' \ -H 'next-action: 7f80b017f78704b00d2411aebde5ba8318b475de6d' \ -H 'next-router-state-tree: %5B%22%22%2C%7B%22children%22%3A%5B%5B%22locale%22%2C%22en%22%2C%22d%22%5D%2C%7B%22children%22%3A%5B%22__PAGE__%22%2C%7B%7D%2C%22%2F%22%2C%22refresh%22%5D%7D%2Cnull%2Cnull%2Ctrue%5D%7D%5D' \ -H 'origin: https://workout.cool https://workout.cool' \ -H 'pragma: no-cache' \ -H 'priority: u=1, i' \ -H 'referer: https://workout.cool/ https://workout.cool/' \ -H 'sec-ch-ua: "Google Chrome";v="137", "Chromium";v="137", "Not/A)Brand";v="24"' \ -H 'sec-ch-ua-mobile: ?1' \ -H 'sec-ch-ua-platform: "Android"' \ -H 'sec-fetch-dest: empty' \ -H 'sec-fetch-mode: cors' \ -H 'sec-fetch-site: same-origin' \ -H 'user-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0; Nexus 5 Build/MRA58N) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/137.0.0.0 Mobile Safari/537.36' \ --data-raw '[{"equipment":["PULLUP_BAR","BANDS","BODY_ONLY"],"muscles":["TRAPS","BACK","SHOULDERS","TRICEPS","FOREARMS","GLUTES","HAMSTRINGS","CALVES"],"limit":3}]'

surgomat 1y ago
Thanks a lot for reporting! The traffic from HN hit hard (which I didn’t expect tbh). I’m working on stabilizing it and will have a fix in the next minutes / hour Appreciate you testing it out! thanks again.
- mandeepj 1y ago
  HN Kiss of death or love :-). You are #1 on the front page now, so that was expected. Can I say the HN audience is very health-conscious? :-) Selected a few workouts and got this error - Error loading exercises. I'll try again after a few hours. Congratulations on the launch!!
  - surgomat 1y ago

toyetic 1y ago

This is cool, as someone whose been lifting for ~5 years its nice to see a fleshed out opensource tool for weightlifting. The main problem with any app I've tried is that after enough experience the bells and whistles of the app don't really matter and mostly what you care about is consistent tracking for progressive overload. I think this is a good app for people who want to get started weightlifting I would say the two main things needed for wider adoption would be 1. A mobile app ( or pwa, I've made and used my own personal workout app for a while as a PWA and its been just as good as any native app I've tried) 2. A way to save specific workouts as routines and track those for long periods of time

LostMyLogin 1y ago
Hesitating to write this because I don't want to push back at all on OP but I'm not sure I agree that something like this is a good option for people wanting to get started in weightlifting. I'm not sure it's a good option for anyone really. I applaud OP for the effort but this is recommending some pretty awful workouts. For example if I select back and bi, it's giving me nine different exercises with complete disregard for the order they are in or what other exercises are in the workout. Why are compound lifts in the middle of the workout and why am I doing three different types of chin ups? There are also no reps / sets calculated nor are there 1RM percentages for weight. Bro splits are some of the lowest quality routines you can use and this somehow makes them worse. You could replace all of this, remove the bells and whistles, and create a bare bones PPL app that determines exercises based on equipment available and it would be light years better than this.
- duxup 1y ago
  Were those intended to be "do it in this order" or were they just options? I got the feeling they were more options and you could reorder them if you wanted or shuffle or just do one or another. To me a more casual / getting started is just about doing the thing.
  - LostMyLogin 1y ago
    I'm not sure a beginner would know what order to place them in nor would they recognize the potential injury risk associated with stacking some of these exercises. Beginners should be focusing on form and simple compound lifts. Throwing them into things like heavy accessory lifts with no regard for exercise choice or format is a quick way to get hurt. Again, I want to applaud OP for doing this. The fitness industry is in a terrible place and tools like this have a great place. I just think it needs a ton of work to make it useful. Maybe if I find some time, I'll try and contribute but in it's current state I would never recommend something like this to anyone.

atrus 1y ago

I was just poking around, but how/why aren't there issues with the videos now. Sure you're just embedding youtube videos, but what's to stop them from taking that down? Are there really no open licensed workout-movement animations out there? That sounds like a fun beginner animation project honestly.

surgomat 1y ago
The videos currently embedded are "watermarked" and come from a partner app that granted permission to use them for this open-source project. I wanted to make sure everything is legally safe and not just scraped or reused without rights. Producing proper 3D exercise videos is actually VERY expensive we’re talking €10–20 per animation, or thousands of euros per month if you go through a good/high quality API provider. That’s why it's such a tough space for open-source tools to compete in. Long-term, I'd love to help build a community-driven, open-licensed library of movement animations but until then, this partnership was the best balance between cost, legality, and quality. Thanks for raising it

mariotacke 1y ago

Love it! Would be cool to be able to optionally select muscle groups first, i.e. before selecting equipment. Also, seeing all available exercises for a muscle group rather than the pre-defined 3 would help tailor the experience more.

davidmurdoch 1y ago
Why muscles first?
- kleiba 1y ago
  Because the purpose of exercising is usually not to use a certain machine but to train a certain muscle (group).
  - davidmurdoch 1y ago
    The feature is definitely not meant to serve as option for what you want to use, but what you can use. You could use it that way, of course, but that's not what it's there for.
- pc86 1y ago
  You generally want to make sure you're working out specific muscles or muscle groups a certain of times each week and with a certain number of working sets, rather than "I have used $MACHINE recently so I need to do that today."
  - Zananok 1y ago
    I only have dumbbells, so selecting the equipment first is actually ideal for me
    - pc86 1y ago
      Ah yes that makes sense! I would think of that as more of a pre-workout filter? Where you select the equipment you have available and it automatically filters out everything that requires equipment you don't have access to.

jcmontx 1y ago

"Error loading exercises". Are you getting hackernewsed?

nsagent 1y ago
Just ran into the same issue. The start of the flow certainly looked interesting. Too bas I couldn't get further along. I'll try to look at it again later.
miltonlaxer 1y ago
same

minimalist 1y ago

It does not appear to be working for me right now, I get "error loading exercises". What are your thoughts about the wger project [0]? It is a FLOSS AGPL-licensed self-hosted fitness/workout/nutrition manager that has existed for almost a decade (I think?) It's a django app and has a companion flutter app that runs on android/ios/windows/linux/macos. It supports multiple users and could even be used to run a gym. Body.build [1] is a newer FLOSS project (also browser-based) that is focused around building a weight lifting program. The author of body.build also contributes to wger. I'm using wger in my homelab and while there are a lot of moving pieces to the self-host process, it works well. I'd say the biggest limitation is the comprehensiveness of their exercise database, but that is something that many people have recognized and are steadily expanding. If anyone is willing to contribute exercises (and exercise media) to this AGPL licensed project, they would definitely appreciate it! [0]: https://github.com/wger-project https://github.com/wger-project [1]: https://github.com/Dieterbe/body.build https://github.com/Dieterbe/body.build

riedel 1y ago
I got the same error.
- surgomat 1y ago
  Yes totally unexpected! It is fixed right now. Traffic spiked and my backend rate limits kicked in too hard. Thanks so much for trying it out
  - gonzalohm 1y ago
    I'm still getting the same error
    - surgomat 1y ago
      maybe some weird cache?? sorry about that é_è... cannot see the error anymore in the logs

duxup 1y ago

I like the idea of some of these every day basic information type things having nice free sites.

surgomat 1y ago
yup, glad it resonates with you :)

stephenhandley 1y ago

I don't get the pick the muscles thing almost as much as I get the open source fitness thing.

marcuskaz 1y ago
Agree, it seems like a mismatch of features and audience. As someone who doesn't know much about working out or what exercises to do this sounds like a good app. I need help, but picking based on muscles is off. My thought and goals are not by muscle group, but losing weight or getting more toned. Conversely, someone who knows what muscle groups they want to target, probably already has some sense of the exercises to target and thus less likely to need the app.
- dybber 1y ago
  For someone like me, who have had an accident (dislocated kneecap) and need to focus on special muscle groups to compensate it makes sense to search for exercises based on muscle groups.
  - jhaile 1y ago
    Interesting, although I wouldn't say that's the audience that the author says he's targeting. Also - for most people who had accidents they'd probably rather click on "Dislocated Kneecap" and then have the software suggest exercises to help with that condition - vs needing to bring that knowledge to the app.
- surgomat 1y ago
  great feedback and I agree that (i forgot tbh..) most beginners don't think in muscle groups, but in goals like "lose weight" "feel better", "beginner friendly", etc... The goal is to make the app more welcoming by offering goal-based (or filters,let's see) entry points like "fat loss" "beginner full-body" or "3x/week routine" and not require anatomy knowledge to get started. The muscle filter will just be one of many ways to browse, not a gatekeeper i guess. Thanks a lot for highlighting this!
1y ago

nickjantz 1y ago

Thanks for doing this! I recently was looking at enhancing workout.lol and noticed that but was wondering what happened. I have some enhancements and think still an open PR on the original repo I will port over.

surgomat 1y ago
That would be amazing I’d love to see your ideas make it into Workout.cool!! Let me know if you need help porting the PRs îll support and merge contributions quickly.

deleted 1y ago

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SeeManDo 1y ago

Looks a lot like https://workout.lol/ https://workout.lol/

SeeManDo 1y ago
Ah I see he mentions this
derbOac 1y ago
It reminded me a lot of https://musclewiki.com/ https://musclewiki.com/ (or vice versa).

kylebenzle 1y ago

Is this not just more AI slop? Why is anyone commenting or voint it up?

mrln 1y ago
How do you even come to that conclusion? There's nothing on that page that screams "AI slop" to me.
- blitztime 1y ago
  The readme and the emojis seem heavily AI.
  - edude03 1y ago
    Could be, I've seen a weird trend of using AI to write content when it doesn't make sense. Sure, using it to write a blog post about a topic is "slop" but I can see arguments for it. Using it to improve thoughts you have in your head, by making up details and add emojis however, I can't understand. For example as a heavy FB Market place user I see a lot of stuff like: [picture of an iPhone 12] - iphone 14 - new battery - delivers to [enter your state here] - comes with [enter accessories it comes with] Like they were too lazy to even fill in the brackets or ensure some level of accuracy. What's the point?
    - throwawayoldie 1y ago
      That's a problem that was solved in the 1980s with the introduction of "mail merge" functionality in word processors. Using an LLM to do this is like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly.
  - RankingMember 1y ago
    I hope people come to realize that this kind of stuff is a major turn-off right out of the gate.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

Sander_Marechal 1y ago

It would be great if the equipment and muscle selection wasn't mandatory. For example, I have a pull-up bar but I have no idea what muscles I can train with it. Why not let me filter on beginner exercises instead?

lifesaverluke 1y ago
then you should choose your pull-up bar as equipment, right?
- Sander_Marechal 1y ago
  In my specific case, yes. But you could also flip it around. Maybe select some muscles and not select any equipment. They you can see what kind of equipment you might want to buy.
- bluGill 1y ago
  A pull up bar is the first thing you should get since it can target muscles that are hard to do any other way. For most other muscles you can find some other way to strengthen them just using body weight exercises. For most people a pull up bar plus body weight exercises will get them everything they want: enough fitness for good health. If you want to win competitions you need the right equipment (different competitions need different equipment).
surgomat 1y ago
Mh yeah i didn't expect that but it shows that the current flow assumes a bit too much knowledge up front, I"ve heard similar feedback from others. I'm already planning to make the filters optional, and add things like "beginner-friendly", "popular exercises", "calisthetics", ... Thanks for pointing it out
- flkiwi 1y ago
  This is the number one complaint I have with all of these solutions (and my tone here is friendly, not irritated): they assume you're already far along your fitness journey. Watching Apple's iOS updates talk about AI coaches to "help ensure you stay in your max results zone" or whatever ... my dude, that person doesn't need an AI coach. That person is already optimizing by fractions of a performance percentage point. People need, and benefit from, tools and coaching when they're starting from zero.

abtinf 1y ago

Just out of curiosity: if the original project was open source, why did you decide to restart from scratch?

surgomat 1y ago
I actually tried really hard not to sent 15 emails over 9 months to the new owner, offering to help or even take over the repo but i had no replies. Issues and PRs were ignored(you juste have to see the issues section of the report). Rebuilding from scratch was the only way to fix the licensing & continue the project i guess
- Asraelite 1y ago
  So why didn't you fork it? And what specifically were the licensing issues? workout.lol is MIT from what I can see.
  - surgomat 1y ago
    the code was indeed MIT. The licensing issue I referred to was about the videos: many of them came from paid/licensed sources
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- cAtte_ 1y ago
  just fork it?
  - surgomat 1y ago
    the original project was built in javascript with a NoSQL backend (mongo). I wanted to move to a more "new", (robust?) and maintainable stack with TypeScript and a SQL-based backend (PostgreSQL)

olliejennings 1y ago

Am not sure what your data source is, but l run the following: - https://wrkout.xyz/ https://wrkout.xyz/ (exercise database api with images and videos) - https://github.com/wrkout/exercises.json https://github.com/wrkout/exercises.json (open source exercise dataset) If they are of any interest / help

surgomat 1y ago
Hey actually came across wrkout.xyz a while back, really cool project! For this, i rebuilt the entire dataset from scratch with a partner to avoid any licensing ambiguity (especially with videos), and to have full control over attributes, translations, etc. But I absolutely love seeing other open projects in this space and I'd be happy to explore possible synergies if it can help both communities. DMs open !
desireco42 1y ago
This is how you do contribution. Thank you. Everyone has ideas about fitness, but this makes it super easy to start because you already did a collection for us.

unstppbl 1y ago

Wow! You're a legend! Thank you!

surgomat 1y ago
Thanks for your comment !

paul7986 1y ago

I count calories and use chatGPT to do so by taking pics of my meals / what I eat. I'm looking forward to Meta adding this feature to their Ray Ban smartglasses so the glasses automagically count my calories each time it sees food on my plate or going into my mouth. A feature they possibly should make optional, but for me who has prescription Metas it would be a big time saver (try to eat 1500 to 2000 calories a day and burn 250 to 500 in exercise). I think the knowledge of how many calories you consume done automagically would prompt 1/4 of people thinking and or on Ozempic to not do it.

edude03 1y ago
You know counting calories by taking a picture literally doesn't work right? In fact, I'd argue it's one of the best examples of when an LLM confidently feeds you misinformation. An obvious example, a chicken breast fried in oil and a chicken breast air fried look identical, yet the oil fried one would have 3-4x the calories at least. Don't take my work for it though - this was just on HN the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44220135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44220135
- toyetic 1y ago
  What happens if you give it that context though? Or prompt it to search the web for comparable meals?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - cogman10 1y ago
    At that point I just have to ask what the AI is actually doing for you? I can just hit a search engine and say "number of calories in X" and get a precise answer with 2 seconds of calculator math. If I have to take a picture, send it to ai, but then amend it with "This is air fried chicken, it weighs x, it's a breast cut. I didn't add salt." Why do all that when a single search will give me the answer I want without the picture upload or context?

daxaxelrod 1y ago

I don't want to track any of this myself. I want to walk into a gym, have some cameras follow me around, and have it analyze what I did while I was there, including statistics over time.

ctxc 1y ago
Well if I had to do this, I'd build the whole system just procrastinating walking into the gym :P
ashwinsundar 1y ago
Wow I really do not want this…cameras to track you in a gym? What kind of dystopia is that?
- stevesunderland 1y ago
  To be fair, the cameras are already there. This would just make them more useful I guess?

bityard 1y ago

Do we have any assurance that you won't sell it again?

surgomat 1y ago
To be clear: I never owned workout.lol, I was just the main contributor. For the sell process, like with any open-source project whether it's an NPM package or anything else, there are no absolute guarantees... that's just the nature of open ecosystems... But I've built Workout.cool with transparency in mind, no hidden business model, and self-hostable. Just what I can tell you is this : I've been passionate about fitness my whole life let's say. I started sports at 3 years old, and I've been into strength training for over 15 years. I didn't build this to make money. I built it because I genuinely care and because I see more and more people missing out on the benefits of training, often overwhelmed by complexity, closed ecosystems, or paywalled apps, including people close to me, like my sister. Hope that my reply counts for something...

ryanwhitney 1y ago

This looks great. Yours isn't loading for me, but workout.lol looks like it'd provide the perfect level of instruction. (I'd skip the exercises/sets screen and DIY, but picking muscles and getting ideas/examples is helpful.) One note: if you're using the same video set as workout.lol, the one that loaded for me (male_dumbbell_hammer_curl_front_ani.mp4) could be compressed from 3.3mb to <300kb with little quality loss.

surgomat 1y ago
Hey, the issue is fixed. I’m only embedding YouTube videos now, all with permission or public use from the original author. If you’re into 3D or want to help create open assets, I’d love to chat!

Vincenius 1y ago

Oh funny to see it here. I'm the original author of workout.lol. I sold the app to a guy who seemed to just abandoned it. I also texted him multiple times if he needs support, but he didn't answer anymore. It makes me really happy to see it being maintained again! Great work on the UI improvements.

surgomat 1y ago
Ohoh ! Vincenius !! You have no idea how happy I was when I saw your name pop up ahahha Yeah, no luck either. It really broke my heart to see the project stall like that. That's what pushed me to rebuild everything, keeping the same open spirit you had from day one. Thanks a lot for the kind words about the UI it means a lot coming from you. And if you ever feel like jumping back in (I totally get that it might be tricky, especially since you sold the original project and this one is so close) but you’d always be welcome. Your input, ideas, or even just your presence would mean a lot ! Cheers !
- higgins 1y ago
  yo @dang, a section on HN for missed-tech-connections would be RAAAAAAAAAD
  - dang 1y ago
    What do you have in mind?
    - iKlsR 1y ago
      Could be a new tab "collab" or something to do with joint work maybe, one could post a site, repo or detail a past work experience and anyone who was around or passed thru could reconnect, discuss stuff and share anecdotes. Thinking long dead internal faang tools, stuff like op's post, abandoned repos, old shareware etc. Could also be a place to find cofounders or people interested in starting or working on stuff together.
      - 1y ago

cssanchez 1y ago

I started working out without a trainer a few months ago as well as doing rehab for a nasty shoulder tear. Today I see the benefit of targeting precise muscles and muscle groups, unlike other beginners in this thread. One feature request I'd add to the pipeline is to filter exercises available by Gym. Planet Fitness is ironically super unfriendly to beginners and limited in what they offer. People could add the exercises available at their gym and grow the database. Conversely, this could help beginner home gymmers plan what machines / weights to buy to maximize their routine.

surgomat 1y ago
Thanks for sharing your experience I’m glad to hear you're finding value in understanding muscle targeting. Bcs It's true that most beginners tend to think in terms of "full body" or "upper body" rather than doing a structured split let's say. They don’t usually say "I want to train my posterior deltoids and lats" lol I love the idea of filtering exercises by gym type or gym but can be hard to handle for "private" gyms and will also need some kind of moderation... Could work for large branded gyms though.

timmyers 1y ago

[dead]

captainkrtek 1y ago

This is awesome! Thanks for sharing :-)

surgomat 1y ago
Thanks mate.

deleted 1y ago

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_justroy 1y ago

Awesome tool. Thanks for Sharing

surgomat 1y ago
Thanks to you for testing the app !

czhu12 1y ago

Got an error when trying to build a workout. Looks useful though! When I travel I only have bands if there are no local gyms offering reasonable prices, and doing the same 3 workouts gets boring https://imgur.com/a/Z71iT65 https://imgur.com/a/Z71iT65 One thing that would be super nice, make the back button and forward button work. Its really tempting to want to hit the back button when you select equipment, click next, and realized you missed one.

surgomat 1y ago
The error should be fixed, thanks for the screenshot mate. As a digital nomad, i totally hear you on the traveling with bands situation and yeah, repeating the same 3 workouts gets old reeeeally fast. One of the goals with Workout.cool is to offer more "variety" and inspiration let's say. Planning to add 5 to 10 exercices per week.

deleted 1y ago

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sergiotapia 1y ago

"Error loading exercises" on what should be a simple SQL where query? and no way to retry the selection without refreshing the page.

surgomat 1y ago
Yeap,was due to some backend rate limiting issues (got unexpectedly HN'd lol), but should be fixed ! Thanks for calling it out !

zeta0134 1y ago

As a fitness newbie, my first and most immediate feedback is confusion at the otherwise delightful muscle selection interface, which seems to be required during onboarding before I can see what the product does. I'm loosely aware of "push", "pull" and "leg" groupings, but I'm not personally familiar with what specific muscles each routine is actually meant to target. This seems to mean the app is currently only meant for those who want to seriously study their anatomy. Would it be possible to ease a novice into things more gently somehow? Perhaps with recommended muscle groups?

surgomat 1y ago
Thanks so much for this feedback The current onboarding assumes a bit too much knowledge up front (didn't expect that). Bcs yeah, most beginners don’t think in terms of "rear delts" or "lats" they just want to "get stronger", feel better i guess I'll be adding: Optional muscle selection (or skipping it entirely) Beginner-friendly presets like "Full Body", "Upper Body", etc. OR suggested muscle groups with labels like "Chest + Triceps (Push)" / back-biceps... etc. The goal is definitely not to make you study anatomy before you can get started lol and your feedback helps to build a smoother, more welcoming flow Thanks again for that ! And welcome to the fitness journey! Hope to see you soon
aio2 1y ago
push and pull i can understand struggling on, but if you don't know legs that's kinda on you

deadbabe 1y ago

I struggle to see the point of most fitness apps. Fitness really is a solved problem. The fitness apps and influencers will try to convince you that you need a whole database of “creative” and new exercises to see progress, making it seem like there’s “secrets” to getting the body you want fast. There are no secrets. The truth is, you just have to do the same dozen or so “boring” exercises that everyone already knows. But you have to do them consistently, and you have to increase their difficulty over time. And then make sure you eat right. A lot of coaching should just be on getting the numbers right and correcting your form. But once you learn how to get that right, you can pretty much be on your own, and fitness apps become little more than a place for you to track progress, if you even care about tracking progress. Progress will happen whether you track it or not, you can just go by feel.

bschwarz 1y ago
The boring exercises too were once novel but you're right in that continued progression is the most important thing. However, you can't improve what you don't measure.

atum47 1y ago

Damn, I made an app to track gym progress back in college; I've made a deal with the gym owner so I could workout for free. I hoped one day to polish it up and release it to the public. Mine had some good features, like the ability to share your protocol with other people

surgomat 1y ago
Awesome would love to see this app! The idea of sharing your protocol (or full workout templates) is something I'm definitly building into Workout.cool as well. Users will be able to create routines, save them, and share them publicly (or privately) super useful for friends, coaches, or even just "community inspiration"?. If you ever feel like revisiting your old project or contributing some ideas/features, I'd love to hear more!
- atum47 1y ago
  mine was a php mysql backend with a js spa running on the browser. back then I got a cheap server to host everything, but once the app (pwa) was installed there were only a handfull of requests per user. my idea was to actually have a centralized backend and distribute the app. I need to take a look at the source code for that project...

mywittyname 1y ago

This is great! I've been looking for an alternative to Strong, since it has a limit on the number of workout templates that you can have in the free version (and $100+ for such a simple app feels excessive). I added a link to my home screen to make it feel like an app and I'll give it a go for a week to see how it goes.

surgomat 1y ago
Really appreciate you giving it a shot! Adding it to your home screen is exactly the right move ahah i've done the same Would love to hear your thoughts after a week of usage feel free to drop feedback anytime, i will add a button in the topbar called "Feedback" by the end of the week. Thanks !
eclat 1y ago
I feel like strong strikes the right balance of simplicity and features. It has everything one needs and no bloat. The sign up flow on workout cool is really strange - I just want to input my regime and record sessions.

Eric_WVGG 1y ago

Wow, this doesn't suck at all. The thing that's missing for me is suggestions on how much to lift / how many reps. There's a fitness program called 100 Pushups that came up with a good solution for that… - Repeat the exercise (in this case, a push-up) as many times as possible until failure. A person might achieve 8, for example. - The app comes up with a schedule; every other day, the user is expected to do a set of 3, 4, 3, 3, 5 (with a 2-minute rest between each set) - The app's schedule has an algorithm that ramps up the reps at a pace that the user can manage — and self-adjusts if the schedule is too easy or too hard… - until the user can do 100 push-ups at the 6-week period. If there's any interest in this, I'd be open to discussing a UI and contributing.

Eric_WVGG 1y ago
If you wanted to ditch the backend, you could hook this up to AT Protocol, have all the users’ data in a PDS. No need for servers — ever — and if this project fell to a similar fate of the old one, it could keep working forever.
surgomat 1y ago
I love that idea. Yeah i know this app : it is a great example of how simple, adaptive progression can really motivate people (specially beginners). And yes I'd absolutely be interested in discussing a UI + flow for a self-adjusting progression system like that. Yeah. Let's talk about that, drop me a DM? I can think about some (ugly) alhorithm first
- Eric_WVGG 1y ago
  I don't think they do DMs here? but anyway I posted on the Github issues with some thoughts on UI and basic sketch of data needs
planetpluta 1y ago
Curious about the 100 pushups program app — do you have a particular one you like that you can share? Edit: Followed the github issue and found the link!

ZeWaka 1y ago

Curious on the design decision to have a server backend, instead of just offloading everything to the client to avoid the hug of death issue and server costs.

surgomat 1y ago
Great question i definitely considered going fully client-side at first to avoid backend costs and "risks" lets say. I choose to keep a server backend for a few key reasons: - Centralized updates to the exercise database (videos, translations, attributes) without shipping a new frontend each time. (The goal is to have 5 to 10 new exercices per week) - The ability to offer shared features like community workouts, saved routines, and (eventually) syncing across devices, etC... Room to grow into more advanced features like progression tracking, public/privates APIs (strava, garmin, ...), and integrations all of which are much harder to manage purely client-side in my humble opinion.

jahrichie 1y ago

Ironically I made something just like this 2 years ago, but much less sophisticated and pretty. If you want any help or to collab on future iterations please shoot me an email. https://compute.rorwashere.com/ https://compute.rorwashere.com/ cheers@rorwashere.com

surgomat 1y ago
Awesome, love seeing others exploring the same health/dev space! FYI your link is bringing me to a Typeform (?) feel free to resend a link For collaborating, yes i'd be up or even just bounce around ideas for future iterations. I’ll shoot you an email soon so we can chat more Would love to collaborate. In the meantime PRs are always welcome if you ever feel like contributing directly :D Cheers!

crossroadsguy 1y ago

I guess Sign in with Apple costs money compared to Sign in with Google, right?

surgomat 1y ago
Technically sign in with Apple doesn't cost money (directly) it's free to implement But you do need to have an active Apple Developer account (which is $99/year) to set it up and maintain it.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

R_khameshra 1y ago

It looks promising. I retrieve some error response when fetching exercise, will check again

nerevarthelame 1y ago

I ran into a handful of technical issues, which are understandable at this early stage. But on a more fundamental level, the exercise recommendation doesn't seem like it demonstrates a good knowledge of fitness program design. So I really would not recommend anyone use it to design a fitness program, at least in the current state. It might be better to focus not on generating routines from scratch for users, but rather logging existing workouts, and importing routines/templates other people have designed. (I know you expressed interested in working on the latter in the comments here.) Some specific issues I encountered: 1. I said that I wanted a full-ish body workout, and it recommended 33 distinct exercises for a single session. That's wildly impractical. 2. The exercise selection seems to just pick 3 random lifts (based on available equipment) for each selected muscle group and ignores the fact that many lifts hit more than one muscle group at a time. It also disregards the widely accepted notion that certain muscle groups respond better to different training volumes. 3. The selection of specific exercises seems arbitrary, recommending some that are very far out of the mainstream and with poor resistance curves. 4. It recommended exercises with equipment I do not have (I'm a home gym person - no way to exclude machines) 5. It suggests strange branded equipment (e.g., "Dynaband Shoulder Press") 6. If you go back to select different equipment, it will continue to recommend exercises with that equipment. 7. Can't delete recommended exercises, nor even add new ones.

surgomat 1y ago
Wow, Thanks a lot for taking the time to write this seriously. This kind of detailed feedback is incredibly valuable, especially at this early stage. Thanks ! So, yeah you're absolutely right: the exercise suggestion logic is very basic for now, and doesn't reflect proper programming principles (volume, movement patterns, recovery, compound/isolation balance, etc.). It’s more of a discovery tool than a real "smart" coach let's say. I probably need to make that clearer in the current UI. To your specific points: 1. 33 exercises for a single session YES that's overkill, lol. 2. It currently just picks 3 per muscle group, with no upper cap or "contextual logic" let's say, and that'll change soon. 3. I'm already working to "categorize" the exercises by introducing metadata like compound/isolation, primary/secondary muscle groups, movement patterns, and tags for resistance "quality" let's say or "popularity". 4. I’m not sure I fully understood your expectation here. Do you mean you'd like to explicitly exclude certain machines or "types" of equipment, even if others are selected? (e.g. : "I have dumbbells and a pull-up bar, but please exclude all cable or machine-based exercises"). If so, that makes total sense. I'd love to clarify and improve that part of the UI. Thanks. 5. OK 6. Changing equipment doesn’t fully update the list : bug confirmed, I'll fix that. (For the moment yes you have to do it 2 time - render problem). 7. It's high on roadmap. You'll be able to fully edit your routine very soon. Really appreciate the critique. No ego here I want this to be useful and respectful of good training principles. If you're ever up for helping shape that direction (even just high-level ideas), I'd love your input, what do you say?

apineda 1y ago

If I were to want to experiment with my own gym app idea, would I be able to license the data set?

surgomat 1y ago
Are you speaking about videos ? If yes, it comes from a partnership, and while it's allowed for use within this open-source project, it’s not automatically "sublicensable" let's say. That said, if you’re interested, you can either: Reach out directly to the partner for permission, or Let me know more about your project idea, and I'd be happy to introduce you or ask on your behalf to see what's possible.

sfblah 1y ago

I was interested in making an open-source version of strava, so along the same lines. I hate how strava blocks so many features if you don't pay. The idea was to make a lichess to strava's chess.com. I'm just not sure if there are people who would want to work on such a thing, though. I built a few pieces, but kind of got stalled out.

surgomat 1y ago
I love that idea making a "Lichess for Strava" lol. I totally relate to your frustration so many basic features are paywalled on Strava (i paid...lol) and there's real room for a community-driven, open alternative. Can't encourage you more to continue ! I felt the same way when starting Workout.cool. On the old app, I realized a lot of people want open, transparent tools in the fitness (bodybuilding / weightlifting specially) space. If you ever feel like picking it back up or want to brainstorm how pieces of what you built could plug into something broader I'd be super happy to chat?

jimmcslim 1y ago

Some of the other comments have identified the priority of proper form when lifting… are there any accurate and effective computer vision solutions for checking correct lifting form and posture throughout different types of moves? Preferably open source and deployable with off the shelf consumer hardware.

aagha 1y ago

Tried to register. Error: window.fbq is not a function

ugh123 1y ago

Amazing! For the muscle group selector, could it have an option for things like 'full body', 'core', etc?

ericzawo 1y ago

Got an error immediately.

surgomat 1y ago
Uh, sorry about that we got hit with a "surge of traffic" let's say (earlier). It should be back to normal now! Mind giving it another try é_è? Keep me posted !

victor22 1y ago

Fuck yeah us nerds are working out, the bullies are so cooked

surgomat 1y ago
Ahahah hell yeah! Nerds with routines, spreadsheets and gains let's keep pushing both code and plates Honestly, I think it's also tied to growing awareness around how much time we all spend sitting. Yesterday i was sitting 19h. More devs and tech folks are realizing that staying active is kind of essential if we want to feel good and stay "sharp" long-term let's say.

sirjaz 1y ago

Make it a desktop app also, not just mobile

nittanymount 1y ago

error loading now, 4:40PST thanks. :-)

nittanymount 1y ago

possible to use sqlite for simplicity? really need postgresql ?

surgomat 1y ago
not "really" let's say but we chose PostgreSQL mainly for scalability and flexibility long-term. Features like JSONB, advanced filtering, full-text search, and complex joins are key to how we handle (-exercises specifically- but also user data, and routines in the future) That said, I totally get the appeal of SQLite for quick local setups. I might add an experimental SQLite mode in the future for simple and/or personal use cases but for now, PostgreSQL is required to support the full feature set Appreciate the interest (and open to suggestions on making setup smoother) :D Cheers

surgomat 1y ago

If you'd like to chat, ask questions, suggest features or just hang out with other fitness & dev folks we’ve just opened a small Discord server: https://discord.gg/NtrsUBuHUB https://discord.gg/NtrsUBuHUB feel free to join!

vinnski 1y ago

Incredible! Would like to see workout animations without having to watch a YouTube video though. Is there no currently existing free library?

surgomat 1y ago
M'yeah... having clean, native workout animations would make the experience muchhhh smoother. Right now, the videos are embedded from a partner app that kindly gave me permission to use them for this open-source project. I really wanted to avoid any gray areas around licensing or scraping/unapproved reuse. The challenge is this: producing quality 3D exercise animations is very expensive often €10–20 per animation let's say, or thousands per month via "proper/serious" APIs. That's part of why it's so hard for open-source fitness tools to offer the same polish as commercial apps. That said, I'd love (will?) to help kickstart a community-driven, open-licensed library of movement animations long-term something reusable by anyone building fitness tools. it's a REAL need. Appreciate you bringing it

admiralrohan 1y ago

I like the youtube videos, how each exercise is highlighting the engaged muscles. Would like to see the whole list (searchable) of exercises for quicker access.

surgomat 1y ago
Glad you liked the videos And yes, you're totally right: having a searchable, complete list of exercises is something. We are working on it. The current experience is a bit too "filter-dependent" let's say and I want to make exploration more "flexible". Thanks for the feedback it's definitely coming soon!

matiascoin 1y ago

thank you

surgomat 1y ago
You're very welcome mate:)

lorepieri 1y ago

I suggest https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine/ https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommend... , they also have a spreadsheet to track sessions.

surgomat 1y ago
Thanks for the suggestion, yeap their resources are definitely solid for beginners That said, I'm not sure how directly it would help in the context of Workout.cool, can you provide more context ? Maybe when adding structured training plans? is that the kind of use case you had in mind? Would love to hear how you think it could fit! Thanks

midenginedcoupe 1y ago

Interesting timing, Stronger By Science have just made their programme bundle free for every body: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/program-bundle/ https://www.strongerbyscience.com/program-bundle/ Maybe making use of these could solve the exercise selection and programming issues in the app?

surgomat 1y ago
Awesome move from Stronger By Science That said, they're mostly full training programs i guess, while what Workout.cool or the old Workout.lol project needs is more at the "individual exercise level" let's say. Videos, metadata, structure, etc. If they ever open-source a library of exercise videos with clear licensing, that could definitely help yep
- midenginedcoupe 1y ago
  But I think that's my major issue with the app as I understand it. Starting by choosing which muscle to work is a really odd choice. If you're novice enough that you don't know which movements to choose then you're also likely to not know which are the most effective muscles to target for your goals. Then the app gives you a bunch of exercises to target that one muscle, but doesn't tell you which other muscles the exercise also targets. Or any clues on suitable weights or rep ranges, never mind progression. It also seems it's suggesting doing all the suggested movements. I picked barbell and pecs and it gave me three exercises. Then, even more weirdly, I came in again to write this comment and selecting the same options it gave me a different set of three exercises. First time around it didn't even suggest barbell bench press - the most obvious and common exercises for that muscle and equipment. That's all really confusing and un-obvious. Being able to pick a template programme and tweak from there seems a much friendlier way of getting started.

gregwebs 1y ago

Liftosaur is an interesting project in this space that I use for tracking my weight lifting. The lifting routine is programmable and shareable. They have a database of exercises that are based around linking to YouTube videos. https://www.liftosaur.com/ https://www.liftosaur.com/

surgomat 1y ago
Thanks for sharing. I actually didn't know about Liftosaur before, but I just checked it out and I love their UI! Super clean and well thought out. Definitely going to keep it in mind. Thanks for the discovery
TychoCelchuuu 1y ago
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taegee 1y ago

The login seems broken. I always get "Invalid credentials or account does not exist", even after password reset.

surgomat 1y ago
Thanks for flagging that and sorry you're running into login issue mate. That error can sometimes appear even after a password reset due to a session mismatch (I'm working on improving that flow this afternoon). In the meantime, you can try logging in with Google? it should work smoothly and skip the password altogether...

Dusksky 1y ago

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DinoNuggies45 1y ago

Love seeing open-source takes on things like this. Curious how you’re handling progress tracking over time are you storing data locally or syncing with a backend?

surgomat 1y ago
Thanks mate! Right now, it's a mix of both let's say. first, local storage during the session (useful for example in gyms, garages, or basements with poor or no connectivity) second, syncs with the backend once the session ends and if failed, periodically. For the tracking, the idea is to eventually generate progress graphs, track "volume" over time, and visualize trends for each exercise or muscle group. More to come on that front :D

FinnKuhn 1y ago

Would be cool to see some sort of difficulty/strength setting as I'm definitely not able to do handstand push ups to train my shoulders. ;)

surgomat 1y ago
Yes. Planning to add difficulty levels and progression-friendly alternatives (e.g. pike push-ups, dumbbell presses, etc.) so you can train the same muscle group at your current level with the same button as you can see "Shuffle". I can imagine some "Decrease difficulty" button. (or inverse). Appreciate the feedback

pwillia7 1y ago

This is rad -- I loved workout lol and was sad all the videos stopped working. Thank you!

surgomat 1y ago
I felt the same way when workout.lol went quiet! really pushed to rebuild something that would last without video licensing issues this time. So welcome back glad to have you with us again :) !

dankwizard 1y ago

has open source fitness app -> sells when big has asked us to come together to build an even bigger open source fitness app -> ... profit?

8mobile 1y ago

Hi, congrats for workout.cool I really like that it lets you build workout plans and track progress, super useful for my projects. It would be great if it also had a way to sync with wearables or import data from fitness trackers in the future. Keep it up! Thanks

surgomat 1y ago
Hey thanks a lot. If you have specific trackers or APIs in mind, feel free to share would love to hear more about your use case. Strava/Garmin/Apple? What do you want to see in workout.cool : hearthbeat, steps, .. ?

fullofdev 1y ago

that's a really cool project! thanks for sharing!

surgomat 1y ago
Thank you! Really appreciate.

orlando252 1y ago

This is pretty cool! It would be great if there was a functional trainer, cable machine in the list of equipment.