What I'm building

An app that does your thinking at the gym.

It learns what you can actually lift and what you're training for, then tells you exactly what to do next: this exercise, this weight, this many reps. An AI coach that pushes you and tells you the truth, not what you want to hear, with logging so simple you barely think about it. Just show up, do the set, and tap to log.

This page is the unedited log of me building it, one day at a time: what's shipped, what's broken, and what I'm still untangling.

Pre-workout screen: today's plan and a Start button
The live set: the weight and reps for the current set, with Log Set
How did that set feel? logging sheet
Rest timer between sets
Post-workout summary: total volume and records
The log

The build,
day by day

Back in March I built a proof of concept and lived in it for about a month, just the bare MVP, to see if the idea actually held up in the gym. It did. Since then I've been building the real thing, and writing down each day's work right here. Every glowing square is a day I shipped.

The greyed squares are commits from before I started the diary on Jun 7, 2026.

Recent entries

Jun 192026
4 updates
The Program tab got the full redesign
The Program tab, the screen that shows your 12-week plan and the screen that shows a single day's exercises, was the last part of the app s…
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Jun 182026
6 updates
Settings tab redesign (part 2): new features
With Settings now looking right, it was missing things people actually need, and a couple of useful screens were buried.
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Jun 172026
9 updates
A clearer "you've got a workout going" badge above the tab bar
The little dot on the Workout tab was meant to glow blue when a workout was live and amber when it was paused.
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Jun 162026
3 updates
Rebuilt the Progress tab and made its numbers trustworthy
The Progress screen got a fresh, premium look, but the numbers behind it weren't honest yet.
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Jun 152026
4 updates
Removed the new UI and went back to the old one
A while back we started building a brand-new look for the app, a clean 3-tab design with a fresh "Today" home screen.
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Jun 142026
8 updates
Moving the "brains" of the app into the new shell, without flipping the switch (Phase 3 UI, #376, commit 1 of 2)
The big one, done carefully.
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Jun 132026
9 updates
Built the Progress root: the capability ledger (Phase 3 UI, Slice 12 #354)
The new Progress root screen, the "capability ledger." Instead of the old progress tab, the rebuilt shell now routes to a scrollable list o…
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Jun 122026
20 updates
Sign-in no longer gives up too early on a good network (the real reason saves were failing)
After the reset fix, saving a workout still failed, but for a new reason.
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Jun 112026
17 updates
The new look's building blocks now exist in code (PR #367)
The redesign has been fully drawn on paper for a while.
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Jun 102026
4 updates
The new look has a rulebook, and new users get a proper welcome
We're rebuilding how the whole app looks and feels.
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Jun 92026
2 updates
When you change your goal, your targets quietly catch up
A while back I gave each athlete two strength numbers per movement: a floor (the level we keep them at) and a stretch (the next milestone t…
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Jun 82026
6 updates
Taught the app to actually grow more sure of itself over time
The app keeps a "how sure am I about this?" rating for every exercise, every movement pattern (squat, hinge, the presses and pulls), and ev…
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Jun 72026
3 updates
Closed out four "is the AI being honest?" decisions
Four loose ends were all about the same theme: when the AI fails or behaves oddly, does the app stay honest about it?
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