A workout within FYTT is a modular training component comprised of one or more exercise sets. For example, you might have a workout called "Warmup" that contains exercise instructions for a warmup routine, or you might have a workout called "Lower body" that contains exercise instructions for several sets of back squats.

Workouts are the primary building blocks of sessions. A session generally contains one or more workouts, which together comprise the training instructions for the entire session.

Here are some general principles to consider when building workouts.

Naming

Description

Workout length

Workouts can be created within a number of different contexts:

The process of building a workout is essentially the same in every case, but the context affects whether the workout will be available in other places.

Workouts created at the institution level can be utilized by any team at the institution. These workouts will be displayed everywhere workouts can be inserted, i.e., within the workout, session, and program builders.

To create an institution workout, navigate to the institution dashboard, click the workouts item, then click the button to create a new workout.

Workouts created at the team level can be inserted anywhere within the given team. To create a team workout, the team must have the "Private database" setting turned on. Then you can navigate to the team dashboard, click the workouts item, then click the button to create a new workout.

Workouts can be created from scratch within a program by opening the session form for a program day and clicking the "Create new workout" button.

Workouts created within a program are isolated to the program and cannot be accessed outside the program. They can, however, be copied to the database, which will make them accessible elsewhere.

Workouts can be created from scratch within the progression builder using a simplified version of the workout builder.

These workouts can also be copied to the database, but in order to do so, you'll need to access them from the progression's program builder interface.

Workouts can be created from scratch within the session builder. The session builder is used to create sessions for the team and institution databases, as well as when creating sessions directly onto a team's calendar.

See the guide on building sessions for more information about adding session workouts.

When you create workout templates in the team or institution database, you have the option to turn the "sync copies" setting on or off. When sync copies is on for a workout template, any changes to the template will be propagated to all instances where the workout has been used. This enables you to update workout content in many places at once.

FYTT's workout builder is a powerful, yet simple tool that enables you to quickly create workouts for any modality. With its spreadsheet interface and custom context menu, you're spared the painful experience of building workouts through clumsy web forms.

Adding sets is how you specify the exercises to be performed for the workout. Each row in the sheet represents a set or interval in the workout. For example, the following configuration contains 3 sets of 5 for Bench Press at 65% of Bench Press 1RM (which might be notated as "Bench Press 3 x 5 @ 65%").

To add a blank set to the workout, click the "Add set" button. This adds a new row to the sheet and opens the set attributes form, which allows you to configure the parameters for the set.

Sets can be configured for just about anything, including aspects of fitness beyond just exercises. This might include nutrition prescriptions, mental health routines, etc. Below is a brief explanation of each parameter, as well as the most common examples of how they're used.

Sided

Checking the "sided" attribute indicates that the exercise should be performed unilaterally. Within this attribute, you can specify if the exercise should be performed on each side, just the left side, or just the right side.

Calories

Use the calories attribute to specify a set amount of calories that should be achieved on a bike, rowing machine, or similar piece of equipment that uses calories as a measure of work.

Distance

The distance attribute is generally used to prescribe how far an athlete should run, ride, row, etc. This is applicable for splits, sprints, and endurance running, and more.

Heart rate

Use the heart rate attribute to prescribe a target beats per minute. This attribute should usually be individualized based on a metric so that the prescription is appropriate for the athlete.

Height

Height is often used to prescribe the height of a box for box jumps or box drops. It's also used to collect height measurements for exercises like a vertical jump.

Reps

The reps attribute is pretty straightforward. Use it to prescribe the number of repetitions for the exercise.

Speed

Use the speed attribute to prescribe how fast someone should run, bike, row, etc. You can also use this attribute to prescribe velocity for velocity-based training.

Split time

You can prescribe a static split time, like 2:00 per 500 meters. However, this attribute is different from the others in how metrics are used for prescriptions.

In order to prescribe metric-based split times, you first need to have a metric defined with time as the measurement type, and with a specific distance. For example, you might define a timed 2,000 meter row.

When you prescribe a split time, you use your timed distance metric as the basis for prescription. You then specify the split distance—say 250 meters—and the prescribed time is automatically calculated based on the metric. For example, if an athlete's 2,000 meter row is 7:00, the 250 meter split times would automatically be calculated at 0:52.5. You can then use the relative option to prescribe +/- a given number of seconds, or you can use the relative option to prescribe a percentage of the split time.

Time

The time attribute can be used to indicate that an exercise should be preformed for a given amount of time.

Watts

The watts attribute can be used to prescribe a given power output for the exercise.

Weight

Use the weight attribute to prescribe how much weight should be used when performing the given exercise

Rest

Checking the "rest" attribute allows you to specify a rest period that should be observed in connection with the exercise.

Custom

Checking the "custom" attribute allows you to type a custom string to prescribe something that falls outside the standard prescription parameters. This might be something like the color of a band, a number of chains, etc.

Most of the set parameters have an option to individualize the prescription (with the exception of sided, rest, and custom). Checking this box for a parameter allows you to prescribe the value based on athlete measurements for a given metric.

For example, suppose you want to prescribe an individualized weight for the Bench Press. To do this, you would check the "Individualize" setting for the weight parameter, which enables a number of options for prescribing the value.

An individualized set parameter needs to use a metric in order to calculate the prescribed value. You have a number of options for establishing which metric should be used.

The default option for metric selection is "Auto," which instructs FYTT to determine which metric to use.

You can also explicitly select which metric should be used to calculate an individualized value for a parameter.

In this scenario, FYTT will use the given athlete's most recent measurement for the selected metric, if they have one.

For individualized parameters, you also have two options for calculating the prescribed value.

The relative option allows you to calculate the prescribed value based on a percentage of the athlete's metric value. For example, if you're calculating weight using a Bench Press 1RM metric, you can specify a percentage like 60% to calculate the value as 60% of the 1RM.

This option can be used for any of the parameters, so you can calculate values for speed, distance, etc. as a percentage of a relevant metric.

The offset option allows you to calculate a parameter value using an absolute offset from the athlete's metric. For example, you might want to prescribe that an athlete run for 20 minutes at -10 bpm from a target heart rate metric.

Most set parameters also have a "Testing set" option. When this option is turned on, it designates that the set attributes should be used to calculate a new measurement for the selected metric after the athlete records their results.

This is sometimes referred to as the "money set," and it is most commonly used in strength training to calculate an estimated one rep max. In particular, this makes it very easy to prescribe AMRAP sets with a target intensity.

Testing sets will be clearly indicated to the athlete when they perform the workout.

The workout spreadsheet has a context menu that provides some extremely convenient tools. To open the context menu, right click (two-finger click for Mac) on a row within the sheet.

The first option is "Edit," which opens up the set attributes form for the row. This is how you can change the columns for the selected row.

The "Duplicate rows" tool makes it extremely quick to copy a row. For example, suppose we created one set of 5 for our Bench Press exercise, and we wanted to copy it twice to create a total of 3 sets. Simply open the context menu, hover over the "Duplicate rows" item, then select "Duplicate 2 times" from the submenu.

You can duplicate multiple rows by highlighting all the rows you want to duplicate, then using the "Duplicate rows" option the same as above.

You can also use the context menu to add a set after a specific row. Simply right click on the row after which you want to add another row, then click either "Add set." This will add a new set after the selected row.

Using the context menu, you can also hide and show the order of exercises in the sheet. Right click to open the menu, then click the "Hide/show exercise order" option. This will show a column on the left side of the sheet that shows the position of each exercise within the workout. You can input a new value for the order of any exercise to re-arrange it within the sheet.

You can also use the context menu to delete rows. To delete a single row, simply right click on that row and select the "Delete rows" option. To delete multiple rows, select the rows you want to delete, then delete from the menu.

The workout builder allows you to create complex groupings of exercises to form supersets, giantsets, and circuits. This is done by using the set index attribute.

Indexing the exercises in this way tells the system to group them together as a superset (2 exercises), giantset (3 exercises), or circuit (4 or more exercises). When theses exercises are displayed on a session card or in a program's detailed view, it will automatically be condensed for compact display.

When an athlete consumes the workout, it will automatically be broken out into supersets for easy reading and recording. (Athletes can alter their performance of each individual exercise in the superset/giantset/circuit if needed.)

Inserting a metric test into a workout provides athletes with a special interface for recording test results.

When the athlete receives a workout with a metric test, they will be shown the description provided in the metric's settings, as well as any video instructions.

When the workout is recorded, the athlete's inputs will be used to record a new measurement for the metric.

Inserting an assessment into a workout is essentially a shortcut for inserting multiple metric tests. It specifies that all the metrics in the assessment should be tested when the workout is delivered.

When an athlete receives the workout, all the metrics in the assessment will be laid out for them to record their inputs.

A new measurement will be recorded for each metric after the athlete records the workout.

You can build surveys directly into your workouts to collect athlete data as part of the workout routine. These surveys make it easy for athletes to provide responses for key data points you want to track.

When an athlete receives the workout, the survey inputs will be displayed within the workout interface, prompting them to input their responses.

Workout modifiers allow you to conditionally modify attributes of the workout's sets. For example, you might add logic that will reduce the number of reps for certain exercises if a wellness metric is below a given threshold, or you might want to swap out an exercise if an athlete belongs to a "dumbbells-only" group.

The conditional logic in workout modifiers is evaluated when an athlete starts the workout, so the modifications will only be applied if the athlete meets the conditions at that time.

Modifiers have two components: 1) the conditional logic that determines whether or not they should be applied, and 2) the modification parameters that should be applied to the workout's sets if the conditions are met.

For every modifier you create, you have the ability to configure the conditional logic that must be met in order for the modifier to be effective. This logic builder is essentially the same interface used for automation conditions. You have the ability to write logical statements that will be evaluated when an athlete performs the workout.

For example, you might have a simple condition that looks something like this:

If an athlete starts a workout with this condition, and their most recent measurement for the Soreness metric was 7 or more, this condition would be met.

You can also combine logical statements joined by and/or operators to create more complex conditions:

For this modifier, if an athlete's most recent Soreness or Fatigue metric measurement 7 or more, then the condition would be met. You can change the join operator for the modifier's conditions using the operator selector.

You can remove a condition by hovering over it and clicking the remove button that appears on the right hand side:

Each modifier can be configured to modify the parameters of sets in the workout.

The exercise name can be used to scope the modifications to sets for a particular exercise. In the example above, modifications will only be made to sets for "Back Squat" if the conditions are met. All other sets will be ignored.

If you type in "All" for the exercise name, modifications will be applied to all sets in the workout if the conditions are met, regardless of what exercise is specified for the set.

For each exercise parameter, you can configure three modification types:

However, the last two parameters, "Custom" and "Exercise," do not have the three types of modifications.

If a custom modification is configured, the value of the custom parameter will be changed to the given value if the conditions are met.

If an exercise modification is configured, the exercise will be changed to the given exercise if the conditions are met.

Modifiers can be applied to any workout within any context (on the calendar, in a program, for a database workout). Modifiers added to a database workout will get copied whenever that template is inserted into a session.

To add modifiers to an individual workout, open up the workout builder for the target workout and scroll to the bottom of the form:

Modifiers can also be added at the program level. When added to a program, they will apply to all workouts within the program. This is a relatively wide-net approach to workout modification, so just be sure that you check the implications of your modifiers across the program.

You can add modifiers to a program from the program's settings:

The configuration of modifiers is the same within programs as it is for workouts. Modifiers from the program will be displayed as read-only items when you open up a workout within the program:

Anytime you want to modify a program-level modifier, you'll need to make changes from the program's settings. You won't be able to modify them from an individual workout.

Progression-level modifiers are similar to program-level ones, but they only apply to all workouts within a progression. Like with program modifiers, you can configure progression modifiers from the progression's settings: