Training in StatBlockFit

The Fitness tab, where training starts

The Fitness tab is where you train. It holds the workout logger, your routines, your history and a map of where your training went. It is identical in StatBlockPro and StatBlockRPG: the RPG layer adds to your training, it never changes how you log it.

In the appFitnessBoth dashboards

In StatBlockRPG the same logs also level your character: a lifting session mainly trains STR Strength and CON Constitution, the Tracker shows which stats each activity trains, and the summary after a workout lists the XP it earned. The character guide explains stats and levels. See also the nutrition guide for the food side of the tab.

How to log a workout, set by set

Routines and the ready-made templates

The nine templates

Building or editing a routine

1. Start the draft

   Tap a template, or Start from scratch. Give it a Routine name and pick a Split: PPL, Upper / Lower, Full body, Custom.

2. Lay out the days

   + Day adds a day. Name it, switch it between Training day and Rest day, and use Move earlier or Move later to change the order.

3. Add exercises

   + Add exercise opens the library. A new exercise starts at 3 sets, the library’s own rep range for it and 120 s of rest, with weight and RPE left blank for you to fill in. Each row has sets, rep minimum and maximum (seconds for a timed movement), weight, RPE and rest.

4. Save, and start a day

   Save routine needs a connection. Under it, the day you have open shows its start button whenever it is a training day with exercises, and the logger opens with that day’s sets written in. The button works before you save too, but only a session started from a saved routine moves the rotation on Home.

Days are a rotation, not weekdays

Routine days run in order and wrap around; they are not tied to Monday or Thursday. Miss a day and the next session is still the one you have not done yet. On Home, the Up next card offers the day after the one you last finished from a routine, and Open it takes you to it. If you have never finished a routine day, it offers the first day of your most recently changed routine as Your first session. The card shows while nothing has been logged yet today and no workout is running. A rest day stays in the rotation but has nothing to start, and only a finished workout moves the rotation on: when the card offers a rest day, log Rest Day in the Tracker, and next time open the routine and pick the day after it yourself.

The exercise library: 288 movements

The library covers barbell and dumbbell lifts, machines and cables, bodyweight work, holds, cardio machines and mobility drills. It is part of the app, so searching and adding work offline. It opens from Add exercise in the logger and in a routine day, and from + Add a lift when you log a lifting session in the Tracker.

In the appFitness›Start empty workout›Add exerciseBoth dashboards

Search and filters

Type a movement, a muscle or a piece of equipment into Search movement, muscle or equipment. Names match in English and in German whatever language the app is set to, and umlauts match either way: “schulterdrucken” finds Overhead Press (Schulterdrücken). The English word for the main muscle or the equipment works too, such as “chest” or “cable”.

Two rows of chips narrow the list, one choice each; tap a chip again to clear it. Every exercise sits in exactly one region and one equipment group, so the filters never hide a movement from the whole library.

Prep lifts and variations

Related in the library, and the sliders icon beside an exercise in the logger, a routine day or the Tracker, open a panel of related movements. 239 of the 288 exercises have one. Tapping a movement in the panel adds it to what you are building; it never replaces anything, and nothing is locked.

• A variation of … names the movement this one is a variation of (187 variation links in all).
• Worth trying first lists prep lifts, each with its reason. A variation inherits its parent’s prep.
• Builds up to lists where this movement often leads next.
• Other variations offers the same pattern with a different setup, for whichever one your gym has.

Working around a sore joint

Under Working around you can list what you would rather work around at the moment, from 10 areas: Wrist, Elbow, Shoulder, Lower back, Hip, Knee, Ankle, Grip, Balance, Overhead range. The list is yours alone: it never appears on your profile, in the feed, in a message or in a shared routine. Your library stays complete; nothing on the list hides a movement or blocks a routine.

In the appFitness›Working aroundBoth dashboards

In the routine editor, switch on Use workarounds. Rows that load a listed area show Adapted, the replacement, the reason and the movement it stands in for. When you start a day, the session uses the replacements; the saved routine is never changed, and switching the toggle off puts everything back.

How progressive overload works

Progressive overload is the part of the app that decides what you lift next time. Each lift has a working weight on your account, shared by every routine that uses it. When you finish a workout the app updates it, and the next time you start a routine day the logger pre-fills that weight and rep target. An empty workout starts blank.

In the appFitness›a workout›+15%Both dashboards

After every session

The app looks at the working sets you did at or above the working weight. Sets done lighter do not count, so dropping the weight to hit the reps is never read as a success. It takes as many of those sets as the target, and the weakest one decides.

The six-week block

On top of the small steps, the logger suggests a bigger one once a lift has spent six weeks (42 days) in the same block. A card at the top of the session reads: “Six weeks at 60 kg. The next block would move to 67.5 kg.” Pick a Step size from 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 30%, then Move to the new weight or Keep.

1. It is always a suggestion

   Nothing changes until you accept. Keep hides the card for this session only, and it comes back next time.

2. Accepting starts a new block

   The new weight is written to the lift and the 42 days start counting again.

3. The six weeks are calendar time

   They count days since the block began, not the number of sessions. A lift’s first block begins the next time you open a workout with it, once one workout with it has been saved; a new block begins whenever you accept a card.

Coming back after a break

If a lift was last done 14 or more days ago, the card offers to take 10% off instead, rounded to the nearest 2.5 kg: “Away 21 days. Coming back at 90 kg instead of 100 kg gives the joints a session to catch up.” Choose Start lighter or Keep. The app checks for a break before it checks the six weeks, so somebody returning is never offered more load first. The card only appears when the lighter weight is actually lower.

Per-exercise settings

Every exercise in the logger and the routine editor carries a chip with its rate, such as +15%, or Off. Tapping it opens Progression:

• Increase per block: Default (15%) or any of 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 30%, with a preview of the next block’s weight. It is applied once per block, never every session.
• Progression: On or Off. Off stops the changes after each session, so the weight stays where you put it. It does not stop the six-week and break cards for a lift that has a working weight: tap Keep to dismiss them.

The training map and opposing muscle balance

The training map shows where your work went, on a front and a back figure. It reads the sets you completed, so a rest week shows an empty figure rather than a wrong one. It needs a connection.

In the appFitness›Training mapBoth dashboards

You can also reach it from Home by tapping the Training load row, and from the Opposing work row on the Fitness tab, which opens it with the balance panel first.

Where the work went

• Pick a window: Today (1 day), Week (7 days), Month (30 days) or Custom, which is one exact day or a range of up to 366 days, never later than today.
• Each muscle is shaded by the completed working sets that involved it, whether it was the main target or a helper, relative to your most-trained muscle. Warm-ups do not count.
• Cardio and whole-body work has no single place on the body, so it is counted in a line under the figures instead of being drawn.
• A muscle is outlined as Behind its opposite when its side of an opposing pair has less than 85% of the other side’s sets in the window, counting every set that involved each muscle.
• Tap a muscle to see its sets in the window, the exercises that train it directly or involve it, and The other side, the movements that undo what it does. Add puts an exercise straight into a routine day of your choice (this saves at once and needs a connection).
• Muscles with no direct sets in the window are listed below the figures. It is not a checklist: on a split, that is normal for a while.

A muscle’s sheet may also show Completes the loop: a muscle that finishes a loop you have started. There are four such loops; for example, when you have trained your abs or lower back but not your obliques, or your calves or quads but not your tibialis.

Opposing work

The balance panel counts the sets whose main muscle falls on each side of 8 opposing pairs over the last 28 days, and shows two bars per pair, scaled to the larger side.

In StatBlockRPG, keeping your opposing work level also gives you a small head start in Arena fights; the Arena guide explains it.

Workout history

History lists your last 30 saved sessions, newest first. Each card shows the session’s title, its hard sets and its total volume; tap it to see every set, grouped by exercise, with warm-ups marked. Lifting sessions logged in the Tracker with their lifts appear here too.

In the appFitness›HistoryBoth dashboards

Logging everything else in the Tracker

The Tracker tab logs everything that is not a set in the workout logger: runs, rides and swims, steps, sleep, recovery work, and a long list of things that are not training at all. There are 74 activity types, each logged one way.

In the appTrackerBoth dashboards

1. Pick the activity

   Tap it in Yours, open a category under Everything else, or search. Each row says how it is logged, and recovery activities carry a Recovery chip.

2. Enter the amount

   Type it, or tap a quick amount. Each entry has a limit, for example 60 sets in one Lifting Session, 100 km in one Run, or 60,000 steps; above it, the app asks for a smaller figure.

3. Add the detail, if it asks

   The 18 activities with a cardio pace, such as Run, Ride, Swim, Rowing and Interval Session, also ask How long did it take? (optional) and How hard was it?: Easy, Steady or Hard. Left blank, the time is estimated from the amount. Both change how much the session counts toward your training load.

4. Log it

   Tap Log it. Logging needs a connection and a signed-in account.

Logging a lifting session without the logger

If you trained without the app, open Lifting Session (or Calisthenics Session or Kettlebell Work) and use the Which lifts? panel. + Add a lift picks a movement from the library; each lift starts at 3 sets of 8 (up to 20 sets and 200 reps), with the weight optional. Once lifts are listed, the set count comes from them. The session then appears in History and on the training map like one from the logger. The Start a session shortcut takes you to the Fitness tab if you would rather log as you go.

Recovery activities

A recovery day resets your run of heavy days (see training load). These activities count once the day’s total reaches the amount shown:

Training load, heavy days and recovery on Home

Home turns your day’s training into one reading, Training load: a gauge that fills toward a line at 60. It is drawn as a bar with a line, not as a ring to complete, because the line is something to know about rather than a goal. Tap it to open the training map.

In the appHome›Training loadBoth dashboards

Heavy days in a row

A strip at the top of Home in StatBlockPro shows how many days in a row you have logged something in the Tracker or the workout logger, and where you stand on load: within your usual range, a count of heavy days so far, a recovery day logged, or Recovery is due when heavy days have gone on too long. A day that is neither heavy nor recovery keeps the count where it is; only a recovery day brings it back to zero.

In StatBlockRPG the same state is the Over-Encumbered debuff, which cuts the XP you earn to 50% until you recover, and your character’s mood on Home shows it. The character guide covers it.

Under the gauge, one line names the most uneven opposing pair of the last 28 days, or says there is none. The Up next card above the day’s readings is explained under routines.

Importing steps and sleep from Health Connect

On Android, StatBlockFit can read today’s numbers from Health Connect, so you do not have to type what your phone or watch already counted.

In the appHome›the settings icon›Body and health›Health ConnectBoth dashboards

1. Connect

   Tap Connect and import today and allow steps, sleep and active calories in the Health Connect screen that opens. If Health Connect is not set up on the phone, the app says so: install it from the Play Store, open it once, and come back.

2. Sync when you want

   Tap Sync now whenever you want today’s figures. Syncing again replaces today rather than adding to it, so repeating it is safe.

How your data is handled is set out in the privacy policy.

Common questions about training in StatBlockFit

Something not covered here? The support page says how to reach us.