Included Stretches as well as strength training

[ChevronTango]

Part of many sports, including dance, gymnastics, cheerleading etc, is both strength and flexibility. Whilst a lot of the exercises in the app currently focus on strength, there's very few if any that are targeting flexibility. Helping people achieve their splits, or high kicks for example is a key goal for many.

it would be great for these to also be included in the app. Whether they are a separate category, or option I leave to you, but a lot of the athletes I work with always include a number of key stretches into the ends of their workout sessions and their absence in the app currently is notable.

[Snouzy]

flexibility is a huge part of training for many athletes, and it does feel close enough to the spirit of the app but it also opens the door to new challenges. For example, flexibility routines don't follow the same set structure as strength training (sets, reps, weights), which means we'd need to rethink how we model, display, and track those exercises.

I'm a bit torn : on one hand, it's very relevant. On the other, it adds a layer of complexity that could dilute the core simplicity of the current experience.

That being said, your experience with athletes sounds super valuable. Would you be open to helping us outline what a solid “Flexibility Mode” might look like? Think of it like a mini feature spec what attributes we'd need, how users would engage with it, what a typical session might include, etc. That kind of input would really help us decide how and when to integrate it in a meaningful way.

Please keep it stupid simple

[ChevronTango]

I think when selecting the muscle groups, you might possible need a few additional options below. If we are looking beyond just strength, then cardio would be a logical addition too. I imagine you'd have some icons/selection boxes very similar to the first page's equipment selection, but listing "strength, flexibility, cadio" instead.

focusing on just flexibility for now, the core app is already pretty well equipped for it. You would select the muscles you'd like to stretch, and choose flexibility in addition to, or instead of strength, and then the app would generate you a set of stretches for those muscles. Legs, backs, shoulders, arms, are all muscles groups that have good stretch exercises so I don't think you need to fundamentally change much of what you already have.

expanding to cardio, you could see the same thing happening, with running for legs, and rowing for arms or backs. there may not be an exercise for every category/muscle combination but I don't think the system needs much changing to make it work.

[ChevronTango]

As for how they'd appear in the app, I think much like anything else it's either "to failure" or "1 set of 1 rep" or "30 seconds", but the stretch in the overall workout would probably be the same as most other exercises.

Given the talk around #79 and how the workout screen is designed, I suspect it won't be a million miles away from something that could work for a set of stretches to, for example, help someone get their splits.