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MyWorkoutTracker · Setup Guide

Configuring your program

How to create an account and set up MyWorkoutTracker the way you actually train — your equipment, your days, your structure — plus what the app does with your data once you're logging sessions. This guide doesn't explain how to perform any exercise.

Covers: account setup, the program wizard, editing & fine-tuning later, optional tracking, history & progress, suggestions
Prefer to watch?
There are two animated video-style walkthroughs, if reading through the steps below isn't your thing: creating an account and setting up a program, and logging a workout — rounds, sets, and the session summary.

01

Creating your account

Every visit starts with an email, then a PIN — no usernames to remember.

First time here

Enter your email on the landing screen. If it's not recognized, you'll see a link to create an account: name, email, and a 4-digit PIN you choose yourself. That PIN is what unlocks your data from then on — nobody else's name or email is ever shown to you, and yours isn't shown to anyone else.

Returning visits

This browser remembers who you are and takes you straight to your PIN prompt — you won't need to type your email again on the same device. Using a different device, or want to switch to someone else's account on a shared device? Tap Not you? to go back to the email screen.

Free trial
New accounts get free access through the end of the current month (or, if you join on the 15th or later, through the end of next month too). You'll see your exact free-until date right after you register.
PIN lockout
Five wrong PIN attempts locks your account for 15 minutes — a guard against someone guessing at your PIN, not something you'll hit by mistyping once or twice. Just wait it out; there's no separate unlock step.

02

Setting up your program

Right after you register — or the first time you log in if you skipped it — you'll land in the setup wizard. It runs in this order:

Equipment

Check off everything you actually have access to: Barbell + plates, Dumbbells, Kettlebells, Resistance bands, Bodyweight (pull-up bar, dips, floor work), Gym machines (cable/selectorized), or Cardio (bike, treadmill). You can select more than one. Training at a full commercial gym? I train at a commercial gym — check everything selects every equipment type and inventory in one tap, rather than clicking through each one.

Each category you check opens its own inventory card, so the app works from what you actually own:

  • Barbell + plates — your bar weight and how many pairs of each plate size, so the app can tell you exactly which plates to load, not just a number to hit.
  • Dumbbells / Kettlebells — a checklist of the weights you have, with Select all / Clear all buttons. Anything unchecked is treated as not owned.
  • Resistance bands — name each band you own (Light, Green, whatever you call it) and give it a rough resistance in pounds. The app steps between your bands the same way it steps between dumbbells, and shows the band's name during workouts.
  • Bodyweight — bodyweight moves progress by adding reps, but if you can strap on weight (dip belt, vest, backpack), list those add-on weights and the app will offer them as steps too.
  • Gym machines — check the machines you have. Each gets its own pin increment and heaviest stack, since stacks differ machine to machine, and only checked machines appear in the exercise pickers.
  • Cardio — check what you have (Peloton bike, treadmill). How cardio fits into your days is covered in step 5.
Build your own
Every inventory card ends with a Build your own row for gear that isn't listed — an odd plate size, an adjustable dumbbell, a machine or cardio piece we don't have. It's yours to use immediately. Give it a name and it also goes to the admin for review; approved items show up as options for everyone.
At your heaviest weight
With auto-increase turned on (see Fine-tuning without the wizard), the app moves you up in weight once you're hitting your targets. If you're already at the top of what you own — the heaviest dumbbell, kettlebell, or band, or a machine's full stack — it can't ask for more weight, so it increases your rep target instead, and keeps doing so as long as you keep hitting it.

Workout flow

Pick how you want a session to play out:

CircuitDo one set of the first exercise, one set of the next, and so on — then loop back for a second set of each, and a third. Sets of different exercises are interleaved.
Straight setsFinish every set of the first exercise before moving to the second. One exercise at a time, start to finish.

This is one setting for your whole program, not something you choose separately per day.

Workout days

Choose how many distinct workout days you want — up to 6 — and name each one (anything you like: Push Day, Day 1, Legs). Every day is configured independently, so one day can have five exercises and another can have two; nothing has to match across days. You can also add a separate MAX day for occasional max-effort testing, kept apart from the regular rotation.

Not sure where to start? Build me a starter program fills in however many days you chose with sensible compound exercises from your equipment, at light starting weights — you can then adjust anything before saving.

Main lift optional, per day

Any day can optionally have one main lift — a single exercise that follows the 5/3/1 method: a percentage of your training max (see glossary), cycling through a 4-week wave (5s → 3s → 1s → deload) that gradually increases over time. If you turn this on, you'll pick the lift from the barbell exercises available for that purpose and enter a starting training max. A day doesn't need a main lift at all — it's entirely optional, and you can mix days that have one with days that don't.

Accessories

Everything else on a day is an accessory: pick an exercise from the list (filtered to the equipment you checked off in step 1), then choose:

  • Sets — how many, from 1 to 5
  • SchemePyramid (reps step down and weight climbs each set), Straight sets (same reps and weight throughout), or Max reps (one all-out set)
  • Starting weight — where the first set begins

Add as many accessories to a day as you want, in any order, and remove any you change your mind about before saving.

Auto-increase is opt-in
By default, an accessory's starting weight stays exactly where you set it — the app won't move it on its own. To have it climb automatically as you hit your targets, turn on Auto-increase weight in SettingsTracking, covered in Fine-tuning without the wizard.

Cardio optional, per day

If you checked cardio equipment in step 1, each day also gets a Cardio section. Add a piece of equipment to a day and pick what you want to track for it — distance, time, calories burned, or any combination. During a workout it's logged once per session, alongside your lifts, and the card shows what you did last time. A day can mix lifting and cardio, or be all cardio — a designated cardio day is just a day with nothing else on it.

Cardio doesn't have to be planned, either: on any workout day, an Add cardio today checkbox sits just under the vitals card. Tick it, pick from your cardio equipment, and log distance, time, or calories for this session only — it lands in your history with the rest of the workout.

Review & save

The last screen saves everything and takes you straight into today's workout. Nothing here is permanent — see below. Curious what a session looks like from there? Watch a workout being logged.

03

Changing your setup later

Nothing from the wizard is locked in.

Open SettingsEdit my program to re-open the same wizard, pre-filled with your current setup. Change your equipment, flow style, day count, main lift, or accessories at any point — your workout history and personal records stay exactly as they are; only the program structure going forward changes.

Clearing your data (SettingsClear all saved data) resets your logged history and progress, but leaves your program setup and tracking preferences untouched — it won't send you back through the wizard.

04

Fine-tuning without the wizard

A handful of Settings cards let you nudge specific numbers without re-opening the whole wizard.

Training max

Edit any main lift's training max directly. Underneath, a recap of exactly how the app moves numbers on its own: your bench (or other 5/3/1 lift) training max adjusts automatically on the last day of week 3, based on your AMRAP set — 10+ reps jumps it 10 lbs, 5–9 reps jumps it 5 lbs, under 5 holds it where it is. This TM jump always runs; it isn't affected by the auto-increase toggle below, which only governs accessories.

Rep targets & starting weights

Two cards for overriding a specific accessory by hand: Rep targets changes what counts as a hit for a given set (normally only touched automatically once you're maxed out on weight — see below), and Starting weights changes where set 1 begins, recalculating the rest of that exercise's sets up the ladder the same way the program builder originally did.

Current position

Manually set which day, 5/3/1 week, and workout-of-3 you're currently on. Mostly a recovery tool — useful if a skipped session or an edit to your program left things pointing somewhere you didn't expect.

Focus mode

Not a Settings card — a 🎯 Focus toggle right on the workout screen, next to the day tabs. Narrows the screen to just the exercise you're currently on, in large type, hiding everything else until you log it. Toggle it off any time to see the whole day again.

05

Optional tracking & auto-progression

Three independent toggles, all in one place.

Settings → Tracking

Vitals

Blood pressure and pulse, before and after a session. On by default. Turn it off in SettingsTracking and the card disappears from your workout screen entirely.

Body weight

A simple weigh-in log. Off by default — switch it on in the same place to add a body-weight field to your workout screen. Either or both feed a combined trend chart on the History tab, where you can toggle which lines are visible.

Auto-increase weight

Auto-increase weight when top set target is hit is what actually moves an accessory's weight up (or back down) between sessions — off by default. The first time you turn it on, you'll get a one-time confirmation to accept: that you're physically able to handle gradual load increases, that you'll use your own judgment on any calculated weight, and that the app only tracks and calculates numbers — it isn't medical or coaching advice, and it doesn't teach exercise technique. Turn it off any time; your existing weights just stop moving on their own from then on.

What this does and doesn't cover
This toggle only governs accessories. Your main lift's training max still adjusts on its own every week 3 regardless — that's the core of how 5/3/1 works, not something you'd want to opt out of.

06

History, records & achievements

Every session you log feeds a muscle map on the workout screen and four things on the History tab, all updating themselves — nothing here needs to be turned on or configured.

Muscles worked today

At the bottom of the Today screen, a front-and-back body diagram colors in the muscle groups your logged sets have touched — dark for untouched, brightening to orange as a group accumulates sets, scaled against whichever group got the most work that day. It fills in as you log, so mid-session it doubles as a quick "what's left" check. The groups come from each exercise's primary movers; it's a broad-strokes picture of where the day's work went, not an anatomy chart.

Stats

Total weight moved, filtered by exercise (or All exercises) and by time period — today, this week, this month, this year, or all time. Big numbers get a lighter touch alongside the raw figure: total volume is shown next to a rough real-world comparison (a grand piano, a Honda Civic, an African elephant — whatever the total is closest to), scaling up to genuinely absurd comparisons at lifetime totals.

Pick a single exercise and a trend appears: a straight-line fit through your logged weight for that lift over time (training max for a 5/3/1 main lift, top working-set weight for everything else), showing whether you're climbing, holding steady, or declining, with 4- and 8-week projections. Set a target date and it'll project the weight it expects you to hit by then, based on the same trend line.

Below that, a volume breakdown by workout day — useful for spotting whether one day is carrying more total work than the others.

Recent sessions

A plain list, newest first: date, day name, week/workout number, training max, and AMRAP reps where applicable. Vitals and body weight readings from that session show underneath, when you tracked them. Any cardio logged that session — programmed or ad-hoc — shows here too.

Personal records

The app tracks a few different kinds of "best" per exercise, and only shows the ones that apply: top single-set weight, top single-set volume (reps × weight), and — for AMRAP sets — the best AMRAP performance by volume. Each comes with the date it was set. Your single best session by total volume moved gets its own line at the top, with the same lift-equivalent comparison as the Stats total.

PRs aren't something you check for manually — hit one mid-workout and a toast pops up on the spot to tell you, gold-colored for a session-volume PR, blue for anything else.

Achievements

Twenty badges, unlocked automatically as you train — no way to trigger one deliberately, they just happen. They cover four different things: session count (first session through a 100-session Century Club), consecutive-session streaks (3, 5, and 10 in a row — the streak count also shows as a chip next to today's workout while it's active), single-session and lifetime volume thresholds, and PR frequency on a single exercise. Tap a badge on the History tab to see what it takes to unlock; locked ones are dimmed but not hidden, so you can see what's still ahead.

07

Offline use & installing the app

A gym with no signal doesn't stop a workout — and the app can live on your home screen like any other.

Working out offline

Once you've logged in on a device, the app keeps working without a connection. Lose signal mid-session and nothing changes — sets keep logging, the muscle map keeps filling in, and a banner appears to note you're offline. Everything saves to the device and syncs to the server on its own the moment you're back online; there's no button to press.

Reopening while offline

Closing and reopening the app with no connection also works: you'll get the usual PIN prompt, and entering your PIN loads the copy of your data saved on that device. The one thing that genuinely needs a connection is the first login on a new device — until then, there's nothing local to unlock.

Adding it to your home screen

The app installs like any other: on Android/Chrome, use the browser menu's Add to Home Screen (or the install prompt if one appears); on iPhone/iPad, open the app in Safari, tap the share button, and choose Add to Home Screen. Either way you get a proper icon and the app opens full-screen, without browser chrome.

One iOS caveat
If the app sits unopened on an iPhone for several weeks, iOS may quietly clear its offline storage. If that happens, it just needs one visit with a connection to log in again — nothing on the server is affected.

08

Suggestions & feedback

Don't see something you use, or want something to work differently? Three ways to ask.

For gear you own that isn't listed, the fastest path is the Build your own row in the wizard's inventory cards (see step 1) — you get it immediately, and naming it files the review request for you. Beyond that, Settings has Suggest an exercise and Suggest new equipment. Approved exercise suggestions show up in the wizard's picker for everyone; a genuinely new equipment category still needs changes behind the scenes, since each category has its own progression logic.

For anything broader than a missing exercise or piece of gear — a feature you'd like, something confusing, a bug — there's a separate Feature request tab alongside Today, History, and Settings. Same idea as the suggestion forms, just not tied to a specific exercise or equipment item.

09

Glossary

Terms you'll hit while configuring, defined at the level you need to set them up — not how to perform them.

Training max
The number a main lift's weekly percentages are calculated from. You set a starting value in the wizard; the app adjusts it over time based on your results.
5/3/1
The progression scheme available to one optional "main lift" per day: a 4-week wave (5 reps → 3 reps → 1 rep/AMRAP → deload) at rising percentages of your training max.
AMRAP
"As many reps as possible" — the uncapped final set on certain main-lift weeks, used to judge whether your training max should increase.
Circuit vs. straight sets
Whether a session interleaves one set of each exercise per round (circuit) or finishes one exercise entirely before starting the next (straight sets). Set once for your whole program.
Accessory
Any exercise on a day that isn't the main lift — configured with its own set count, rep scheme, and starting weight.
Scheme
How reps and weight change across an accessory's sets: pyramid (reps drop, weight climbs), straight sets (unchanged), or max reps (one all-out set).
Cardio entry
A piece of cardio equipment added to a day. Logged once per session with whichever metrics you chose for it — distance, time, calories — instead of sets and reps.
Volume
Weight × reps, summed across sets. The unit behind session totals, exercise PRs, and the achievement thresholds.
Personal record (PR)
A new best for an exercise — top weight, top set volume, or top AMRAP — or for a whole session's total volume. Detected automatically and announced with a toast the moment you log the set.