Week in Review

Published Feb. 9, 2024

You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.

J.R.R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings

As with walking, so with lifting. When I started tracking my strength training workouts, I never thought it would come to this. What started as a lifestyle change leads to a business venture and my latest attempt at making the world a better place. While I do want to write about that story, about why I'm developing this app, for now I'll write about what's right in front of me: my week in review.

Exercise Directory

I'm always updating the open source exercise directory. I have a "Fix LHF" note on my phone that I take with me to the gym. I jot down ideas for new exercises and updates during my workouts. Not only do I get to dogfood my app at the gym, but I'm also surrounded by people for inspiration

New Exercises

Updates

  • Clarify steps for Lying Internal Shoulder Rotation - Dumbbell
  • Add triceps as primary muscle for Pullover - Dumbbell
  • Remove front rotator cuff as primary muscle for Reverse Fly - Dumbbell
  • Specify grip position for Row - Dumbbell
  • Add bicep as a primary muscle for Rope Waves

App Development

As a solo-entrepreneur, I develop LHF on my own. What have I worked on over the last week?

New User Experience

I've been thinking about the new-user app experience. I've used LHF to track my workouts for 18 months. That means I've had data to draw from as I code the list pages. There have always been previous sessions as I'm working on the session-planning algorithm. I haven't been in a place to think, "What does the app look like to a new user coming in fresh?" As I want to introduce beta users to the app soon, I needed to consider the onboarding experience.

Developing the new user experience involved a combination of easy and challenging code. Easy stuff included the empty session list page, I added some simple text rather than the giant block of nothing that was there previously:

Screenshot of empty session user experience

Challenging stuff included updating the session planning algorithm for users with no data. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't too challenging. My fix for now involves a lot of random choices. The planning algorithm chooses the muscles that you haven't worked in the longest time (your "coldest" muscles) and the exercises you haven't done in the longest time for those muscles. If LHF doesn't know anything about your coldest muscles, it falls back to random choice. This will sort itself out within three sessions or so, depending how many muscles you work per session. As you workout, LHF develops a sense for which muscles you've worked and starts recommending the muscles you haven't worked yet.

Can I do more here with the new user experience? Yes, of course. I could add a step-by-step guide to the app with tooltips. These small pop ups would show new users how to create their first workout and how it's okay that a lot of the app feels new and uncustomized. New users will have their workout sessions more fine-tuned as they enter more sets for more exercises, and I could do a better job of explaining that.

This Blog

I developed this blog over the last week too. One thing you'll learn about me over time is that I love simple. This blog reflects that quality. I create a file, I write in HTML, I publish a static file. django-distill handles the heavy lifting and even that is only two routes: a blog list page and a blog detail page.

I'm a huge fan of RSS and plan to develop a feed soon.

Keyboard Input Mode

It's a small thing, but I wanted to try it out. When I'm working out and entering reps, weight, and RPE, I don't need all the letters of the alphabet. I just need to enter numbers. I changed the inputmode for numeric values and now my keyboard looks like this during a gym session:

Screenshot of empty session user experience

I didn't hate the other keyboard, but like I said, I love simple.

Business Development

I'm on a short path to onboarding beta testers into the app. I can't wait to get other folks to use LHF. I know the app works for me; I just logged workout session #206 two days ago. I know entrepreneurs should seek feedback from early and often. I feel a bit behind here.

I've developed in isolation and been fine with it because LHF is immediately useful to me. After I injured myself in December 2022 (a story for another time) I got the wake up call that I needed. I was 42 and falling apart. It was time to get serious about strength training and this app helps me do that.