Common Workout Use-case?

[joeshmoe57]

What is the "expected" workout flow that others are using? I'm just getting started, and am excited to replace some disparate data silos with SparkyFitness, but I'm struggling to see what the normal/common flow is, and just to start: with tracking workouts.

I see that there are a lot of options for creating exercises (with pulling from other DBs), presets, and plans. However, what do people do when they actually workout? I'm using the Android app as well, and see "+ -> Exercise -> Preset" flow, which seems closest to the tracking I've done with other apps. However, it seems a bit barebones: no guidance, details, notes, missing fields vs. web UI and when you finish, it creates a Diary entry, but leaves a bunch of (useful) fields blank (RPE, time). Using a Workout Plan seems to automate the initial creation of these entries, but not really ease any of the "I am going to workout now" flow that I'm confused about. I've also typically used apps that organize a set of exercises in a "superset" (a la this discussion), but if I create several exercises with multiple sets (or, even if I don't), there's really no sense of progress or indication of where I am in the current workout: just a bunch of fields to fill.

Additionally, I have a fitness tracker that I sync using Gadgetbridge. I was excited to see SparkyFitness's integration with Android Health Connect, so ported my wearable data through that. However, this seems like if my wearable also tracks a workout, now SparkyFitness is double counting against the flow above? So I'm better off not using the SparkyFitness UI at all? Or is there some other good Android app for this that can port into Health Connect, and get into SparkyFitness that way? It feels like I'm missing some understanding of what seems like a basic flow through the app, so any help is appreciated.

[apedley]

Hey @joeshmoe57 the app is still pretty new compared to the web interface so I've been implementing features based on what I believe people are using. We don't collect any usage data or anything so feedback like this is super helpful. It also takes a little more finesse for mobile to feel good with large forms whereas on web it's more acceptable to have a bunch of fields. I've got plans to add RPE and time through a context menu and now that I know that people would use it, I'll move it up on my todo list. Supersets are a little trickier but I'm sure I can figure something out.

Regarding the sense of progression/workout now flow, I added a workout timer last weekend and it will be available in the next beta/github release which will likely be this weekend. I won't personally use this feature so if you try it out and have any thoughts please let me know!

The workout data we get from health connect is cardio based (calories, energy, distance.) This would only double count if you are also manually adding calories either on your sparkyfitness workout through the web interface or in a separate activity on the app. If you're seeing something double count when it shouldn't be definitely open an issue and I'll look into it.

[joeshmoe57]

Thanks for the insight, that helps.

Maybe a more general question then: is it a goal / use-case of SparkyFitness to be an active strength-training tracker (a la Strong, Hevy, wger, etc.)? I assumed so after reading some of the docs and screenshots, but after trying it, maybe I misread. It definitely seems like a great "calorie tracker" which includes intake (food tracking) and expenditures (exercise) to provide the daily budgets.

But one thing I use (with poor options so I was excited to migrate to SparkyFitness) is building a strength training exercise set, possibly with muscle group focus, with anticipated weight and reps, and scheduling those on certain days. These are often groups into sets or supersets that dictate the "flow" of a workout session. Then logging against the plan in real-time (e.g. only did 10 of planned 12 reps). A lot of that is here, so maybe its just filling the gap? Obviously the exercise sync integrations you have are helpful for a lot of this and there's already framing for plans. Also, web or mobile I'm not picky about (though mobile could offer [the nice to have track-workout-offline-upload-later use-case] (#1185)).