Log individual exercises, not just workouts

[jakubik]

After looking around for a long time I concluded there just isn't a way of logging just a random selection of exercises that you don't want to create a workout for because it's just randomly given by that the machines/weights you intended to use in the gym for that day were broken, occupied or something like that, so you had to use some other ones, which "disturbed" your carefully planned workout routine.

In that case you're just stuck. You just have to create a one-off workout first, then go to Log Workout and only then you can log those exercises, while the  ad-hoc created workout for this in your Workouts list will never be used again, so will be useless there and you just wasted time on an unecessary activity, instead of being able to log random collection of exercises directly.

This is not user-friendly!

[Team FitSync]

Hi Jakubik-
Thanks for your inquiry, let me give you some background.  The reason we capture exercises within workouts, instead of randomly tracking them, is to make the reports and charts more meaningful by associating exercises together.  For example, its good to know that on the days your flat bench seemed low was because it was the last exercise after doing 20 sets of chest work.  Since our application was first designed for professional athletes and trainers we put a lot of emphasis on gathering data that would be meaningful later on when looking at your results. 

However, the reality is just as you say.  You're all set to do an exercise and your favorite machine has some some guy camped out for 15 minutes fiddling around.  In a perfect world the guy would let you work in and you'd both probably get some better sets working together than alone but we know that doesn't always happen.

So, your options are to skip the exercise, do the next one on your list, and come back to it when the machine is free or switch to a different exercise that hits the same muscle group (pull-ups instead of pull downs, DB presses instead of barbell, etc.)

Couple options for you if you don't want to wait or skip the exercise and come back later:

1 - Create A Routine on the Fly:  The FitSync Windows Mobile version lets you create workouts and exercises on the handheld so you can create an entire routine on the fly in the gym.  You can search the exercise library by muscle group, modality, equipment, and even free text search or if you can't find what you want you can create your own exercise.  This isn't available yet on the public version of our iPhone and Android apps but soon we'll be pushing some of our military and professional features live to the public so by early summer you'll be able to create routines on the fly on the iPhone and Android.

2 - Have Alternative/Backup Exercises in Every Workout:  I do this - in most of my workouts I have first and second choices like dumbbell and barbell bench, pull downs and pull-ups, dips and press downs, etc.  My first choice might be a lat pull down but if it's taken I do pull-ups instead.  This way I just move right on to my second choice.

3 - Log in the Gym, Edit Later:  Log the data for a different exercise and make a note in the exercise note.  So, if I can't get the pull down machine I'll do pull-ups instead but I still log my reps in the pull down exercise and then note, 3/8/2010 logged pull-ups.  Later when I'm home I'll login to my FitSync Web account and edit my data and workouts accordingly.

Hope this gives you some ideas.  What version of FitSync are you using now and what kind of handheld do you have?  We're continually releasing upgrades so the functionality you're looking for may be available soon.  Thanks again for posting, please share any other ideas you may have to help us improve the app.

John Morgan
Director, FitSync Enterprise Services