Generating a training plan

In the app, open the Workouts tab and tap the Build your training plan card. It takes under a minute.

No plan yet? The same generator also opens from More → Training plan: tap Prepare my plan. The card below it, I'll build it myself, starts an empty week instead, where you pick the exercises and training days.

You will also find it when you start a workout: with no plan, Start a workout shows the Build your training plan card above the Start a freeform workout button, the same card as on the Workouts tab.

Already have a plan? In More → Training plan, tap ⋯ in the top corner and choose Create a new plan.

The questions

1. How much lifting have you done? Choose one of two answers: I'm starting out (you've trained for less than six months, or you're returning after a long break) or I train regularly (you know the basic exercises and train consistently). It decides how much work the plan asks for and how hard the exercises are: if you are starting out, every exercise is capped at three sets, and the exercises that take practice or strength to learn come in easier versions, such as the leg press instead of the barbell squat or push-ups with your hands on a box instead of on the floor.
2. Training goal. Choose one of the two options: physique and muscle, to build muscle and shape your body, or strength, to train towards lifting heavier weights. The question appears when both goals are available. On a strength plan the main lifts keep their prescription (5x5, or 3x5 on the deadlift) whatever you picked. If you are starting out, you get steadier versions of them: the leg press instead of the barbell squat, the trap bar deadlift instead of the barbell deadlift, a seated dumbbell press instead of the standing overhead press and a seated cable row instead of the barbell row. The barbell bench press stays. With no equipment there is nothing to add weight to, so a strength answer gets a muscle-building plan there.
3. How many days a week? Choose two, three or four. Each answer has a short hint. When more than one training type is available, normally at three sessions a week, a second question appears under the answers, Training type: SPLIT - different muscle groups on different days, or FBW - the whole body every workout. Tap the one you want; the recommended one is already selected. With only one type, normally at two or four sessions, the question does not appear.
4. Which areas should the plan prioritize? Whole body, chest, back, shoulders, arms, legs or glutes. Each answer has a small picture of the body with that area highlighted. How many you can pick depends on the previous answer: one area on two days a week, up to two on three or four. On a strength plan, whatever you pick, every session still opens with one of the basic lifts (squat, bench press, deadlift, overhead press or barbell row) or, if you select a training limitation or are starting out, a gentler or steadier variant of one; the priority swaps in extra exercises for that area in place of others, so sessions don't get longer. With two areas, the first is your main priority and shapes the whole plan. The second gets extra direct work for each of its muscles and moves its exercises earlier in each session (more below). Everything else stays in the plan. If you go back and switch to two days, the second area is dropped.
5. Where do you train? Choose gym or home. If you train at home, a list of equipment appears under the answers: select what you own and the plan will use it. With nothing selected, we'll create a bodyweight workout. Your saved equipment selection is filled in when available. With no equipment, or without a bench or box, some exercises use a sofa, a sturdy chair or a stair step instead - the exercise tips say which.
6. Is anything limiting you when you train? Select the areas that hurt right now or need extra care, or leave Nothing is bothering me selected and tap Continue. At the gym you can choose knees, lower back, shoulders, elbows, wrists or hips; with no equipment, knees, lower back, shoulders or hips. If you train at home with your own equipment, you can choose knees, lower back, shoulders or hips. More below.
7. Which days do you train? We start from the spacing the plan was written with, so the hard days are not back to back. Move them to fit your week, then tap Start the plan.

Your plan opens right away

Once you tap Start the plan, we build the week from your answers, save it and open your training plan on the first training day of the week. The days of the week run across the top - tap another day to read it. Every exercise is written out in full: its sets with the reps, and the rest between sets. If something does not suit you, change it on the spot (see Changing it afterwards below).

Weights are left blank on purpose - what you can lift is not something a generator knows. Instead the plan gives you the rule for picking it, and the rule depends on the goal you chose: build muscle means the last reps of a set are hard but clean, with about 1-3 reps left in the tank; strength means heavier loads and fewer reps, leaving about 1-2. You only ever see the one that applies to your plan.

A plan for women and a plan for men

At the gym, the generator reads the sex in your profile. If you answered that you are a woman, the muscle-building plan is one written for women, with glute and hamstring work on every leg and full-body day and the exercises women pick most often; otherwise you get the standard plan, written for men. The plan's name is the same either way. Strength plans and plans at home or without equipment are the same for everyone, and you can change the answer in your profile settings.

When something limits your training

If you select an area in the limitations step, the generator swaps the exercises that load it heavily for gentler variants a coach would use - a box squat instead of a full squat for your knees, for example, or a seated cable row instead of a barbell row for your lower back. A strength plan stays a strength plan: with your lower back selected, a session that opened with the deadlift opens with a barbell hip thrust instead. Where a swap leaves a muscle below its minimum, we add a set or an exercise, so the plan stays complete.

With your knees selected and no equipment, a squat to a chair takes the place of the free squat. If you are starting out, nothing is done kneeling either: wall push-ups and push-ups with your hands on a box take the place of push-ups on your knees.

Only the areas we can adapt for the place you train are listed: all six at the gym, and knees, lower back, shoulders and hips with no equipment, where you can select at most two of knees, lower back and hips. If you train at home with your own equipment, it lists knees, lower back, shoulders and hips, in any combination. The step does not diagnose or treat anything: if the pain is severe, sudden, or gets worse as you move, check your training with a doctor or physical therapist. Where your selection is kept, how to change it and what is not adapted are all in Training limitations.

Why the same answers can give two different plans

Your experience answer is the reason. Two people who ask for the same thing get the same days in the same order. If you are starting out, some of the exercises come in easier versions and each one is capped at three sets, so the first weeks are repeatable rather than heroic. Because of that cap, filling a gap can occasionally land on a different exercise for a beginner than for someone who trains regularly.

If you are starting out and also select a training limitation, an exercise sometimes has no easier version that suits that area. That day then has one exercise fewer, and its work goes to the other exercises where it fits: four sound exercises are better than six with two doubtful ones.

The wizard asks every time, so you can answer differently as you get stronger - a plan you build in six months is not stuck with what you said today. We also store the answer on your account, which is what the plan falls back on if the step is ever skipped.

What the second area changes

A second area is available on plans with three or four training days a week.

Plans overlap, but pressing does not replace arm training. It works your triceps, and we take that work into account, but we do not count it as direct arm work. For the second area we check every muscle in it separately and count only the exercises that train it directly: arms means biceps and triceps each on their own, legs means the front and the back of your thighs each on their own. A chest plan works your triceps hard, but if it has no curl in it, picking arms adds one when your equipment and the plan allow it.

Every muscle of the second area gets at least one more exercise's worth of direct work than the same plan without it: three more direct sets a week, counted for each muscle on its own and in the week you actually train. If that still leaves it under the minimum for your number of training days, it gets a second exercise.

To make room we stay on the days that train that part of the body: on a split plan, back work goes on an upper-body day, never on leg day. If one more set on an exercise you already do for that muscle closes the gap, we start there. Otherwise we add a simple, popular exercise on a matching day that stays within its usual length, and only then swap out a small isolation exercise for a muscle you did not pick, as long as that muscle keeps its minimum. On a build-muscle plan, when no such day has room, a session gets longer: up to 27 sets and 8 exercises, roughly 70-85 minutes. On a strength plan we add before we swap, the added exercise follows the strength plan's scheme (three even sets in a rep range), and a day that does get longer goes up to 23 sets and 7 exercises. Each muscle of the second area gets up to three changes and at most one added exercise per day. Your first area's changes are counted separately: at most three, no more than one per day. Neither area ever changes the main lifts a session opens with.

In each session the second area's smaller exercises come right after those for your first area.

A muscle that already gets a lot of work from other exercises still gets its extra work, because that is what you asked for. Now and then a muscle cannot get more: usually your kit has no movement worth prescribing for it, and rarely the week has no room left. The plan then trains it with the work it already has.

Your first area has the same minimum. Gym and no-equipment plans are written to reach it; on plans built from home equipment we fill it the same way, before the second area gets anything. Picking a second area never takes direct work away from the first.

Every exercise comes from our library

The generator only ever picks from the hi.fitness exercise library, so everything in your plan has its instructions, video and history like any other exercise. At the gym, the exercises it adds come from a short list of popular, simple movements for each muscle, such as leg extensions, lat pulldowns or lateral raises.

Starting a plan replaces the one you follow now

You follow one plan at a time. Before anything is saved we ask you to confirm, naming the plan that will be replaced, so a coach's plan is never swapped out by accident. Your training history is never touched, but the replaced plan cannot be opened again in the app - if you want to keep it, note what it contained before you start the new one.

Changing it afterwards

The plan is yours the moment you start it. Open More → Training plan to add, remove or reorder anything in the week, exactly like a plan you built by hand.

The same ⋯ menu in the top corner also holds Change training days - where you move workouts to other days of the week - and Delete plan. Deleting, once you confirm, takes the plan out of the app and brings back the start screen; your workout history and stats stay. Deleting needs an internet connection.

Each exercise is a card of its own: its sets with the reps (and the weight, once you enter one), and under them Rest between sets, one rest for the whole exercise. To change any of it, tap the sets themselves, or tap the three-dot button on the card and choose Edit sets. A sheet opens where you set the reps with the minus and plus buttons or type them in, enter the weight, remove a set with the red minus, add one with Add set, and set the rest. Every change is saved as you make it. Tap the exercise's picture or name for its description and video; the three-dot button on the card moves the exercise up or down, replaces it or removes it.