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How Fitbod Creates Your Workout
Table of Contents
How to Learn More About Fitbod in the App
How Fitbod Personalizes your Workouts
Understanding Your Preferences
Key Preferences That Influence your Workouts
How Fitbod Selects Exercises For You
Factors That Influence Exercise Selection
How Workout Duration Affects Your Workouts
How Workout Duration is Estimated
Why Might Your Workout Feel Shorter?
How Fitbod Recommends Sets, Reps, and Weight
Understanding Workout Intensity & Adaptation
What If I’m New and Have No Workout History?
How Fitbod Tracks Muscle Recovery
How Recovery Affects Workout Recommendations
External Factors Affecting Muscle Recovery
How Fitbod Adapts to Your Progress Over Time
How Fitbod Creates Your Workouts / Frequently Asked Questions
Overview
At Fitbod, we believe that every workout should be tailored to your unique fitness journey. Our intelligent algorithm takes into account your preferences, past workouts, and available equipment to generate personalized workout recommendations. This guide will walk you through how Fitbod creates your workouts, including how preferences, exercise selection, and workout duration play a role in shaping your fitness experience.
Your Personalized Fitness App
Fitbod is like having a personal trainer in your pocket, offering:
- Individualization: Workouts tailored to your unique body, goals, and environment.
- Balance: Ensuring all muscle groups are worked evenly.
- Variation: Mixing exercises, sets, reps, and weights over time to prevent plateaus.
How to Learn More About Fitbod in the App
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Open the Fitbod app.
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Tap the Log tab (bottom right corner).
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Select the Settings icon (top right corner).
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Go to the Account Section.
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Select Learn How Fitbod Works.
How It Works
- Your Input & Preferences – Fitbod personalizes workouts based on your fitness goals, experience level, equipment, and workout duration.
- Smart Exercise Selection – Exercises are chosen to align with your goals while maintaining balanced muscle engagement.
- Adaptive Progression – Sets, reps, and weights adjust dynamically based on your performance to drive steady improvement.
- Muscle Recovery Tracking – Fitbod monitors recovery levels to prevent overtraining and maximize effectiveness.
- Data-Driven Adjustments – With insights from millions of workouts, Fitbod refines recommendations to continually enhance your results.
By combining these elements, Fitbod removes the guesswork from training, helping you stay consistent and achieve your fitness goals effortlessly. Plus, with access to over 1,600 HD exercises with demonstration videos, you can confidently learn new exercises and movements.
Fitbod is designed to make your fitness journey seamless, effective, and enjoyable. Whether you’re lifting at the gym, training at home, or looking to try new exercises, Fitbod is here to help you build strength, confidence, and consistency in your workouts! 💪🚀
How Fitbod Personalizes Your Workouts
Before generating your workout, Fitbod builds a customized fitness profile based on the preferences set in your Gym Profile, ensuring that every session aligns with your goals, experience level, and available equipment.
By combining these elements, Fitbod removes the guesswork from training, helping you stay consistent and achieve your fitness goals effortlessly.
Understanding Your Preferences
Fitbod personalizes your workouts based on the preferences you set in your Gym Profile. These preferences help guide the algorithm to create workouts that align with your fitness goals and available resources.
Key Preferences That Influence Your Workouts
- Fitness Goal: Set your fitness goals in Fitbod, and the app will tailor your rep ranges accordingly. Your goal influences rep counts, exercise selection, and workout intensity to ensure optimal progress.
- Experience Level: Whether you're a beginner or an advanced lifter, Fitbod adjusts the difficulty of your workouts accordingly.
- Available Equipment: Fitbod ensures that your workouts only include exercises that match the equipment you have access to. You can update this list anytime in your Gym Profile.
- Training Split: Select how you want to structure your workouts, such as Full Body, Upper/Lower, or Push/Pull/Legs.
- Your Workout Preferences - Workout duration, warm-ups & cooldowns, cardio, exercise variability, and supersets & circuits.
💡 Tip: You can update your preferences anytime in the Gym Profile section of the app to refine your workout experience.
How Fitbod Selects Exercises For You
Fitbod’s algorithm selects exercises based on a combination of factors, ensuring that your workouts are well-balanced, effective, and aligned with your goals.
Factors That Influence Exercise Selection
- Exercise Effectiveness: The algorithm selects exercises that are proven to be effective for your fitness goal, based on data from millions of logged workouts.
- Equipment Availability: Only exercises that match your specified available equipment will be included.
- Workout Variety: Fitbod ensures that your workouts remain diverse by introducing new exercises over time while still incorporating your preferred movements.
- Your Feedback: You can fine-tune your recommendations by using the Recommend More, Less, or Exclude feature to indicate which exercises you prefer or want to avoid. Additionally, Fitbod learns more about your personal preferences every time you skip, replace, delete, or manually add an exercise to your workout.
- Muscle Recovery Status: Fitbod tries to prioritize fresh muscle groups while allowing fatigued muscles to recover.
💡 Tip: If you don’t like an exercise, you can mark the exercise as Recommend Less or Never Again (Recommend More, Less, or Exclude) and/or replace it with an alternative that targets the same muscle group.
How Workout Duration Affects Your Workouts
Fitbod allows you to customize the length of your workouts to fit your schedule. The app automatically adjusts the number of exercises based on your selected workout duration.
How Workout Duration is Estimated
Fitbod generates workouts based on your selected duration, but actual completion time can vary. Here’s a general range of workout times based on the number of main exercises:
- 4 main exercises → Typically between 27 and 51 minutes
- 5 main exercises → Typically between 35 and 60 minutes
- 6 main exercises → Typically between 39 and 63 minutes
These ranges cover about more than half of all workouts, but the exact timing can vary depending on your workout style and pace.
Why Might Your Workout Feel Shorter?
Even if your workout duration is set to a specific time, several factors can cause you to finish sooner than expected:
- Skipping or shortening rest periods – If you take less rest than recommended, your workout will be shorter.
- Efficient gym setup – Having all equipment nearby reduces transition time.
- Fewer distractions – Not checking your phone, taking water breaks, or socializing can speed up your session.
- Timed Intervals & Supersets – These workout styles naturally reduce total workout time by minimizing rest between exercises.
According to the data, about 5% of Fitbodders complete 5-exercise workouts in 21 minutes or less, and 4-exercise workouts in 15 minutes or less. This variation is expected as workout pacing differs from person to person.
If your workouts consistently feel shorter than expected, try the following:
- Increase your workout duration setting – This will generate more exercises to better match your desired session length.
- Manually add more exercises or sets – If you finish early, you can extend your workout by adding additional movements.
- Follow recommended rest times – Ensure you’re taking the suggested breaks between sets.
⚠️ Important Note: We, at Fitbod, are continuously analyzing workout data and refining our workout algorithm models.
Fine-Tuning Your Workouts
Fitbod is designed to adapt and improve over time. Here are some ways you can further personalize your experience:
- Modify Your Training Split - If you want to focus on specific muscle groups more frequently, adjust your training split in your Gym Profile.
- Use the Replace Exercise Feature - Swap out exercises that don’t fit your preferences or current needs.
- Adjust Your Equipment List - If you gain access to new equipment, update your Gym Profile to expand your exercise options.
- Provide Feedback - Use the Recommend More, Less, or Exclude feature to tailor Fitbod’s exercise suggestions to your preferences. Additionally, logging your Reps in Reserve (RiR) rating and completing Max Effort Days helps Fitbod fine-tune your workout intensity and strength progression.
How Fitbod Recommends Sets, Reps, and Weight
Fitbod uses a sophisticated algorithm to determine the optimal number of sets, reps, and weight for each exercise. The recommendations are based on:
Your Workout History
- Fitbod tracks your past performance, including the weight lifted, reps completed, and sets performed.
- If you consistently complete an exercise with ease, the app will gradually increase the weight or reps to ensure progressive overload.
- If you struggle to complete a set, Fitbod may adjust future recommendations to prevent overtraining.
mStrength
- Fitbod’s proprietary technology mStrength™ varies intensity and volume across workouts. Meaning, you’re not doing the same reps and sets every day, we mix things around from one workout to another.
- Some sessions may focus on higher reps with lower weight, while others emphasize lower reps with heavier weight.
- This variation helps prevent plateaus and ensures continuous progress.
Estimated Strength & Max Effort Days
- Fitbod calculates your Estimated Strength (or your Theoretical 1RM, Fitbod Metrics & Records) based on your logged workouts.
- Periodically, the app includes Max Effort Days, where you push yourself to perform until failure safely, helping Fitbod reassess your strength levels.
Adjusting Recommendations Based on Feedback
- If a set feels too easy, you can manually increase the weight or reps.
- If a set is too difficult, you can reduce the weight or reps, and Fitbod will adjust future recommendations accordingly.
- The Reps in Reserve (RiR) feature allows you to log how many more reps you could have performed, helping Fitbod fine-tune your workout intensity.
Understanding Workout Intensity and Adaptation
Fitbod uses a dynamic model that makes your workout intensity can fluctuate over time.
- You won’t always lift maximum weight, some workouts will emphasize higher reps and lower intensity, while others will push for heavier loads with fewer reps.
- This variation prevents burnout, reduces injury risk, and supports long-term strength gains.
- If a recommendation feels too easy or too difficult, you can manually adjust it, and Fitbod will refine future workouts based on your input.
What If I’m New and Have No Workout History?
If you're new to Fitbod or strength training, the app is designed to help you get started with confidence by providing data-driven, beginner-friendly recommendations. Fitbod uses a model to estimate your starting sets, reps, and weight based on insights from millions of logged workouts. This ensures that your initial experience is safe and effective, setting the stage for long-term progress.
⚠️ Important Note: Fitbod’s initial recommendations are on the conservative side to help prevent overexertion or potential injury. If an exercise feels too easy, simply adjust the weight, reps, or sets, Fitbod will learn from these adjustments and refine future workouts to better match your capabilities.
How Fitbod Tracks Muscle Recovery & Fatigue
Muscle recovery is a crucial factor in workout programming. Overtraining can lead to fatigue, injury, and stalled progress, while proper recovery ensures optimal performance.
Muscle Recovery Tracking
- Fitbod assigns a muscle recovery percentage (0% to 100%) to each muscle group based on your recently logged workouts.
- Muscles typically take up to 7 days to fully recover, but this varies based on workout intensity and individual recovery rates.
- The app provides a heat map visualization, showing which muscles are fresh and which need more rest. This can be viewed on the Body tab in the app.
How Recovery Affects Workout Recommendations
- Fitbod prioritizes exercises for fresher muscle groups while avoiding overworked ones.
- If a muscle group is still fatigued but needs to be included in a workout, Fitbod may suggest lower intensity exercises or alternative movements to reduce strain.
- You can manually adjust recovery percentages if you feel a muscle is ready (or not ready) to be trained again.
External Factors Affecting Muscle Recovery
- If you sync Fitbod with Apple Health or Health Connect, the app can incorporate additional activity data (e.g., cardio workouts) into its recovery calculations.
How Fitbod Adapts to Your Progress Over Time
Fitbod is more than just a workout tracker, it’s an adaptive training system that evolves alongside your fitness journey. The app continuously analyzes your performance, makes strategic adjustments, and personalizes recommendations to keep you progressing.
Progressive Overload
- Fitbod ensures that you gradually increase resistance over time to build strength and muscle.
- Make sure to attempt Max Effort Days when possible as it’s the best way to recalibrate Fitbod to accurately understand your capabilities.
Exercise Variety & Customization
- Fitbod introduces new exercises periodically to prevent plateaus and improve overall fitness.
- Replace exercises, exclude movements they dislike, or prioritize certain exercises for more frequent recommendations.
Fitness Experience & Goal Adjustments
- Set your Fitness Experience Level (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced), which influences exercise selection and difficulty. Increasing your experience level will open up more exercises in your program.
- Changing your fitness goal (e.g., Strength Training, Hypertrophy, General Fitness) will adjust the types of exercises and rep schemes Fitbod recommends.
Responding to Performance Trends
- If your strength scores decrease over time, Fitbod may adjust recommendations to help you rebuild strength. Also, it’s important to note that slight decreases in scores are expected and are temporary.
- If you take a break from training, Fitbod will lower weight recommendations to ease you back in safely.
How Fitbod Creates Your Workouts / FAQ
Why can't Fitbod generate a workout with my selected combination?
There are a few reasons why Fitbod may have difficulty generating a workout:
- Equipment Constraints: Some exercises require specific equipment. For example, there are no true bodyweight bicep exercises. If you don’t have weights or a pull-up bar, Fitbod may not be able to include biceps exercises.
- Time Constraints: If too many muscle groups are selected with a short workout duration (e.g., 30 minutes), Fitbod will include as many muscle groups as possible within your selected workout duration, but some may be prioritized over others for optimal effectiveness.
- Bodyweight-Only Mode: If enabled, this setting removes all exercises requiring weights.
If I stop using Fitbod for a while, will it automatically lower my recommended weights?
After a couple of weeks of inactivity, Fitbod will recognize the break in your training. When you return, the app will automatically adjust weight recommendations . This ensures that your workouts remain effective while allowing you to safely rebuild strength and endurance at a sustainable pace.
If the new weights don’t feel right, you can adjust them. Fitbod will learn from your changes for future workouts. Just be careful not to push too hard right away. Your body needs time to get back into the routine!
Why is Fitbod recommending exercises for muscles that aren’t fully recovered?
While Fitbod prioritizes more recovered muscle groups, it also considers overall workout balance, goal alignment, and equipment availability. If an exercise is included despite muscle fatigue, it’s because it fits within your overall training plan.
I have fresh muscles, why isn’t Fitbod recommending a workout with those muscle groups?
While muscle freshness is considered, Fitbod prioritizes overall balance, goal alignment, and equipment availability to create a structured plan.
Can I manually select which muscles to train?
Yes! You can manually select target muscle groups before generating a workout, and Fitbod will aim to include as many of them as possible while ensuring a balanced and effective session.
Why do I keep seeing the same exercises in my workouts?
Fitbod aims to provide a balance between consistency and variety. If you feel like your workouts are too repetitive, try using the Exercise Variability option in your Gym Profile, Recommend More, Less, or Exclude feature, or adjusting your training split.
How can I make my workouts longer or shorter?
You can adjust your workout duration in your Gym Profile or use the Training Session Mods feature to modify the length of an individual workout.
What if I don't like an exercise in my workout?
You can swap exercises using the Replace Exercise feature. Additionally, you can use the Recommend More, Less, or Exclude feature to personalize future recommendations.
Why are the exercises in this order?
Fitbod’s exercise order is based on scientific training principles and your personal workout history. The system continuously refines this ordering to optimize workout effectiveness.
Final Thoughts
Fitbod is designed to take the guesswork out of your training by providing smart, data-driven workout recommendations that evolve with you. By setting your preferences, refining your exercise selection, and adjusting your workout duration, you can create a fitness routine that is tailored to your goals and lifestyle.
If you have any questions or need further assistance, feel free to reach out to our Support Team at support@fitbod.me or visit the Fitbod Help Center.
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How Fitbod Calculates Calories Burned
Table of Contents
How Fitbod Calculates Calories
How to Input Your Personal Profile Data in Fitbod
Why Fitbod’s Calorie Estimates May Differ from Other Apps
How Fitbod Calculates Calories / Frequently Asked Questions
Can I manually edit calories in Fitbod?
Why are my calories higher in Fitbod compared to Apple Health?
Why are my calories not syncing to Apple Health or other apps?
Overview
Fitbod estimates the number of calories burned during your workouts using a combination of factors, including workout duration, weight lifted, and personal profile data. If you use an Apple Watch, heart rate data is also incorporated into the calculation for improved accuracy.
How Fitbod Calculates Calories
Without an Apple Watch
If you are not using an Apple Watch, Fitbod calculates calories burned based on:
- Workout Duration – The total time spent exercising.
- Weight Lifted – The total volume of weight lifted during the workout.
- Personal Profile Data – Your weight, height, age, and gender are factored into the estimation.
- Exercise Type – Different exercises have different energy demands, which are accounted for in the calculation.
With an Apple Watch
If you are using an Apple Watch, Fitbod enhances its calorie calculation by incorporating:
- Heart Rate Data – The average heart rate recorded during the workout is factored into the calorie estimate.
- Afterburn Effect (EPOC) – Fitbod accounts for the excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), which represents the additional calories burned after strength training.
How to Input Your Personal Profile Data in Fitbod
To ensure accurate calorie calculations, it’s important to keep your personal profile data up to date. Follow these steps to input or update your information:
On the Fitbod app (iOS & Android)
- Open the Fitbod app.
- Go to the Log Tab.
- Tap on the Settings Icon (top right corner).
- Scroll down to About You.
- Select Body/Health Profile.
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Enter or Update the Following Information:
- Weight
- Height
- Age
- Gender
- Save Your Changes
Syncing with Apple Health or Health Connect
If you prefer to sync your personal data from Apple Health (iOS) or Health Connect (Android), follow these steps:
For Apple Health (iOS)
- Open the Apple Health app.
- Tap your Profile Icon (top right).
- Select Apps > Fitbod.
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Enable Read Permissions for:
- Date of Birth
- Height
- Weight
- Sex
For Health Connect (Android)
- Open the Health Connect app.
- Go to Settings > Connected Apps > Fitbod.
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Enable Read Permissions for:
- Date of Birth
- Height
- Weight
- Sex
By keeping your profile data updated, Fitbod can provide more accurate calorie estimates tailored to your body composition.
⚠️ Important note: If Apple Health/Health Connect is synced with Height and Weight permissions enabled, Fitbod will automatically use this data, which will take precedence over manual entries.
Why Fitbod’s Calorie Estimates May Differ from Other Apps
Fitbod’s calorie estimates may be higher or lower than those from other fitness tracking apps due to differences in calculation methods:
- Apple Health & Apple Watch – Apple’s formula is more tailored to cardio-based activities and relies heavily on heart rate and movement data, which may result in lower calorie estimates for strength training.
- Fitbit & Garmin – These devices use proprietary algorithms that may not account for weightlifting volume in the same way Fitbod does.
- WHOOP & Other Wearables – Some wearables prioritize heart rate variability and other biometric data, leading to different calorie estimates.
How to Improve Accuracy
To ensure the most accurate calorie estimates in Fitbod:
- Keep Your Profile Updated – Make sure your weight, height, age, and gender are correctly entered in the Fitbod app.
- Use an Apple Watch – If available, using an Apple Watch will allow Fitbod to incorporate heart rate data for a more precise estimate.
- Avoid Double Logging – If you track workouts in both Fitbod and another app (e.g., Apple Health), ensure that Fitbod is set as the primary data source to prevent duplicate calorie entries.
How Fitbod Calculates Calories / FAQ
Can I manually edit calories in Fitbod?
Currently, Fitbod does not allow users to manually edit the calories burned for a workout. However, this feature has been requested and may be considered in future updates.
Why are my calories higher in Fitbod compared to Apple Health?
Fitbod includes the afterburn effect (EPOC) in its calculations, which accounts for additional calories burned after strength training. Apple Health primarily relies on heart rate and movement data, which may underestimate calorie burn for weightlifting workouts.
Why are my calories not syncing to Apple Health or other apps?
If your Fitbod calories are not syncing to Apple Health, Samsung Health, or Google Fit, check the following:
- Ensure Fitbod has permission to write Active Energy data in Apple Health.
- Verify that Fitbod is set as the primary data source in Apple Health.
- If using Samsung Health or Google Fit, confirm that Health Connect is properly configured.
Final Thoughts
Fitbod’s calorie calculation is designed to provide an estimate based on strength training principles. While it may differ from other fitness tracking apps, it is optimized for weightlifting and resistance training. If you have any concerns about calorie accuracy, ensure your profile is up to date and consider using an Apple Watch for enhanced tracking.
For further assistance, contact our Support Team at support@fitbod.me.
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How Fitbod Normalizes Superset/Circuit Weight
Introduction
With Fitbod's superset and circuit feature, complete your exercises in rounds to take your workout intensity to the next level. To make your time at the gym easier, you have the option to normalize the weight for exercises within your superset/circuit to reduce the amount of equipment you need.
For supersets, Fitbod will normalize the weight of the second exercise to match the first if the equipment used is the same between both exercises (like the example shown below). The algorithm will match the weight but alter the set and rep scheme based on your exercise history (Estimated Strength).
For circuits, Fitbod will normalize the weight of subsequent exercise based on the preceding exercise of the circuit. If exercise equipment differs or no exercise equipment is used in the preceding exercise, the algorithm will not normalize weight for subsequent exercises.
Please see the superset example below:
Before Normalization of Weight
After Normalization of Weight
For instructions on how to normalize weight in a superset/circuit, please visit Editing Workout: Normalize Weight in Superset/Circuit.