After a couple of months doing a weight lifting routine I get bored. So I normally go through the manual process of building a new routine. I am not a personal trainer, so when I come up with a training schedule it is just not very good for overcoming plateaus.
Over the years I have always recorded my session with the Hevy app. I write down the exercise, sets, weight, reps and the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) for all of my workouts for at least 3 years now. This way I know where I plateau.
So I fed this data to Claude Cowork and asked for it to create a new training routine. It started by asking what my goals were and what sort of equipment I had for my Wednesday training at home. After answering these, it surprised me. Each exercise had coaching notes, squeeze at the top, 2s hold each rep. Just the kind of thing a personal trainer would add.
It did include a hip trust which I was completely bored of, so I mentioned to replace this and Claude fixed it by replacing it with a hack squat instead. I don’t love that exercise either, but at least I don’t loathe it (as of yet).
The first training I did with the new schedule was very hard, but I felt great afterwards. I got my money’s worth without boring me to death. The feeling of complete exhaustion, barely able to walk because of the hack squats made my night.
Key Insight
I had three years worth of detailed training data that I didn’t use for anything else than just a vanity metric. Data produced without it being input to anything is just journaling.