How Muscle Train works

Muscle Train builds training programs from your own data and then keeps track of how you actually train. The more it knows about you — your level, your equipment, your body weight, the sets you logged — the closer the programs get to something you can really do today.

This page walks through every feature: what it does, and what it changes in the programs you get. No account needed to read it — and a fair part of the product works without one too.

The loop

Everything sits on one cycle. Three things go in, a program comes out, you train and log it — and what you logged decides what the next program looks like. Every lap makes it fit you a little better.

What goes in

↳ Stuck somewhere else today? From any planned day you can switch the location — Gym, Street workout, Home or Other — and the day is rebuilt for the equipment you actually have, keeping the same muscles. One click puts the original back.
↺ And the loop closes. The next program is generated from everything the last one taught us: workouts you rated hard trim the volume, a streak of clean sets suggests adding weight, a lagging muscle group gets priority, and the new plan is guaranteed to differ from the previous one. Skip the logging and none of this happens — the generator is only as good as what you tell it.

What works without an account

Exercise library

The full database, filtered live — pick equipment on the left, muscle groups on the right (the body map highlights what you selected), search by name. Filters combine: equipment and muscles at the same time.

Muscle map

Click a muscle on the body scheme and see the exercises that train it. Useful when you know what feels underworked but not what to do about it.

Progressions

Skill ladders — from a first push-up to advanced calisthenics. Browse every step of every progression, with the prerequisites for each.

Program generator

You can generate a full program without registering. What an account adds is keeping it: saving, editing, scheduling and tracking all require a login.

Your data — this is what makes programs good

The generator has no idea who you are beyond what it is told. These four screens are the highest-leverage minutes you will spend in the product.

Profile

Level, goal, sex, body weight, height, age — the defaults every generation starts from.

Effect: your level caps how hard the chosen exercises may be, and together with body weight and sex it selects the strength standard used to turn “bench press” into a concrete number in kilograms.

Your equipment

Tick what you actually have — at home, in your gym, or nothing at all.

Effect: two things, not one. It filters the exercise pool, and it also drops exercises where your kit cannot physically produce the suggested working weight — no more “squat 82.5 kg” when your heaviest dumbbell is 20.

Body weight

Log your weight over time and watch the trend.

Effect: your latest entry is pre-filled into the generator, and body weight is one of the inputs to every suggested weight. Log it regularly and the numbers stay honest as you change.

My goals

Write down what you are actually training for and track it.

Effect: keeps you pointed in one direction across program cycles — this is your own record, not a generator input.

Generating a program

Generate Program is the main entry point. Every field on that form changes the result in a specific way:

InputWhat it changes in your program
Fitness level (1–5) Caps exercise difficulty — nothing above your level gets picked — and selects the strength standard behind the suggested weights.
Goal Sets the sets × reps scheme: Build Muscle 4×10, Get Stronger 4×6, Improve Endurance 6×12, Lose Fat 6×15. Machine exercises get a few extra reps.
Body weight & sex Inputs to the suggested working weight for every barbell/dumbbell movement.
Test 1RM results Not a field on the form — taken from your saved tests. They override the population standard: a tested exercise uses your own measured max, and the rest of that muscle group is scaled by the same margin.
Equipment Filters the exercise pool and removes exercises whose target weight your equipment cannot make.
Target muscle groups Restricts the pool to what you want to train. Core work is added on top regardless, so abs never silently disappear.
Priority muscle groups Gives those groups extra slots in the day — emphasis without turning the program into a single-muscle routine.
Program type Basic (full body), Push / Pull / Legs, Upper / Lower split, or Progressions. See below.
Days per week · Weeks 2–6 days, 2–16 weeks. Shapes the calendar, not the exercise choice.
Training time (minutes) Minutes you plan to train, warm-up excluded. Sets how many exercises fit in a day — between 3 and 10. Leave it empty for automatic.
Intensity Rest between sets: High = 60 s, Medium = 90 s, Low = 120 s. Shorter rest means more exercises fit into the same number of minutes.
Supersets Pairs exercises so they are performed back to back, with your chosen number of superset rounds.

The four program types

Basic — full body

Every session covers the whole body, balanced across movement categories. The safest default, especially at 2–3 days a week.

Push / Pull / Legs

Days split by movement pattern. Core work is guaranteed in every day — 2 exercises normally, 3 in high-volume days.

Upper / Lower split

Alternates upper- and lower-body days. A good middle ground at 4 days a week.

Progressions

Built around the skill ladders you select, at the step you are currently on — see Progressions below.

How a training day is ordered

The order inside a day is not random. Exercises run from hardest to easiest, so the demanding work happens while you are fresh, and the gap between neighbours widens at the top of the list. On top of that, no more than two exercises in a row may hit the same muscle — you never grind three consecutive movements on an already-tired muscle.

Building a program by hand

Sometimes you already know exactly what you want. Build Program lets you assemble a program yourself — no algorithm involved: name it, set the number of weeks and days, then add exercises to each day from the full library. Sets and reps get sensible defaults you can overwrite.

Generated programs are not frozen either. Any saved program can be edited afterwards — swap an exercise you dislike, change the weight, add a set. A generated program is a starting point, not a contract.

Training and logging

Calendar

Your program laid out over real dates: done, planned, missed. A compact version sits in the cabinet so you see the week at a glance when you log in.

Log workout

Record a full session — either a day from your program or a free workout that was not planned at all. Per set: reps, weight, time, and how hard it felt.

Log exercise

A single exercise, logged on its own. For the extra set you did at the end, or a movement you are tracking outside any program.

Why bother logging: logs are the only thing that turns this from a program generator into a training history. Charts, personal records, estimated 1RM, progression percentages and the CSV export are all built out of logged sets — nothing downstream exists without them.

Seeing where you are

Progress

Volume, frequency and per-exercise strength over time, plus your records. This is where you find out whether the last cycle actually worked.

CSV export

On the Progress page: download your whole history, or narrow it down — all time, last 12 months or a custom range, and either everything, one muscle group, or a single exercise. Plain CSV, opens in any spreadsheet.

Test 1RM

Guided one-rep-max tests by muscle group, with results kept over time — a straight answer to “am I stronger than in March?”.

Effect: this is the strongest correction you can give the generator. Without tests, suggested weights come from population strength standards for your level, body weight and sex — an average person, not you. A test replaces that guess: the exercise you tested uses your measured max directly, and every other exercise in the same muscle group is scaled by the same margin. Bench 20% above the standard and the whole chest moves with you.

Progressions

A progression is a ladder of exercises leading to one skill — a pull-up, a pistol squat, a handstand. Each step has its own requirement, and you climb only when you have met it.

Effect: progressions are how bodyweight training gets harder without adding kilograms. If you train with little or no equipment, this is your main source of overload.

Getting the best out of it

A short checklist, roughly in order of payoff:

  1. Set your equipment first. It has the largest effect of any single setting — it decides both what you are given and whether the weights are achievable.
  2. Be honest about your level. Overstating it produces a program you cannot finish; understating it produces one you do not need.
  3. Give the generator your real training time. A 45-minute program you finish beats a 90-minute one you abandon halfway.
  4. Log every session. Everything downstream depends on it.
  5. Run a 1RM test per muscle group. It swaps the average-person estimate for your actual strength across the whole group — repeat it every few months, since tests older than a year are ignored.
  6. Log your body weight regularly. Suggested weights are computed from it.
  7. Re-generate when things change — new equipment, a level up, a new goal, or simply the end of a cycle.
  8. Export your data now and then. It is yours, and having a copy costs one click.

A few practical notes

That is the whole product. The fastest way to understand it is to generate something.

Generate my program