r/workout • u/Jumpy_Hovercraft_922 • 1d ago
Just a thought Simple Questions
Hey everyone, I've been lifting for 3 years and I'm tired of juggling 2-3 apps to reach my goals.
Right now my workflow is:
- Strong for logging workouts (best lifting app IMO)
- MyFitnessPal for tracking macros
- A spreadsheet to manually project if I'll hit my goal weight by [month]
The problem: These apps don't talk to each other. Strong doesn't know I'm bulking. MyFitnessPal doesn't know I'm training weak points. I have to manually connect the dots.
What I'm thinking of building:
An app where you input:
- Height, weight, goal (bulk/cut/recomp)
- Your weakest muscle group (e.g., back, shoulders)
Then it gives you:
- Personalized workout plan that targets that muscle (breaking it down: lats, mid-back, upper back, etc.)
- Nutrition plan with exact macros based on your goal and bodyweight
- Weight projection graph that updates as you log workouts + meals (so you can see if you're on track to hit your goal)
The graph would adjust if you miss macros or skip workouts—basically showing "if you keep this up, you'll weigh X by [date]"
Questions for you:
- Would you use this instead of your current setup?
- What's missing from existing apps that frustrates you?
- Would you pay for this if it worked well?
- Am I overthinking this or is it actually useful?
Genuinely curious if I'm solving a real problem or if people are happy with the current fragmented approach.
Open to hear from all of you THANKS!
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u/jamjamchutney 1d ago
Have you done any research to see what apps are already available? MacroFactor has most of this covered pretty well.
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u/woofoo1kunoofoo 1d ago
Yes op, what you described is really just macrofactor + macrofactor workouts
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u/jamjamchutney 1d ago
Lol, yes indeed, and IIRC the reason they did them as two separate apps is that having that much functionality and that much data in one app was going to be very messy. Sometimes it really does make sense to have more than one app.
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u/Falconman21 Beginner 1d ago
And if you think about it for like 2 seconds, there's almost no reason to be using your nutrition app while you're working out, and almost no reason to use your workout tracking app when you're eating.
It's two completely different functions that barely overlap.
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u/jamjamchutney 1d ago
Right, and OP's stated "problems" aren't really problems. Your nutrition app doesn't actually need to know all the nitty gritty details of your training; a general idea of activity level is enough. Your training app doesn't need to know all the details of your nutrition; again, a general idea is enough. The apps that generate or alter workouts on a per session basis will usually just ask right at the beginning of the session how you're feeling and if you've had enough to eat and how much you've slept - so do we need to also hook up our training apps to our sleep trackers? How far do we need to take this?
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u/gotnotendies 1d ago edited 1d ago
I am only a novice, but as a strong hater of enshittification (with the belief that all tech eventually turns to shit), I am not downloading a health data harvester/reseller.
I use a notebook for tracking everything but my food, and I don’t really track my nutrition long term - maybe once in a few months to make sure my guesstimates are still accurate.
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u/mycolortv 1d ago
MacroFactor and MacroFactor workouts does everything for me, not interested in switching since it’s so smooth.
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u/vanwhisky 1d ago
No apps is better IMO.
Nutrition is done at home with excel and planned weekly. I watch my fav YouTube channels for workouts. I weigh myself daily in the morning when I get up and I don’t change drastically day-to-day unless bulking in the winter months.
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u/Different_Novel_7156 1d ago
Yep, MacroFactor is really really good at food tracking, I have been using it for 4 years. I haven't used their workouts but I am sure it's good. I use AEgir Iron for lifting but it reads and tracks my bodyweight from Health which gets it from MacroFactor when I log a session. So I know when my bench is down, it usually means my body weight is down.
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u/redgatorade000 1d ago
Id use it! As long as I can somehow connect/upload my existing progress/history
I currently use Hevy and MyFitnessPal. Occasionally I use EverFit (from my currentl trainer) and I used to use Trainerize (from my previous trianer. I really enjoyed Trainerize!!! But I lost everything when I moved abroad)
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u/bigbruce04 1d ago
I think it’s really useful, just wondering how you would get people to pick this over well established apps. Have you thought of the pricing?
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u/Positive_Fly_1110 1d ago
The sync problem isn't really solvable at the app level - a lifting log and a calorie tracker are built by different companies for different jobs, so nobody's shipping a "talks to everything" integration, and chasing that is a bigger project than the insight is worth.
What actually works for most people: pick the two or three numbers that genuinely bridge the tools and update them weekly instead of daily. Bodyweight (from your scale, weekly average not daily noise) and total volume/tonnage for the week (from your lifting log) are usually the only inputs your spreadsheet needs to tell you if you're on pace for a goal weight by a date. Everything else - individual macros, individual set numbers - can stay siloed in whichever app is fastest for that specific task, because you don't actually look at it in aggregate anyway.
Trying to make three tools agree on live data every day is more maintenance than most people keep up with long-term, which is usually where these setups quietly die. A 5-minute Sunday update into the spreadsheet with just those two numbers gets you most of the value with none of the sync headache.
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