Using the Workouts page

How do I start a workout?

Open Workouts and pick any session from the weekly split, not only the next one in sequence. Tap Preview on a row to see its movements, and start it when you are ready. Working weights are already calculated from your own one-rep max.

1. Open Workouts. The current cycle is listed as Workout 1 through 6, plus a rest day.
2. Today’s session is highlighted, and completed ones are marked Done.
3. Tap Preview on any row to see its movements. You can start any day in the upcoming week, not just the next one.
4. Work through the movements. Each carries its sets, reps and a working weight from your own one-rep max.
5. Finish the session when you are done, which records it against the week’s volume.

Why it works this way

Weights are a percentage of your tracked one-rep max rather than a fixed number, so the program scales to you and keeps scaling as you get stronger. The one-rep max entry covers how that is estimated without a maximal attempt. If a logged set produces a new estimated high on squat, bench or deadlift, Your Lab updates that lift automatically, so you do not have to re-enter it.

What you can change

You do not have to take the sessions in the order shown. See reordering below.

What can I log during a session?

Every prescribed set gets its own row, with weight, reps and RPE editable independently. The weight shown is a starting suggestion, not a lock: log what you actually lifted.

1. Each set is a separate entry. Three prescribed sets means three rows, not one aggregate.
2. Edit weight, reps and RPE per set. The app says as much above the fields.
3. A rest timer starts automatically after each logged set, set to that exercise’s prescribed rest.
4. Trained differently today? Use the log your own workout option available for each session type.

Why it works this way

Sets within an exercise are not interchangeable. The third set at the same weight is a different piece of information from the first, and averaging them away loses the thing you would want to look back at. Presenting the prescribed weight as a suggestion is the honest framing: the number came from an estimate of your one-rep max, and you are the one under the bar.

What you can change

Your most recent RPE for an exercise nudges the next prescribed weight for that same exercise up or down. You do not have to do anything for that to happen, but logging RPE honestly is what makes it work.

What do I log for Zone 2 and VO2 Max?

Zone 2 takes duration and pace. VO2 Max gives you a choice of session first: three equipment-tiered interval circuits, or the 4×4 Norwegian protocol. All the logging is optional.

1. Zone 2: log duration, and pace as minutes and seconds with a miles or kilometres toggle.
2. VO2 Max circuits: pick Bodyweight, Dumbbell or Full Gym depending on what you have access to, then log rounds completed and reps into a partial final round.
3. 4×4 Norwegian intervals: select the machine used, from Treadmill, Bike, Row, Ski or Assault Bike, then log distance separately for each of the four blocks.

Why it works this way

Three equipment tiers exist because a VO2 Max session you cannot equip is a session that does not happen. Recording the machine on intervals matters because a distance on a rower and the same distance on a treadmill are not comparable, so plotting them together would produce a meaningless trend.

What you can change

Every field is optional and the session logs fine without them. Pace and interval distance are what Reports plots over time, so they are worth entering if you want to see whether the work is getting easier.

How the priority labels work

Sessions get a high priority label when they target a domain you are behind on. If your strength or VO2 max scores are low, the sessions addressing those get flagged. On a week when you cannot do all six, do the flagged ones first.

Why it works this way

A fixed weekly template punishes the ordinary disruption of real life: miss Monday and the plan says you are behind. Because the split does not care what day of the week it is, only how many sessions you have actually completed, the plan adapts to your real pace instead of penalising a busy week.

What you can change

Nothing to change here, but it is why the sessions are numbered rather than named after days.

How do I reorder the sessions?

Use the arrows on each session row to move it up or down the week. The rest day can be moved the same way.

1. Open Workouts and find the session you want to move.
2. Use the up and down arrows on that row to move it earlier or later.
3. The rest day has its own arrows. A training day cannot be swapped past the rest slot, and a session already marked Done cannot be moved.

Why it works this way

The default order is not arbitrary: the two lifting days are separated so no muscle group is loaded again inside the 24 to 48 hour window where protein synthesis is still elevated, and the hard VO2 Max session sits after the second lift rather than before it. The best workout for longevity entry sets out the spacing in full.

What you can change

Reorder freely to fit your week, but try to keep the two heavy lifting days apart rather than back to back. Same volume, different order, is a different program in terms of recovery.

What happens if I skip a workout?

Nothing breaks. Skipping advances your position in the cycle exactly as finishing does, and there is no penalty built in beyond the session not having happened.

Why it works this way

A plan that treats a missed session as a failure state is a plan people abandon. Because the cycle tracks completed sessions rather than calendar days, a skip moves you forward rather than leaving a hole behind you.

What you can change

If you are skipping the same session type repeatedly, that is worth noticing. The priority labels tell you which sessions to protect when time is short, and consistently skipping a high-priority one will show up in the domain it feeds.

What does the app do for me during a session?

Three things you would otherwise do yourself: it generates a warm-up ramp before your first heavy set, attaches a coaching cue matched to the current phase, and offers curated alternatives if an exercise does not suit you today.

1. Warm-up ramp: progressively heavier steps leading up to your working weight, generated automatically before the first heavy set.
2. Phase cue: a tempo prescription such as 3-1-1-0 in the tempo phase, an RPE target in the strength phase, a speed and intent cue in the power phase.
3. Substitutions: many exercises offer real alternative movements you can swap in mid-session.

Why it works this way

Warm-up sets are the part people skip or improvise, and improvising them badly is how a heavy first set goes wrong. The cue changes by phase because the same exercise is being trained for a different quality in each: controlled tempo builds tendon tolerance, an RPE target manages a heavy load, and intent is the whole point of a power movement.

What you can change

Substitute freely when equipment or a niggle demands it. The alternatives are curated to train the same pattern rather than being a generic list, so a substitution does not quietly change what the session was for.

What does the Extra Credit badge mean?

That the exercise is optional bonus work rather than part of the required session. Everything without the badge is the session as programmed; Extra Credit is there if you have time and appetite for it.

Why it works this way

A session that is 80 percent required and 20 percent optional finishes reliably. Marking the optional part explicitly means a short week does not turn into a half-completed workout and an unclear record of what you actually did.

What you can change

Skip Extra Credit freely. The session still counts as complete, and the week’s volume reflects the required work either way.

What do the priority labels mean?

They tell you which sessions to keep when you cannot do all six. High priority means that session feeds the domain the app has identified as your weakest; low priority means it is maintenance rather than the thing that will move your score.

Why it works this way

Six sessions is an ambition, not a requirement. The labels exist for the week where only three of them happen, so the choice of which three is not left to whichever you feel like doing.

What you can change

The labels change as your scores change. If VO2 Max is your weakest domain, the VO2 Max and Zone 2 sessions carry high priority and lifting drops to low; if strength is weakest, the reverse happens and the cycle adds a third lifting day.

Why does Day 7 show as a rest day?

Because adaptation happens during recovery, not during training. A seventh session would displace the thing the other six were for.

Why it works this way

Muscle protein synthesis, tendon remodelling and central nervous system recovery all happen between sessions. Training through them produces fatigue rather than adaptation, which the rest days entry covers.

What you can change

You can move the rest day with its own up and down arrows. Its position is a display setting only: it does not shift the training days’ own sequence, it just changes where the rest lands in the week. What you cannot do is remove it, and a walk on that day is not a session and does not compete for recovery.

How does the program progress?

Twelve individually programmed weeks, not one week repeated. The main lifts ramp in intensity week over week, and weeks 4, 8 and 12 are deloads. The three phases are a grouping label across those sixteen weeks, four loading weeks each with a lighter week after.

1. Weeks 1–3 and 5–7 ramp intensity on squat, bench and the deadlift pattern week by week, rather than holding one percentage for a month.
2. Weeks 5 and 10 are bridge weeks. Volume and intensity both drop, your baselines get tested, and the next block’s movements are introduced at light load so you are not meeting them cold.
3. Week 15 is a taper rather than a deload: volume halves but intensity holds, then the full test battery runs. Week 16 is recovery, Zone 2 only, no lifting and no intervals.

Why it works this way

Repeating an identical week for a month stops producing adaptation partway through it, and never deloading produces accumulated fatigue that reads as a plateau. Ramping within a block and then pulling volume back is how you keep the stimulus climbing without the fatigue climbing with it.

The phase names describe what each group of four weeks is for. Tendon Resilience comes first because tendon adapts considerably more slowly than muscle, so loading heavy before connective tissue has caught up is how people get hurt in the second block. Max Neural Strength works at genuinely heavy percentages without maximal attempts. Power and Work Capacity converts that strength into output, which needs a strength base to convert from. Periodization covers why phased blocks beat a constant routine.

What you can change

The phases run in sequence rather than being selectable, because taking the power block before the strength block would be training for something you have not built yet. Deload weeks are part of the programming rather than an interruption to it, so treat week 4 as a scheduled part of the block rather than a week off.