A Workout a Day
A Workout a Day is a workout routine newsletter aimed at making it easy and simple to work out.
App
Download the app. App tokens are generated from the preferences page on the website.
The program Obtainium can be used for automatic updates.
Features
- Customizable workout splits, intensity, and rest days.
- Workouts are simplified for users who are new to fitness to build consistency and reduce injury risk.
- Exercises are chosen from equipment you have access to — no pullups without a pullup bar or fitness rings.
- Ignore unwanted exercises — no more burpees!
- Progress or regress exercises to switch between easier and harder variations.
- Track how much weight you are able to lift.
- Customize how long you want to see exercises before they refresh.
- Customize how much each muscle is being strengthened. Workouts are automatically adjusted to remove muscle imbalances.
- Customize how often you want to deload. Built-in deload weeks automatically adjust your workout to prevent overtraining.
- Optional health and fitness tips.
- Optional mobility workouts on rest days.
- Optional sports, injury prevention, and rehabilitation exercises.
Email Clients
Because of how the emails are formatted, we require support for absolutely positioned elements.
Supported Email Clients
- Fastmail
Unsupported Email Clients
- Gmail (no support for
position: absolute;)
Why a Newsletter?
Other fitness apps require users to keep track of how often they need to workout and seek the workouts themselves. I find that reminder notifications are too easy to swipe away or disable when they arrive at inconvenient times. Opening a dedicated fitness app can also be intimidating or overwhelming. A Workout a Day sends at most one workout per day and utilizes your email client's features to remind you later, or pin the workout, so that it's always visible when you check your email.
However, emails have their limitations as well. A Workout a Day is geared towards new-to-fitness users or users who aren't as inclined to optimize their workout to 100%.
Debug
Checklist
- Can this exercise be done as a warmup or cooldown?
- Is there any equipment that can be used and is not listed?
- Would this exercise be beneficial to any sports?
- Should the user use caution when doing this exercise?
Considerations
- Weighted exercises such as the lateral raise should not have an unweighted instruction. The unweighted instruction is too easy for people who are strength training and don't have any of the exercise's equipment. If the user is too injured to be able to do the recovery exercise with weights, then they should be in physical therapy.
Exercise Variations
Compound and major muscle isolation exercises should use their fancy names (squat, deadlift, skull crusher). While joint and miniature muscle isolation exercises should use more descriptive names (wrist pronation, finger extension).
Exercises should not be grouped. Finger Flexion and Finger Extension are two different exercises.
Proficiency
- Main exercise progressions should be at least 10 apart.
- Mobility variations (sa. Lateral Lunge with Overhead Reach) of exercises should be 5 more than their core variation (sa. Lateral Lunge).
Variations
- Pike and Downward Dog are different exercises.
- Cobra and Upward Facing Dog are different exercises.
Muscles Worked
- Rotator Cuffs - Strengthens through shoulder stabilization.
- Serratus Anterior - Strengthens through scapular protraction (scapular push/pull) and scapular upward rotation (raising arm overhead).
- Rotator Cuffs - Stretches when externally rotating the shoulder (across or behind body) or having the arm raised in an extended position (sa. hanging).
- Serratus Anterior - Stretches when moving the arm back from the body (sa. twisting) or having the arm raised in an extended position (sa. hanging).
Here are the main movements around the shoulder girdle with the muscles involved.
- Abduction - The middle fibers, when contracted, lift the arm away from the body up to about 90 degrees. This is a primary action of the deltoid muscle.
- Flexion and Medial Rotation - The anterior fibers assist in moving the arm forward and rotating it inwards. This action is visible when you throw a ball underhand.
- Extension and Lateral Rotation - The posterior fibers are responsible for moving the arm backward and rotating it outwards. This movement occurs when you perform a backhand in tennis or put your hand behind your back.
- Shoulder extension: Posterior Deltoid, Lats
- Shoulder flexion: Anterior deltoid, Pec major
- Scapular retraction: Rhomboids, Trapezius
- Scapular protraction: Pec major, Serratus Anterior
- Shoulder abduction: Rhomboids, Traps
- Shoulder adduction: Pec major, Lats
- Shoulder horizontal abduction: Middle Deltoid Pec major, Lats
- Shoulder horizontal adduction: Pec major, Lats
- Scapular upward rotation: Serratus anterior, Upper and lower traps
- Scapular downward rotation: Rhomboids
- Scapular elevation: Upper Traps
- Scapular depression: Lower Traps, Lats
Planks
While front planks primary work the anterior muscle chain and reverse planks work the posterior muscle chain, they both work the abs, obliques, and spinal erectors to some degree. Shoulders are also engaged, however they are better worked by shoulder isolation exercises.
- Planks strengthen the abs, obliques, spinal erectors, and hip flexors; stabilize the quads and front deltoids.
- Side Planks strengthen the abs, obliques, spinal erectors, and hip adductors; stabilize the glutes and side deltoids.
- Reverse Planks strengthen the abs, obliques, spinal erectors, and glutes; stabilize the hamstrings and rear deltoids.
- Quadruped Planks strengthen the abs, obliques, and spinal erectors; stabilize the hip flexors, quads, and front deltoids.
- Reverse Quadruped Planks strengthen the abs, obliques, spinal erectors, and glutes; stabilize the hamstrings and rear deltoids.
- Pike Planks strengthen the abs, deltoids, obliques, spinal erectors, triceps, and serratus anterior; stabilize the forearms, biceps, traps, rhomboids, and rotator cuffs.
- Handstands strengthen the abs, deltoids, obliques, spinal erectors, triceps, and serratus anterior; stabilize the forearms, biceps, traps, rhomboids, and rotator cuffs.
Instructions
- All linked instructions (incl. instruction_locations) should be a short (1-2min) walkthrough of how the exercise should be performed.