UPDATES
Update 1.2.0
July 10, 2023
Once again, we are introducing our biggest update to the Peak Strength app to date, featuring Athletic Fitness! Athletic Fitness is an entirely new training path you can take to focus on working towards specific training goals rather than training for a specific sport. Athletic Fitness is perfect for anyone who is serious about transforming the way their body moves, functions and looks. With five distinct focuses to choose from, anyone can find a focus that matches their fitness goals.
Athletic Fitness Focuses
When building your program, you will now be asked to choose your training path, either Sports Performance or Athletic Fitness. Sports Performance will direct you towards choosing your sport and position, while Athletic Fitness will ask you to choose one of five focuses.
Strength: The program blends athletic-based training with powerlifting to help you move and feel better while still hitting PRs in the core lifts of bench, squat, and deadlift.
Muscle: The program is focused on building muscle size and definition while not impeding your mobility or movement. The mix of athlete training with bodybuilding will have you feeling good and looking good.
Weight Loss: The program has a HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) feel but doesn’t neglect core strength movements. With extra built-in cardio, you will be losing weight while maintaining your muscle and strength.
Functional: As a blend of Olympic Weightlifting and athlete-based training, the program resembles CrossFit training. Develop your snatch and clean while improving your plyometrics and mobility simultaneously.
Total Athletic Fitness: The program combines all of the focuses above to provide a mix of workout types that will keep training engaging and fun. You’ll get stronger, move better, and become more muscular without neglecting your cardio and heart health.
After choosing your focus, you can select a preferred method of cardio that will be used when testing cardio levels. Each focus also has specific goal exercises that will track your progress throughout the program.
Workout Focus Flexibility
Although you will have a dedicated focus that directs your workouts through the entire program, on a day-to-day basis, you will have the flexibility to try out workouts from other focuses based on how you feel. For example, if you get to the gym and aren't feeling ready to lift super heavy, you can switch from the strength focus to the muscle focus and do some more bize and trize. Or, if you want to get some extra cardio in, you can switch to the weight loss focus, and the app will add cardio to your workout without altering the structure of your program.
Note that switching the focus will usually only change a couple of exercises in your workout, keeping the rest the same. On day three, however, the entire workout will change, tailoring it to the selected focus.
Cardio Exercises
Cardio training is a major addition to Peak Strength, and along with it comes a dedicated timer that will lead you through your cardio sets. Instead of functioning like typical exercises where you will enter how difficult the set was, for cardio exercises, the app will instruct you on how hard to push utilizing cardio zones. Cardio zones are a standardized method of regulating how hard you exercise based on your max heart rate. If you have a device that can measure your percentage of max heart rate, you can use that to regulate your intensity. Otherwise, you can use our descriptions to estimate the same level of work.
Zone 1: 50-60% max heart rate. A very easy recovery pace, such as a warm-up or cooldown.
Zone 2: 60-70% max heart rate. A comfortable pace where you can carry on a conversation.
Zone 3: 70-80% max heart rate. You will break a sweat, and harder breathing will prevent you from saying more than a couple of words at a time.
Zone 4: 80-90% max heart rate. You should feel a burn in your muscles, and your breathing will prevent you from talking.
Zone 5: 90-100% max heart rate. Work as hard as you can. This pace will not be sustainable for long.
Many cardio sets will use intervals, where you will be directed to work in an intensity zone for a certain period of time before switching to another zone. The intervals can be anywhere from 10 seconds to 5 minutes and can alternate between intervals, repeating up to 20 times. The cardio timer will instruct you when to switch intervals along with a sound notification sent to your phone (make sure your notifications are on!)
Testing
You will have a week of testing in the second week of the Realization phase for Athletic Fitness users. You will test one of your focus goals on each of the first three days of the week. The test will be the first exercise of the day, and you will be instructed when to max out with the “PR Attempt” indicator on the set.
Rep Tracking and Suggestions
The app will now regulate and track your PRs for the number of reps you can perform for certain bodyweight exercises. You can see your history for the number of reps you have performed and your max reps for that exercise on the history screen.
The app also will not suggest more reps than you can perform. For example, if the app initially suggests that you perform 7 pull ups, but you only completed 5 reps, change the number of reps to 5 and mark as did not complete on the difficulty slider. On the next set, the app will only suggest that you perform the number of reps you can complete. In successive workouts, the app will remember what you did in the past and push you towards completing more reps.
Program Overview
When finishing a program at the end of the realization phase, you will be presented with a screen detailing what you have accomplished. You will be able to see a variety of information, including how much progress you have made on each of your goals. From the overview screen, you can build your next program and continue working toward your goals.
Update 1.1.0
April 10, 2023
Are you curious how the volume of work you do in the weight room builds up over time? Do you ever struggle to get to the gym and need that little boost of motivation to get out the door? In our biggest update yet, we added a variety of new features to improve performance tracking and workout accountability. Check out the features below and learn how to get the most out of the Peak Strength app!
Tonnage Badges
Track your progress building strength with our new tonnage tracking and badges. You will see how many tons you’ve lifted each workout and earn badges as you reach milestones over time. Tonnage is a great way to track your overall progress by monitoring the total amount of “work” performed in the app. Think about it as adding the weight you’ve lifted from every rep of every set for every exercise during your workout.
Workout Streaks and Total Workouts Completed
Staying accountable to training consistently is one of the hardest things athletes struggle with, and yet it is one of the most significant determinants of how fast you will improve. We added streak tracking to show you how many workouts you’ve completed without missing a workout to help keep you on track to reach your goals.
*Note that missed workouts only count after a week ends, so you can still temporarily skip a workout as long as you complete it by the end of the week.
Profile Settings Update
In addition to your estimated 1-rep max on your profile settings screen, you can see your current tonnage badge and progress towards the next, your current workout streak, and your total workouts completed.
Workout Overview
After completing a workout, you will now see an overview of what you accomplished, including:
- Your current tonnage badge and progress toward the next
- The total amount of weight you lifted in today's workout
- The duration of your workout
- Your current workout streak
- Your total workouts completed
- A summary of your workout, including the exercises performed, their sets, reps, the highest weight performed on that exercise, and a notification if you hit a new est. 1RM on the exercise
Personal Best Notifications
After hitting a new estimated 1-rep max on an exercise, you will receive a notification and congratulations!
Equipment recommendations and purchase links
You can now check your equipment list for pieces we suggest getting access to and adding to your program, including the equipment we offer from our store
Performance and Interface improvements
- The recommended dumbbell weight has been clarified, now displaying as, for example: “40 pounds each side”
- Major performance improvements significantly reducing the amount of crashes on Apple and Android
- Increased processing speed on the "Log Set" button
- Error message when inputting a value above 2 times the user est. 1RM. Values can always be entered if 200lbs or lower, and can never exceed 1200lbs
- Improved suggested weight factoring the first time performing an exercise based on related exercises, as well as improved est. 1RM tracking based on logged weight
- Support for push notifications
Start today and check our our new features!
Update 1.0.16
January 10, 2023
Peak Strength has been live for only a few months, and we have been getting a ton of positive feedback from our users, and also some fantastic suggestions on how to improve the app. We have very big plans for the continued development of the app, and your feedback is extremely valuable for us to mold Peak Strength into the best strength training app possible for you. To provide us with more feedback, you can fill out the survey linked here.
In update v our primary goal was addressing some of the biggest “quality of life” improvements requested by our users. Making Peak Strength easy to use was one of our primary goals from the very beginning, and your continued feedback has helped us hone in on that goal with this update. We will be adding some bigger features in our next update, so stay tuned, but for now, check out the list of updates added to Peak Strength!
Additional work at the end of the week
Prior to this update, when all workouts for the week were finished, there was no further action you could take in the app until the start of the next week. After finishing the last workout of the week, an option to do an additional workout is now available. You may add up to 5 workouts in a week, and after completing your 5th workout, mobility will be available outside of the workout.
Set and change one rep max for any exercise
After entering your initial maxes for the bench, squat, and clean when first signing up, the app attempts to estimate what your max is for related exercises. The app will also adjust your current maxes based on how you perform in the workout. Every person is different, and sometimes you would prefer to set your max yourself instead of letting the app estimate it for you. Now you can! By clicking on the “Exercise History” tab of an exercise, you can either create a new one rep max or change your one rep max. You can also change your primary exercise one rep maxes by tapping the name of the exercise on the settings screen.
Note that your suggested weights will not change if you already started the workout, but you can just make the adjustment to the weight suggestion in the workout, change your one rep max, and the change will be saved for the next time you perform that exercise.
Information on periodization phases
Periodization is a major aspect of Peak Strength as it dictates the volume, intensity, and exercise variation in your workouts leading up to your peak date. By tapping the graph on the home screen, you can now view additional information on the phase of periodization you are on. You will also get notifications in the app when transitioning into a new phase.
Set your program start date
When creating your program, you may now set the date that you would like to start program. Your workouts will only be available at the beginning of the week of your start date.
Additional Changes
- Improved the visibility of the skip to workout button when previewing future workouts.
- When removing dumbbells and barbells from the user’s equipment list, they will be notified if they would like to rebuild their program to improve the quality of their workouts. The same occurs when adding either dumbbells or barbells back into their equipment list.
- When adding equipment, you will have the option rebuilding unstarted workouts with the new equipment being considered.
- Starting a workout in the middle of the week will suggest that you start the correct workout, allowing you to start the next week at Day 1 without having just performed that workout.
- Added the ability to reactive a finished workout.
- Improved functionality of the log set button.
- Bug fixes to reduce crashing rate.