[bjornasm]

>For a beginner, they won't know it's dumb, so this is kind of harmful.

Oh please its not harmful to do deadlifts with a bar and then kettlebells or whatever.

> What I find most useful is deep dive discussion by an expert for most effective exercises and how to get the most of out of them with subtleties about grips and cues to increase mind-muscle-connection etc. Suggestions for how to swap out exercises to work around injuries or focus on weak points is very useful. The lifter can then iterate and swap exercises in and out of their routine to keep it fresh and useful.

And that is fine and can be found at your physio, a great yourube channel, online coach, some crossfit, powerlifting or weightlifting coaches. But that was probably not the aim of this webapp.

[atchoo]

Harmful as in giving bad advice.

[junon]

This might actually get me to start working out, it's exactly the kind of resource I've been looking for. I'd wager you wouldn't say "no, keep not working out", right? If it gets people motivated to start, why not?

[edanm]

That can be true of almost everything, and most people agree with that general sentiment.

I think it's still ok to say "well the webapp might be better than literally not exercising at all, but here are problems with it". In this context, it's ok to offer that kind of feedback/perspective, without having to contend with the question of "is this better than not starting at all".

Having said all that, as much as I do want to encourage more people to exercise, and as much as I agree with the idea of "most things are better than nothing", there are still a few huge caveats to that statement:

1. If a program is too hard, e.g. causing a lot of soreness the day after, someone might quit after a week, instead of had they started with something more sustainable.

2. If a program causes injury, then someone is probably literally better off not doing that program.

3. If a program is too overwhelming in terms of what it contains, e.g. too many exercises, then someone might again, get overwhelmed and quit.

4. If a program is literally impossible for someone to perform (e.g. some people can't bodyweight squat), this can also be very discouraging.

Basically, there are a lot of mistakes one can make in the making a program for someone starting out. From the perspective of someone choosing a program, there's a lot of good beginner programs on the internet one can start with. From the perspective of critiquing an automated app for designing beginner workouts, I think it's totally valid to say "well hang on, here's a bunch of things that could go wrong, is this really the right approach?"