[swatcoder]

In what sense is your workout collection a wiki and how complete is it meant to be?

The bodyweight workouts, for instance, are sparse and rudimentary and the generator comes up with a pretty disjoint and insufficient program at all intensity levels.

That's not to say that you're obliged to replicate Overcoming Gravity or TRX or something, but it's unclear why bodyweight even appears as an option in the genrator at this point, let alone at levels beyond beginner.

If it's not really an expansive wiki and is instead just a collection of your own high-production-value workout descriptions (which seem well made) for contemporary weight training, it makes sense that there's only a narrow "happy path" through the generator -- maybe the presentation should be more focused on that happy path and less overbroad?

[w0ts0n]

Took me a while (and to read your reply) to understand what you were saying.

Don't get hung up on the name. The intention a long time ago was to make it a wiki, but it never happened and the name stuck.

I'm not sure what you mean, bodyweight only exercise selection looks fine to me? Want to give me a concrete example, maybe we have something bugged. We have a bunch more exercise coming to add a little more depth, but our data shows that bodyweight is generally where novice/beginner lifters want to start, so we give them the option. Also things like pull-ups, chin-ups, dips are in no way "beginner" and so if a user selects "all equipment" which is what most people do, they'll get these very important exercises if they are applicable.

its okay if you don't agree, but we have an expert on staff who curated these exercises. I trust him more than some guy on the internet. So if they are wrong, its likely a bug.

ack on bodyweight depth - working on it.

[swatcoder]

Thanks for responding. More bodyweight depth would be great!

But I think this part of your reply really hits the seemingly unstated focus of your program:

> bodyweight is generally where novice/beginner lifters want to start

Your vision is a site for the lifting community and the progressions associated with that community. That's great and could be a very successful business with a very helpful site. Your exercise descriptions and their videos are excellent. I hope it all works out for you!

But that community and that progression is only one tradition in strength training, muscle development, and athleticism. It's a very popular niche, but it's a ultimately a specific niche (and you want it to be exactly that if you want your business to have brand clarity to customers and partners).

Where this distinction starts to become most apparent is when you start looking at "Intermediate" and "Advanced" exercises in a specific domain like bodyweight. For a lifter, the box dips, side plank reach throughs, etc from your Advanced Bodyweight Workout are perhaps as advanced as you'll take your bodyweight practice as part of your overall lifting practice.

But for people who are actually interested in pursuing "advanced" bodyweight practice itself, these are better characterized as novice-to-intermediate exercises. "Advanced" work in bodyweight fitness itself (even without rings/bars/straps etc) are things like L-sits, planches, handstand pushups, etc [Stephen Low's Overcoming Gravity is a definitive reference for these progressions]

I don't think there's anything wrong with your site's collection, but I do think it would benefit for being more clear about who it's meant for and what its vision is. I think the presentation is trying to be very generic and universal right now, which isn't really feasible, and it was unclear to me if that was accidental or not.

As I noted originally (however haphazardly expressed!), my Show HN feedback is that you might want to more strongly communicate your specific and reasonable focus so that you appeal more directly to people looking for exactly what you offer and cost yourself in less support-burden/confusion/judgment from people who are seeking something different.

As an example, if the site indicated more explicitly for "lifters", we wouldn't have even had this conversation in the first place and my questions over lacking breadth wouldn't have been aired out here for others to read.

[MarcScott]

> Your vision is a site for the lifting community

Is that mentioned explicitly somewhere on the site?

I'm into martial arts and never want to set foot inside a gym; I also have no equipment at home. Picking things up and then putting them down again has no interest for me.

I want exercises that use only body weight and allow me to focus on the muscle groups where I want to increase strength (I have no interest in aesthetics; I just want to punch and kick hard).

It's early days on the site, but it has already given me a bunch of exercises that do exactly what I want.

[pandemic_region]

What are you trying to say, genuine question.

[swatcoder]

It seems like a decent but pretty narrow collection of exercises that over-represents its breadth, so I'm wondering what the vision is (why 'wiki' if its internally maintained content?) and what the purpose is in having this new generator generate programs for undeveloped content categories.