What’s new in Gym Buddy 2.1? 04/28/09
By popular demand, Supersets are here!
When you add a new exercise, you are now presented with three options: strength-training, cardio, or supersets. (See the first screen above.) When ‘Supersets’ is selected, you can choose either two or three strength-training exercises to belong to the superset by touching the ‘Choose’ buttons. You must choose at least two and the third one is optional. You can choose the same exercise more than once.
When you perform a superset, you must enter the weight and reps for each exercise before the set is recorded. The exercises in the superset are displayed above the input fields (see the second screenshot). The active exercise appears in red -- this is the one you will entering weight and reps for -- and the results you have already entered appear in blue.
After entering the last exercise results, the set is recorded as in the third screenshot above. You may edit the set as normal, including changing the date and Workout. You cannot however change the exercise as all supersets are different.
For charting purposes, the One Rep Max of a superset is taken as the average One Rep Max of the individual exercises.
Why supersets? Supersets are an advanced workout technique that allow you to significantly increase your gains. Basically they are sets performed back-to-back with no rest in between.
The problem is that an exercise performed as the third set in a superset will not compare favorably to one performed as a standalone exercise. It’s like mixing apples and oranges. So if you perform back-to-back sets without an implementation of supersets, your workout log data will not make any sense.
Gym Buddy saves you from this confusion by considering all the sets in a superset as one set. All other workout log applications are only holding you back! How long will it be until they copy this (as they have so many other features of Gym Buddy)? Probably a long while, because it’s not easy to do.
There are several ways you can take advantage of supersets. You could choose multiple sets for the same muscle group to really give it a licking, while using multiple isolation exercises, or multiple compound exercises, or one of each to really take it to another level. You could workout opposing muscle groups, for example chest and back, so that one rests while the other works. You could even perform the same exercise multiple times with increasing or decreasing weight. Obviously, the possibilities this adds to your workout are endless.
Please let me know if this fits your needs because, even though Gym Buddy is the most advanced workout log in the world, I am still just getting started.
Other changes in 2.1:
-
• The ‘click’ sound when you touch a timer is now toggled on and off by ‘Timer Sounds’ rather than ‘Other Sounds’.
-
• There is a new option in Settings that let’s you select the order that sets appear on the input screen. ‘On’ means they appear in reverse chronological order in case you’re doing many sets per exercise and don’t want to have to scroll down to see your last set. ‘Off’ means chronological order.
-
• A new workout tab icon from ‘smiley face’ to ‘mean face’.
-
• The first default value on the input screen now defaults to the first set of your last workout, rather than your last set performed. After the first set, it defaults to your last performed set.
-
• There is a new button in the History tab that allows you to see and email a summary report of your workouts, one for cardio and one for strength-training (which includes supersets). See the fourth shot above.
Next up for 2.2? Workout planning!
What was new in older versions? Gym Buddy 1.1 Gym Buddy 1.2 Gym Buddy 1.3 Gym Buddy 1.4 Gym Buddy 1.5
