BBNote - Part1 - Initial Idea and Concepts

Overview

Imagine this — You acquire a workout program from your personal trainer, buy one online, or even get everyone’s best mate these days, ChatGPT 🤖, to generate one for you. All excited, you rock up at the gym on Monday, ready to start training.

The problem? You now have to juggle at least two things on your phone:

1. The workout program — usually in PDF, Word, or Excel format.
2. Your logging application.

I’ve been doing it this way for years. It works… but it’s a pain in my ass.

You might say, hang on — couldn’t you just recreate the PDF or Excel program inside your training app? Yes, you can. But again — what a pain in the ass. Finding each exercise in a database and building it out on a 6.2-inch touchscreen? Not ideal.

Core Requirements

1. I would ❤️ to transfer or upload an existing PDF/Word/Excel (or whatever format) workout plan directly into a training application on my phone.
2. I would ❤️ to track specific muscle group progress based on volume calculations — perhaps over a rolling 4-week window.
3. I would ❤️ to also track subjective recovery metrics like sleep and mood.
4. I would ❤️ if volume calculations also accounted for secondary muscle groups involved. (Inspired by the recent book I reviewed: The Muscle and Strength Pyramid – Training 2)

Meet BBnote

This is my attempt at providing a solution to lessen the pain in my ass 😂.

Brainstorming Features

I will note down my current thinking around features — if you have suggestions that make sense, let me know!

Importing

This is probably the most important requirement. BBnote should be able to import compatible workout plans.

This feature allows you to generate plans however you see fit — manually on your computer or via an AI agent of your choice.

Work on both my PC and my phone

It would be awesome to run the same application on both my phone and my PC.

This will allow me to create workouts (think mouse and keyboard) or check my statistics on the platform that makes sense for what I want to do.

Updating the workout while training

This is common and makes sense — while I train, I might throw in additional sets of an exercise I hadn’t planned (whether that’s a good idea is a different discussion 😂).

Statistics

This is the most interesting section — and probably the one I will fiddle with the most.

My current thinking is to build two models that could be blended to give an overall indication of progression and recovery.

Effective Volume Calculation

By capturing the following metrics — which you probably already track:

• Exercise
• Sets
• Reps
• Weight
• RPE

We can attempt to provide trends around:

• Estimated effective volume
• Progression specific to a muscle group
• Rolling average volume (e.g. over 4 weeks)

Subjective Recovery Score

By looking at recovery-related inputs such as:

• Sleep
• Mood
• Soreness
• Joint discomfort
• Stress

We could estimate overall recoverability.

Combined Insight Model

By blending effective training volume with subjective recovery inputs, BBnote could generate a high-level signal indicating whether current training load is sustainable.

This would not replace coaching judgment, but it could help highlight trends such as accumulating fatigue, insufficient stimulus, or potential overreaching.

This is not meant to be perfectly accurate, my thinking - by looking at trends, draw conclusion in the right direction.

Workflow

flowchart TB
  subgraph WORKOUT_PLAN_SETUP["PC"]
    WORKOUT_PLAN[1. Acquired Workout Plan PDF/DOC/EXCEL or generate new Workout plan]
    WORKOUT_SCHEMA[2. Compatible Workout Plan Layout]
    AI_BOT[Your favorite AI ie. CHATGPT]
    BBNOTE_WORKOUT[3. BBNOTE Compatible Workout Plan]
  end

  subgraph BBNOTE["BBNote Phone/PC"]
    IMPORT[4. Import]
    RECORD[Training Session]
    WORKOUT_BUILDER[Build Workout]
    STATS[Statistics]
  end

  BBNOTE_WORKOUT --> IMPORT
  WORKOUT_PLAN --> AI_BOT
  WORKOUT_SCHEMA --> AI_BOT
  AI_BOT --> BBNOTE_WORKOUT

flowchart TB
  subgraph WORKOUT_PLAN_SETUP["PC"]
    WORKOUT_PLAN[1. Acquired Workout Plan PDF/DOC/EXCEL or generate new Workout plan]
    WORKOUT_SCHEMA[2. Compatible Workout Plan Layout]
    AI_BOT[Your favorite AI ie. CHATGPT]
    BBNOTE_WORKOUT[3. BBNOTE Compatible Workout Plan]
  end

  subgraph BBNOTE["BBNote Phone/PC"]
    IMPORT[4. Import]
    RECORD[Training Session]
    WORKOUT_BUILDER[Build Workout]
    STATS[Statistics]
  end

  BBNOTE_WORKOUT --> IMPORT
  WORKOUT_PLAN --> AI_BOT
  WORKOUT_SCHEMA --> AI_BOT
  AI_BOT --> BBNOTE_WORKOUT

flowchart TB
  subgraph WORKOUT_PLAN_SETUP["PC"]
    WORKOUT_PLAN[1. Acquired Workout Plan PDF/DOC/EXCEL or generate new Workout plan]
    WORKOUT_SCHEMA[2. Compatible Workout Plan Layout]
    AI_BOT[Your favorite AI ie. CHATGPT]
    BBNOTE_WORKOUT[3. BBNOTE Compatible Workout Plan]
  end

  subgraph BBNOTE["BBNote Phone/PC"]
    IMPORT[4. Import]
    RECORD[Training Session]
    WORKOUT_BUILDER[Build Workout]
    STATS[Statistics]
  end

  BBNOTE_WORKOUT --> IMPORT
  WORKOUT_PLAN --> AI_BOT
  WORKOUT_SCHEMA --> AI_BOT
  AI_BOT --> BBNOTE_WORKOUT

Here we will go through what I think a typical workflow could be.

1. Get new workout program DOC/EXCEL/PDF or generate new Workout plan.
2. Using the Compatibility Workout Plan Layout as an input convert your program.
3. AI outputs BBnote compatible Workout plan.
4. Import compatible Workout plan into BBnote.

Can I use it yet?

Short answer

Not yet.

Long answer

It’s hard to estimate how long this will take. The technology stack I’m using is brand new to me, so there will be a learning curve. It will take time to structure everything properly and make it both 🆒 and functional.

Images

Current progress images — not exactly groundbreaking yet, I know 🤪.

What This Is Not

BBnote is not intended to replace advanced coaching software.

It is intended to reduce friction for lifters who program their own training.