LiftTracker

LiftTracker 1.4.7 - now goes to public beta

2011-08-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

I am happy to announce that after 3 months of extensive testing, I am going to be opening LiftTracker up to a more open beta. You no longer have to request access via email.

Just go over to LiftTracker.appspot.com and sign up.

For those of you who have been giving feedback and guidance I really appreciate it. There is still a lot in the hopper right now.

A few things have changed for those of you who have been using it:

1) The lifters that are visible to everyone are those who belong to your gym (you pick this when you sign up), and the lifters at Tampa Barbell who have been contributing over the past 3 months. The reason for this is that the lists were getting unwieldy and now that the beta is opening up, there will be 100s of names, creating a lot of confusion.

So, if you and some buddies want to sign up and use it together, just be sure to register with the same gym name.

I will be adding a 'buddy finder' feature shortly where you can search out lifters by their location, lifts, etc, but the main feedback I got was to focus on the usability for the individual user, so that is what I have done.

2) Raw lifting is now tracked against separate numbers from your equipped lifts. This leads to more accurate calculations.

3) The calculations have been revamped and are certainly still a work in progress. Another special thanks to Dave Bates for his help. Soon, all the calc numbers will be available via graphs as it is a lot easier to see this stuff visually. This is my number one priority. For now, if you want to see what the calcs will look like when done over time, choose one of the Tampa Barbell lifters as your favorites, go into Show Training, Weekly Log, and select him in your lifter drop down. You will see the statistics for each week's training.

4) one cool feature I decided to add this weekend was the ability to 'remember' a particular note or Log Entry. Have you ever had an epiphany when training or gone home to plan something out and then forgot exactly what it was 2 weeks later? Happens to me all the time. Now, when creating a log entry, if you click the Remember button, this particular item will be remembered and searchable. When viewing your training, you can choose to filter down to remembered items. This will allow you to see all those observations you made during the training cycle.

Finally, the app should work on all recent mobile devices. The 'Show Training' feature is certainly best viewed on a tablet or desktop browser. Chrome, Firefox, IE (8+), Safari are all supported.

I realize I probably need to produce a bit of documentation but I am hoping that the features are just sort of intuitive. If you have questions, just email me.

-Tommy

1.4.x - The state of the LiftTracker

2011-08-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

I want to start by explaining the lack of blog posting. I have spent an inordinate amount of time refining and experimenting with LiftTracker. So, instead of posting about everything, I just worked on it.

In addition, I took a new job at a new company. Lastly, a death in the family derailed my free time and energy for innovation for a bit. I have since returned full force with a lot of new ideas and desire to make the app better.

At its inception, the goal was to learn mobile app development and play around with new cloud technologies, specifically Google's App Engine and No-SQL datastore. By day, I am a .Net developer who works heavily with Sql Server. I have always said to myself: "There has to be a better way". Well, I am happy to report, I think there is. Not that No-SQL databases come without their challenges, but they are definitely more natural to work with.

Since I run a barbell club in my spare time, I have actually used the program to help me track everyone's progress over time. We are about 16 weeks into where everyone has been using the program consistently and tweaking their training based on it. In 4 weeks, we have a meet test. It will be very interesting to see the correlation between all the statistics gathered and how they translate to real numbers.

In addition, I solicited many users for their feedback and suggestions.

Here is what has been added since the last blog post:
Support for the iPad
Support for HTML5 compliant browsers and large screens for viewing more information
Enhanced Calculations
A new way to group, sort, pivot and query your log for information.

In addition, I have taken the application through several versions of the underlying frameworks:
Google App Engine and JqueryMobile.

I also experimented with a 'social' feature where you could follow other lifters, etc. In fact, I spent a HUGE amount of time on this. However, a law of app development is emerging that states: keep it simple. Focus on doing core features very well. In a rush to create an app everyone was talking about and sharing information with, I put on hold things which would make it useful to the individual. So, that being said 'Social' is taking a back seat to functionality. The feedback I have received and prioritized is as follows:

allow for custom exercises
distinguish between raw and geared lifting when doing calculations
add the ability to keep user data private and filter out the noise of other lifters appearing in menus
add the ability to expose entries in a typical web journal format so that a person can enter their data here and ANYONE, even those who aren't users of the app can see it.
add graphics to the calculations so the sheer amount of data actually means something
put native app store wrappers around it so people can find it in the app stores of their various phones (iPhone/iPad will be my first target).

a friend and fellow lifter, Dave Bates, co-owner of PowerliftingWatch has been very instrumental in helping me out with the calculations. I continue to be grateful to him for his assistance.

<babbling>

Coincidentally, an old co-worker, and one of the best programmers I have ever worked with pinged me and told me he was buying a Mac Air because a lot of people at his workplace were using them and he felt his skills were going to lag behind. I had been feeling that a lot myself lately. My feeling in software development is that the various specialty in tiered development is not good enough anymore to be at the top of your profession. So, not to be outdone, I went to the Apple store, played with the Mac Air and bought one the same day. In an experiment in coding, I took this machine with me on my family vacation. I was able to actually do a lot of programming on LiftTracker while my wife was driving around. The size to power ratio of the machine is simply amazing and through OS X Lion's user gestures, the laptop was very usable, even without a mouse, and even in airplanes and cars. I am simply blown away. Apple is seriously on a role.

</babbling>

So... I will try and keep back on point with blog updates and more frequent releases.

1.2.5 - editing is now working

2011-05-30T18:23:00.000-07:00

Someone on the team to me said all their PRs were wrong because they had misinterpreted the chains per side and they didn't want to be bothered to delete and re-add them. I thought to myself: the time has finally come to put in the edit button.

I knew it was going to be a pain in the ass because of some of the decisions I made early on to format stuff on the server. Well, I was right. All in all, it probably took 8-10 hrs after testing, re-factoring, etc, but it is in.

I didn't get to work more on the grouping/social features, but that is ok. Editing actually is something that really needed to be there.

-TF

1.2.4 - bug fix, tweak exercise list display

2011-05-27T04:48:00.000-07:00

As I've added more and more exercises to the list of predefined set, I have gotten some feedback that a quick method to filter them should be available while viewing.

So, in the exercise picker, BY DEFAULT now, it will only show your favorites if you have them defined. If you want to see All, click the button in the top-right. Clicking it is a toggle which will go between favorites and all of them. Remember to define favorites, use the main page options screen.

What's coming up? I had to take a little break in development to deal with gym matters. Tampa Barbell needed a massive update to their web site, etc so I have been working on that. That is done and I can get back to LiftTracker.

Been busy on social features such as finding and following lifters and getting notifications on their progress.

I have had some pros logging their data so one can immediately come in and choose to follow the 'Pro' group.

I expect to launch this in a week or so.

/TF

LiftTracker 1.2.2 is out

2011-05-08T20:23:00.000-07:00

This little release was mostly about bug fixes and improving the calculations. I also added in a few things to make finding log entries easier.

For the calculations, I reduced it down to 4 zones which you can see when you run analyze. Dynamic work falls into Zone 1, volume work Zones 2 and 3, and max effort work Zone 4.

Also, accessory movements are now contributing towards the calculations. Previously only the main lifts were. This should vastly change your volume and intensity numbers now. Please take a look and let me know feedback.

I added the ability to quickly select an exercise or lifter to view while in Show Training options. I put this in so one could quickly find history of a particular exercise, or if you train with a group, you can find it for the group. Comes in handy when 5 guys are all training and trying to beat a PR that day!

*Note that you can still have permanent favorite lifters and exercises defined. This is just a quick way to find something while in the Show Training view.

I have re-ordered the Modifiers. The gear is now at the top. I had noticed people were including their gear in the notes section rather than choosing it as a modifier. This will defeat the PR calculator because it doesn't know that it was a geared lift vs a raw lift. If you always train raw, you can turn off the gear display in the main page options.

One thing I am doing is working with some lifters in the 'Pro' category. I will be building in the ability to search out lifters by weight class, lift, and/or total. Of course, this will only become useful after we have a bunch of these folks in the system so I am recruiting. If you are a PRO lifter but not so computer-savvy, I will work with you to use the system. I also recognize that the blogging tool sort of sucks for learning for multiple reasons. I hope to make a manual that I can post up as well.

I am also working on the 'social' features. What I am experimenting with now is the ability to link a log entry to a Youtube video. When new videos are available from lifters in the system, you will get notification and should be able to view them right from the app. This is a target for the next release.

NOTE WELL: making way for the social features will require me to delete a bunch of users who have not logged on and are not participating in the Beta. The reason is so the people finder doesn't get clogged up with people who are not using the app. I will also be sending out a warning email before purging the data.

1.2.1 - analyze preview

2011-05-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

The last release introduced the foundational blocks to do a lot of the calculations. The lifter's meet lifts and/or overridden PRs are the most important. Additionally, a mechanism was supplied to calculate band and chain resistance numbers. Check past blog entries for more information on this.

In this release, these things are used to take a broad look at the training and see where people are spending a lot of their time.

In order to see this, it is pretty simple. Just click 'Analyze'. The program will go through all of your data and display some summary information.

For this release, I am also outputting some debug information. It will show you the values you have chosen for your meet lifts or overridden PR data which drive the intensity calculations. It will also show you the values that are being used for the bands/chains. Keep in mind that the program adds these values to bar weight when determining your total volume and what zone you are in.

A brief explanation of the zones:

Each zone represents a percentage of the weight being lifted compared with your 1 rep max for this lift. So, a 940 lb squatter who does a 500 lb squat is training at 53% of capacity. This is Zone 2. There is quite a bit of data out there used by Russian coaches which suggests that the majority of training should fall within certain zones, roughly 70-80%, which is zone 4.

Note that any exercise done at less than Zone 1 (40%) is NOT counted for calculations. If we did not do this, there would be far too much noise in the data. Interestingly, the reason I had to keep 40% in was because of the advanced equipment. A lot of people do their raw training at 40% of their shirted max. This is due to the phenomenon of the super-supportive bench shirts.

Right now, the only exercises involved in these calculations are those defined as part of the Core Lift set (Squat, Box Squat, Bench Press, Deadlift, and Sumo Deadlift). I will be putting in the accessory lifts as a next step as well as the ability to filter them out.

Also, the data only becomes useful when there is enough data to drive it. I recommend faithfully inputting all your core training for a month before you attempt to use these numbers to map your training out.

Eventually, the program will evolve to help you make training decisions for the week, but for now, it will just give you an idea of what you are doing. For example, my favorite lift, and also the one I happen to still make progress on is the squat. My data was pretty telling. I did quite a bit of volume and my average intensity was 66%, pretty much where it should have been.

A lift I hate, the deadlift had much lower volume and the intensity was way too high. I have always known this, but having the data right there in front of me staring me in the face was pretty conclusive.

I hope this can help you spot some weak points in your training too! Good luck!

Special thanks to Dave Bates for helping me with ideas, theories, troubleshooting and calculations.

-Tommy

LiftTracker 1.1e is out

2011-04-23T10:54:00.000-07:00

This was a drawn out release, partially because of my new job and partially because I started down the path of making the ultimate meet tracking system with federations, rankings, etc. I wound up spending an entire weekend on this but ultimately decided to pull this out. It added confusion to the program and I feel detracted from the purpose of this which is bettering lifters, NOT tracking meet results all over the country. I may revisit this at sometime, but for now I have returned to the goal of analytics and making a good logging program.

So, for this release the theme was calculations to help you see just how you are training. When you log in for the first time after getting the new release, the program will ask you for your most recent meet data. This is so the calculation engine can measure your volume and training percentage against a target.

In addition, you can override a meet data with your own target numbers. This may come in handy if you flub a meet lift but don't want to reset your training percentages to just your opener. To override your meet data you can go into the options screen and pick new numbers. If you override one, you must override them all.

The next part of the calculations involve taking into account resistance such as bands or chains. A big mistake people often make is forgetting to take these numbers into account when doing percentages. Let's say you are an 800 meet squatter, you may feel that a 405 is a reasonable number for your dynamic days, and you would be correct. However, add a blue band and the percentage now jumps up to 75% or so. From our experience at Tampa Barbell, if you are trying to have a truly dynamic day you need to factor in the resistance. The program supplies default resistance numbers for the squat and bench. These numbers were calculated by Michael Lawrence for EliteFTS. You can also download the excel spreadsheet from the app which has band calculations for all different height lifters in order to help you supply your own values. Note that the height is the height to the center of the bar NOT the lifter's height.

Note that you do not have to supply ALL of your own values. You can choose to override just the ones you want. If the app detects that you have not supplied an override, it will fall back to the default for the band type in question. Also, note that the resistance is the total resistance given bands or chains on both sides of the bar. In addition, when you are selecting a resistance when entering a lift, it is per-side. So, if you wanted blue bands you would click once on the strong bands when selecting a modifier.

Granted, the calculation stuff is sort of complicated. However, this is where I really want to invest a lot of time in the app in order to help drill down and understand why certain training works. It has been interesting to apply these metrics to the existing month or so of data we have gathered. It was a little surprising to me how little volume we were doing for certain lifts. Also, you can see when you are starting to enter into too high a percentage of your max with the resistance. In order to see these calculations, go into your Show Training Options screen and choose Core lifts. The core lifts right now are defined as Bench, Squat, Deadlift, Sumo Deadlift, and Box Squat. I am interested in feedback about how else you may want to see this data!

Finally, there were quite a few bug fixes based on user feedback.

One notable bug was that a missed lift (denoted by zero reps) was being tracked as a PR. This is no longer the case.

The PR mechanism was reworked a little bit, and you can now filter to only see PRs by choosing PRs in the options above. I also wanted to rework it so not everything is a PR. Previously, PRs were calculated by matching gear, extra resistance, and reps.

For example: 225/5 and 275/8 would both be PRs since the reps were different. Now, if you do a lift at a higher rep range and with more weight, it will erase the earlier one from your PR list. After all, if I did 275/8, I would NOT expect 265/6 to be a PR since the previous performance was better. The app now recognizes this. When you first login after the update, the PRs will recalculate according to this.

This was a bit tricky. If you guys notice any issues with this, PLEASE email me and I will look into it. There were a lot of corner cases I had to work through and I may have missed some.

As I said, this was a pretty big release. My goal is to release more often based on feedback.
I will be posting up in a day or so what I am working on for upcoming releases. If you guys let me know stuff or have suggestions, the Beta is a great time to get these ideas to me. I can likely work them in.

-TF

1.1c is out

2011-03-27T19:22:00.000-07:00

So, I did not get a chance to do any coding until the weekend because I started a new job (where I have to wear pants I might add). But, we hammered on it in the gym and I re-prioritized some of the feedback I have been getting. Here is what made it in.

BTW: the URL bar dropping down everytime I clicked on a button worked me into a frothing, homicidal frenzy when entering my data from the gym. This is an issue with the JQM framework, but I discovered a cumbersome workaround which took me 2-3 hrs to scrub the code and implement. You gotta love working with Alpha frameworks.

Based on feedback I received, it was not intuitive that one clicked on the modifiers to add them. People also wanted the ability to subtract instead of clearing them all. I changed the color of the count bubble when a modifier has been selected. I also put in a "-" option on the right hand side to subtract.

The expectation has always been there to show descending days (most recent first), but to display the exercises in the order in which they were done. Interesting, I learned that GAE does not guarantee monotonic ordering of ids so my sort was not working always. I did a little reworking to sort them correctly. Unfortunately, entries that occurred in the past will remain out of order, but moving forward should appear correctly.

As always, feedback is welcome. I had a discussion with Shane Church who has been a great feedback source, and he seems to think the ability to output your entries to Twitter and Facebook would be a feature that should be worked on soon. As always, I want the cool algorithmic analysis and this has to be counterbalanced with the novelty of social media. I activated a Twitter account (@tfannon1000) to test this out.

One final thing that wound up taking 3 hrs. I recalculated all the PRs in the system based on the fact that drop sets were getting incorrectly saved as PRs. This brings me to a point about PRs. In the beginning, everything you put in the system is a PR. That is why it shows up red. As you start giving the system more data, the PRs will more accurately represent your true progress. One thing I am contemplating, as I mentioned earlier, is the ability for the user to customize what permutations make a PR.

Some of the filtering coming out next release or two will help pair down the data.

BTW: there is a new button in the Show Training Options so you can see your lifts at the same time as your favorites. Not so sure about the high-contrast yellow, but I hope you find it useful.

1.1B

2011-03-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

All in day's work

Added some new exercises (infrastructure in place for updating metadata quickly)
Added a date picker
Removed default of '1' to reps. This makes it faster to enter sets because you don't have to backspace the '1'
Added a limiter to weight/reps to prevent unreasonable values
Bug fix where drop sets were getting counted as PRs -- NOTE: there may be some incorrect PRs lingering around in the system. I will be writing a cleanup routine to fix these up on a chron job.

Start my new job tomorrow so the update cycle will be a little longer. It sure was nice being unemployed for awhile. Have to try it again sometime.

-tf

1.1a is out

2011-03-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

This was a minor release with the following put in

Option to use kilos
Log Entries will now show PRs in red and notes
Exercise and Modifier pick lists are now in smaller font so more can be seen
Log Entries come back in descending date but in the order you put them in so you see the workout in the order it happened
When retrieving log entries from server, the old items are cleared and a loading message is displayed

To use kilos, select kilos from the main page options menu. From this point on, lifts that you record will be taken to be in kilos and when you view your logs and the logs of others, they will be reported in kilos. To switch back to pounds, just select it in the options menu.

Feedback is welcome. Here are the two items side by side. I actually think the one on the left looks nicer, but on a mobile phone it is nice not to have to scroll as much so you can enter things more quickly. Let me know what you guys think:

Here is what I plan on working on next:

Rework the dialogs for choosing favorites so they are not so flaky.
For favorite lifters, I will allow name searches and search by gym.

Allow for entry of meet lifts. This will allow LiftTracker to calculate your training percentages. This is the first step in the analysis features. People often don't realize how much or little they are doing or how close to their meet max they are actually training.

Addition of specialty bars and a few new exercises.

I have been asked how to see what others are doing. Here is a picture tutorial.

1.1 is out

2011-03-17T07:08:00.000-07:00

I did a pretty substantial overhaul and rework for this. Many late-late nights. It coincided well with my neck surgery because I have not needed as much sleep since I am only training light, and I am a frigging coding-machine on pain meds. However, in a week I start a new job and ease back into training so the feature updates will be more incremental and less jam-packed. One tends to forget as the author of an app, people are not waiting with baited breath for each new release :)

Shortly, what is in:

Multiple sets
Merged the Find PR with Track Progress -> Now shown as Show Training
The filtering to see your favorite lifters/exercises is done in here.
I reworked the 'Back' button so you always go back to a specific calling page, NOT the breadcrumb approach. This gives it an app feel, not a web-site feel.
Changed the transitions so they are faster and not so annoying. Normal forward navigation should just appear, when you hit the 'back' button you will see the page slide backwards. Option screens 'pop'. Really, this is a consistency thing, not a feature, but it really speeds things up on mobiles.
You can now 'drill into' a log entry. If it is yours, you can delete it.

Now, I have a list of feature requests, things I know need to be touched up, and some stuff I want to put in to help me with the administration of the site and to see how people are using it. I will throw these out here.

Feedback, suggestions, a plea for some really-needed feature is all welcome. Just post here or send me an email.

enable PR/Volume filter
allow notes on log entry
allow choosing favorites exercises from Record Lift and Show Training
allow choosing favorite lifters from Show Training
clear lists and show loading icons on show training
speciality bars, a few more exercise variations (Sumo deadlift for example)
pounds/kilos
Datepicker
paging in show training
recalculate prs on delete -> need chron job
meet lifts
Edit
cache images
browser unsupported message
Increment local and global count on client when save is called --> gives feedback
Do not allow unreasonable weight or rep values or modifier

1.0.3 and working on 1.0.4

2011-03-15T07:19:00.000-07:00

I decided to keep this blog just so I can look back on this one day and see what went into making this app. It has turned out to be a LOT of work. Yes, I am making a major assumption that it *will* be successful and I will actually care about its life.

I have decided to force the people in my gym to use it by tying it to membership cost. Use the program, your membership remains cheap. Consider it a war draft for beta testers :)

Anyway, 1.0.3 contained bug fixes that I encountered during initial rounds of testing with the help of some early feedback. It was pushed out without requiring data migration or anything major. I also purchased more compute power from Google to make the startup time much snappier. No one likes to wait 10 seconds for their app to load.

At this time, I decided that I would need to be able to work on multiple releases simultaneously.. one for 'production' bug fixes and one for the next version. Funny, art imitates life (i do this in my day job but never really thought i'd need it for a little project of my own).

In 1.0.4, which I will probably rename to 1.1 when it finally releases, contains many new enhancements.

1) I have merged the Find PR and Track Progress into one new page, Show Training.

2) I have cleaned up the options a bit to allow for easier to understand filtering of results. Here you can choose to see other lifters and further filter by things like PRs or dynamic work.

3). Oh yeah. The most requested feature by far was the ability to track multiple sets.

There was a rather significant rework of the datastore to handle multiple sets and logic to detect PRs. I am still not comfortable with the sheer amount of permutations which can make up a PR. e.g. Box Squats w/Green Band, Box Squats w/Green Band 3 reps, Box Squats w/2 Green Bands Safety Bar, etc, etc.

I am thinking about the ability to allow users to create their own filters for this, but this is at least another release down.

Right now, I am trying to fix a few annoying issues, one of which is the back button navigating you all the way back through every menu you went to. In addition, the Select lists for favorite lifters and favorite exercises seems to disappear at times. I think I will rework this too.

Anyway, that is all for now. ETA: 2 more days.

2 days of testing

2011-03-12T11:33:00.000-08:00

On Thursday I opened up LiftTracker to a group of people who emailed me from the Outlaws forum. For the most part, things went very smoothly, and I got some great feedback. I sat glued to the computer, making adjustments, tweaking code, and manning the instant messenger to work with folks. I really appreciate the time people have given this app.

There were a few nagging issues that I was able to clear up based on initial testing:

After entering exercises, the Track Progress sometimes did not show any content - fixed
List of lifters and Log Entries were sometimes displayed in random order - fixed
Android users could not sign in -> this is determined to be a quirk in the android browser when the user hits return. It is sending over blank data. The workaround is to tap out of the form input when done entering user name and password and then hit the 'sign in' button. I am going to continue to try and prevent the enter key from submitting a blank form. Stay tuned for a better fix to this.
Initial login is often slow -> this hopefully has been remedied by me purchasing more dedicated CPU power from Google.

My end vision for this thing is for some hardcore analysis of lots of data. I want to have the program figure out by everyone's hard work and entries what really works. An uber-god-coach so-to-speak. All those guys starting out in a commercial gym or training in their basement with no guide will be able to use this and get stronger.

This will require months of data from a lot of people, so in the meantime, in order to keep people using it, I will try to provide other value-adds. One of the things I am focusing in on is the ability to hone in on some of your favorite lifters and get an idea of what they are doing.

What's coming next?

The number one requested item seems to be the ability to track non-max lifts. For Westside, this may be a dynamic day, for the 5/3/1 program, this may be your 5 sets of deadlift @ 80%. In fact, by extending the program to allow for this, we really open the door for a generic training journal mechanism. I hadn't really expected this out of the gate, but I guess it makes sense. Most people do NOT max out all the time.

So, my number one priority right now will be the ability to log multiple worksets and group them together in an easy-to-enter, easy-to-understand fashion.

Did I mention that I may have to destroy your data? Well, it is true. The beginning part of any software project requires iterating over the design and perfecting it. It is one of the reasons I have not pasted the URL all over the internet and invited everyone to start hammering away. I don't want to piss off 100s of people when it is time to change the underlying data. I'll settle for just pissing off you guys in the beginning :) I hope to make it up to you by free help on the app, maybe putting in a pet feature or two that you guys may ask for, etc, and I will try really, really hard not to throw away too much of your data over the next few weeks.

When a product reaches BETA, I would consider the data stable. We are not there yet. We are probably a few weeks to a month away. I will try hard to preserve your hard work, but there will be times when I need to blow it away. Bear with me, good friends and testers, it should soon be at a point where the data will be safe.

-TF

Release 1.0.2

2011-03-11T04:12:00.000-08:00

This is the first release I am going to put out into the 'wild'. Please give me all your feedback.

Notes: This app should be easy to use and figure out. As such, I am not including any sort of manual. You should just be able to use it. If you get confused, please post a comment here or email me, and I will be glad to help. Based on feedback, I will be changing the interface to accommodate suggestions.

Here is one tip: there are a lot of exercises you may not care to track. Go into options and select just the ones you care about seeing. At this point, the others will never show up in your list again unless you go back and select them.

Technical notes: This application was built using a cross-platform HTML5-based library so it can reach as many mobile devices as possible, not be exclusive to one platform. As such, there is no App to download in the appstore. You simply browse to the URL: lifttracker.appspot.com from your mobile phone and use it from there. Most phones should let you set a home screen icon based on a webpage so you have an easy shortcut to it.

What is works on:

IPhone 3G, 3GS, 4 - This is what the app has been primarily tested on. I recommend keeping your iOS software updated. I am currently testing on iOS 4.3

PC/Mac : Google Chrome / Safari browsers - I highly recommend Chrome. For now, you should make the window small to represent the size of a smartphone screen as that is what the UI is geared towards. In the future, I will have a different screen for bigger windows.

Android - it works on Android phones, and it is pretty fast, but I have seen some issues as different phones are running different versions of the OS and even different browsers underneath. Please let me know if you are testing with an Android and encounter anything.

Known issues:

Sometimes when choosing an exercise and viewing options, hitting back either does nothing or seems to take you to random screens:
status: working on this
workaround: keep pressing back. eventually you will get to main screen OR reload the app

Sometimes when selecting favorite lifters or exercises, the page just goes away and the app sort of disappears.
status: trying to reproduce this consistently. if you figure out how, please send me the steps
workaround: use your browser back button OR reload the app

After entering an exercise, it does not show up right away under PRs or Track Progress
status: this is a high priority issue i am tracking.
workaround: reload the app. it will show up.

Upcoming features

These are not set in stone. Your input will directly impact what I put in. Please feel free to leave comments here or email me.

Ability to enter and track 'dynamic' day data.
Ability to enter meet results.
Find lifter(s) by gym and/or name for including in favorites.
Social media integration - publish your log entries automatically to facebook or twitter
Link to youtube videos