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Movement definitions

Unilateral exercises should implicitly mean both sides when reps are stated. For example, pistol-squat: 3x4 means I did 3 sets of 4 reps on each leg. For now, this will be captured with the word 'unilateral' in a tag in the definition

I'd also like a way to query these movements meaningfully, maybe a plugin to pull up exercises with certain tags. For now, query can be used to pull.

Plugin features:

  • Show movements with specific tags
  • show most used movements
  • show least used
  • show movements that have not been done in a while, but were at one time popular

Named sessions

I'd like to be able to track progression within a session (and provide the tooling for that tracking). If I have a specific circuit, I want to see how my total volume or top weights have changed over time for that session. To do that, we need named sessions, which we have. And, some way to track exertion, which we can use sRPE. It would also be good to be able to categorize sessions based on their specific protocol (protocol metadata), like emom, tababta, amrap, etc. sRPE is now available via a plugin, so I'll probaly do a similar string/note based plugin for protocol first, them promote it to first-class later once I work out the kinks.

Eventually, I need to build a plugin that allows me to compare across a single named session. For a given alt-emom, I want to see how I have progressed over time, mainly based on total volume within the session and resultant srpe.

Session rate of perceived exertion

The goals of ox include simplicity and self awareness. So, it is based around not using devices like heart rate monitors etc. All that you should need, if you need a device during your session at all, is a watch to keep the time. Perhaps the most well established method of tracking training load through time in the literature is the session rate of perceived exertion. With this tool, the individual rates their exertion over the session on some scale at some point after then session. The most typical scale is 0-10 (foster modified borg scale, where the borg scale was originally developed for RPE). And ratings are typically performed 30 minutes after the session. The rating and total duration are multiplied to get some value that then can be compared across sessions.

For example:

A light run might take 30 minutes and feel like a 2 (easy): $2 \times 30min = 60 AU$ A 10-minute amrap crossfit session might by quick but feel like an 8 (two steps below maximal): $8 \times 10min = 80 AU$

Using these arbitrary units, I can then track total volume over whatever time period I am interested in. Typically that will probably be weeks and months.

Syntax is the big question though, should I track these using first class citizens in ox or just use something like spre: "4, PT30M" I'll do the above for now, until I figure out the path forward. The srpe builtin provides this in the short term.

Cardio zones

Similar to sRPE above, I'd like to track my cardio zones as well for specific runs (and maybe other modalities later on). It would be the 1-5 system (don't know what it is call) but mostly using 2-5. Currently I have a zone-2-run movement, I could do that or have a note in the session, I'll stick with this for now.

For other levels, I'd like to do the norwegian 4x4 method for more vo2 max training, so that'd be zone 4 or 5. Measures will be subjective since I do not have a heart rate monitor (and do not want to get one), but I think this will be sufficient. I will also use the sRPE scores on these sessions because they will certainly need to be included in the calcs. Zone 3 is not as important as the literature suggests its not that useful if you are doing a lot of zone 2 and sufficient amounts of 4/5.

Protocol metadata

I'd like to add metadata to a session, both ad-hoc and standard session so I can know the full layout 3 years from now. Items would include EMOM, AMRAP, Alt-EMOM, Tabata, RFT, Ladder, Complex, etc. I would need some standard nomenclature to describe the scheme fully, though some would be implicit in the session movements. And certain protocols will require certain metadata. Alt-EMOM would require a list of movements and duration for set (if not a minute but say 30 seconds), duration would be derived later from the interval and total sets.

For now, since my sessions are quite simple, I will use meta: "alt-emom, PT1M"

There may need to be some provision for specifying target work/rest ratios, but that might get too verbose and could probably be handled with some text metadata instead of a proper data structure.

However this is defined, it should be once for the named session, in some sort of session ID data structure so that its not repeated everywhere the session is used.