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827 points surgomat | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.218s | source

I was the main contributor to workout.lol, an open-source fitness app to easily build a workout routine. The project had traction (1.4k GitHub stars, 95 forks, ~20K visits/month), but was eventually sold due to video licensing hurdles. The new owner stopped maintaining it, and the repo went abandoned.

Over the next 9 months, I sent 15 emails to try to save it : no replies. Feature requests & issues were ignored. The community was left with a "broken" tool let's say.

I couldn't just let it die So I built the new version from scratch with the same open-source spirit, but a better architecture long-term vision, more features and no license problems.

It's called : Workout.cool (https://workout.cool). What it offers: 100% open-source, MIT-licensed - 1200+ exercises (with videos, attributes, translations) - Progress tracking - Multilingual-ready - Self-hostable

I'm not doing this for money. I'm doing it because I believe in open fitness tools, and I’ve been passionate about strength training for 15+ years.

If this resonates with you, feel free to: - Star the repo - Share with fitness/tech friends - Suggest features - Contribute code/design/docs

Together, we can build the open-source fitness platform we all wanted to easily build a workout routine and get in shape

Website: https://workout.cool GitHub: https://github.com/Snouzy/workout-cool

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stephenhandley ◴[] No.44310097[source]
I don't get the pick the muscles thing almost as much as I get the open source fitness thing.
replies(2): >>44310277 #>>44310728 #
marcuskaz ◴[] No.44310277[source]
Agree, it seems like a mismatch of features and audience.

As someone who doesn't know much about working out or what exercises to do this sounds like a good app. I need help, but picking based on muscles is off. My thought and goals are not by muscle group, but losing weight or getting more toned.

Conversely, someone who knows what muscle groups they want to target, probably already has some sense of the exercises to target and thus less likely to need the app.

replies(2): >>44310397 #>>44312938 #
1. surgomat ◴[] No.44312938[source]
great feedback and I agree that (i forgot tbh..) most beginners don't think in muscle groups, but in goals like "lose weight" "feel better", "beginner friendly", etc...

The goal is to make the app more welcoming by offering goal-based (or filters,let's see) entry points like "fat loss" "beginner full-body" or "3x/week routine" and not require anatomy knowledge to get started.

The muscle filter will just be one of many ways to browse, not a gatekeeper i guess. Thanks a lot for highlighting this!