User guide

1. Getting started & onboarding

There's no account, sign-up or password — your profile, logs and history stay on your device. First-run setup builds your plan around you:

1. Download and open Strathlon on your iPhone.
2. Tell it about you — your body details, your goal, your sport (pick from across every category), and your weekly schedule.
3. Answer the quick readiness check. A short, optional set of yes/no questions, like a trainer would ask before you start. If anything stands out, Strathlon gently recommends getting medical clearance first. It's a readiness check, not medical advice, and stays on your device.
4. Set any health and safety details — pregnancy or breastfeeding, ongoing conditions, allergies and foods or supplement ingredients to avoid. Your meal plans and the coach treat allergies as hard, never-suggest exclusions. All of this is editable any time in Settings.
5. Choose what the AI Coach can see. You'll be asked once whether to share your Apple Health figures with the coach for more tailored advice. It's off by default — you can change it any time in Settings → Privacy & your data.
6. Finish setup and you'll land in the app with your plan ready. A short welcome tour points out the key spots.

2. Your training plan & running a session

Your plan is periodised — it moves through structured phases that get harder as you progress, and it adapts your week around match days, practice and season.

1. Open the Plan tab to see today's session and the week ahead.
2. Start your session. The workout screen is split into tidy fold-out sections — warm-up, your main workout, and a HIIT finisher. Warm-up and HIIT start folded so there's less to scroll; your workout stays open.
3. Use the live timers. Warm-up, rest and HIIT countdowns keep running on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, with spoken coaching cues — so you can put the phone down between sets. Your voice coach calls each exercise and set, including the rep target.
4. Log your working weights. Type them in, or snap a photo of the dumbbell, plate or machine display and Strathlon reads the number for you (Premium). Weights auto-fill next time, so you just confirm or nudge them. Bodyweight moves can be saved with a weight of 0.
5. Toggle supersets if you like. Where the plan pairs exercises, you can switch the back-to-back superset/tri-set run mode on or off to suit your gym and your energy.
6. Trained away from the app? Tap Mark this session done so it still counts toward your progress. Tapped it by mistake? Tap again to undo. (Sessions logged automatically — from a guided session or your Apple Watch — stay locked, so real training is never removed by accident.)
7. Going away? Use the "Away or catching up?" button to set break dates (your plan pauses where it is, nothing lost) or to tick off training you did while away.

3. Logging food (manual & photo)

Your nutrition targets flex with the type of day you're having — training, rest, match or sport — with an automatic calorie bonus based on the sport, session length and how hard you actually play.

1. Open the Nutrition tab to see today's targets and what you've logged.
2. Log a meal by photo (Premium). Snap a picture of your plate; the AI estimates calories, protein, carbs and fat and shows you what it read. Adjust the portion if needed, then tap to add it to your Tracker for the right day and meal slot.
3. Or just describe it. Type what you ate in plain words and Strathlon does the same estimate.
4. Pick the day and meal slot before saving — you can log to any day, not just today.
5. Nothing is logged automatically — you always review and confirm before it's added.

4. Using the AI Coach

The coach already knows your full plan, today's exercises and your logged macros — so you can skip the background and get straight to the question.

1. Open the AI Coach and ask in plain language — for example, "give me a high-protein dinner that fits what's left of today's macros" or "build me a three-day training-week meal plan".
2. Answer its questions. The coach asks before it guesses, so a quick reply gets you a sharper answer.
3. Log foods from the chat. Mention or photograph a meal and it offers to add it straight to your Tracker.
4. Add meal plans to your week when it builds one for you.
5. Share Health data for sharper advice (optional). Turn it on in Settings → Privacy & your data; leave it off and the coach works from what you type and your in-app profile.

The AI Coach (chat, meal plans and photo logging) is the premium tier.

5. The Tracker & your weight

The Tracker is your single view of calories and weight over time.

1. Check today at a glance. The top row shows four tiles — Target, Burned, Consumed and Deficit — and the target updates live as your day changes.
2. Log your weight. If you use a scale that syncs to Apple Health, your weigh-ins come in automatically (read-only, on your device). You can also type a weight to override a given day.
3. Read your weight chart. It shows your actual weight as a solid line and your predicted weight (from your tracked calorie deficit) as a dashed line. Tap the ⤢ button — or rotate to landscape — for a full-screen view with pinch-zoom and a drag crosshair.
4. Understand the prediction. Real weight often drops faster at first (water and glycogen), then the prediction can run ahead as your body adapts — that's expected.
5. Explain a gap (Premium). When predicted and actual weight drift apart, tap to open a conversation with the coach with your numbers loaded; it usually asks a question or two before explaining.
6. Browse and export history. Tracker → History lists your days newest-first; use Import / Export there for a CSV round-trip of your daily log.

6. Apple Watch setup

Live heart rate with any Apple Watch is free. The one-time setup takes about a minute.

1. Open the Strathlon watch app once on your Apple Watch. After that you can leave it closed.
2. Allow Health access when prompted — this is what streams your heart rate to your phone.
3. Start sessions on your phone as normal. Strathlon starts the recording on your watch for you (even if the watch app is closed) and your live heart rate appears straight away — red at or above target, amber below.
4. Don't also start Apple's own Workout app. Running both at once double-counts your calories. Let Strathlon drive — it records each block to Apple's Workout app with the right type, calories and duration on its own.
5. No watch? You still get a live heart rate from Apple Health where recent data is available.

Running the whole workout hands-free from your wrist — set-by-set, with a Done button — is the premium add-on. The app works fully on its own without it.

7. Progress photos

Track your body progress with photos, not just the scale. Your gallery is private — never uploaded, never sent to the AI.

1. Open More → Progress Photos.
2. Add a photo — take a new one or pick from your library. Library photos keep their real date and are tagged with that day's weight, so older shots land correctly on your timeline.
3. Compare two photos. Tap Compare to see your oldest and newest side by side, with the days between and your weight change. Tap either date to swap in any other photo.
4. Delete a photo straight from the Compare view if you want — tap a date and choose Delete.

8. Adding a walk or activity

Add extra activity to any day to see how much it frees up in your calorie allowance — handy for planning ahead.

1. Add a walk or activity from your Plan, choosing the type and duration.
2. See what it frees up — Strathlon shows how the day's calorie allowance adjusts.
3. If you wear an Apple Watch, activities are already counted automatically, so you only need to add one here if you don't wear a tracker or you're planning ahead. Add something your watch already recorded and Strathlon recognises it and won't count the calories twice.

9. Adjusting your goal & maintenance

Strathlon makes the finish line a choice, not a dead end.

1. When you hit your target weight, Strathlon celebrates and asks what's next — right when it happens, whether that's at the end of a plan or partway through.
2. Pick your next step: lock it in with Maintenance (a structured maintenance phase with a gradual reverse diet), set a new goal, or keep going.
3. When your plan's weeks run out, the finish screen reads how you actually did — celebrating and pointing to Maintenance if you hit your goal, offering a fresh block sized to what's left if you're close, or honestly offering to extend and tighten (or ask your coach) if you've stalled.

10. Requesting features

Have an idea for what Strathlon should do next?

1. Submit it in the app, or on the website at strathlon.com/feature-request.
2. Vote on the roadmap. Browse what others have suggested and vote the best ideas up at strathlon.com/roadmap.