Coach Lucas — User Guide

A plain-language guide to using the app. Coach Lucas keeps everything on your device. There's no account and no sign-in — open it and go.

This guide is also built into the app, under Insights ▸ Settings ▸ About ▸ User Guide — so you can read it in the gym with no signal.

PRO marks features included in the one-time Coach Lucas Pro purchase. Everything else is free.

First run

On first launch you'll answer a few quick questions (sex, age, height, weight, activity, goal). From those, the app estimates a daily calorie and macro target using a standard formula. You can Skip this and set targets later, and you can recalculate any time.

These are estimates and a starting point — not medical or nutritional advice. Adjust them to how your body actually responds over a few weeks.

The four tabs

🏋️ Workout

• Just start — freestyle. Don't want to set anything up first? Tap Start a freestyle workout and add exercises as you go. Everything you log counts toward your history, records, and trends exactly like a planned day.
• Pick or build a program. Tap a ready-made split (Push/Pull/Legs, Upper/Lower, Full Body, Body-Part Split, or a dumbbell-only Hotel/Travel routine) in a 30/45/60-minute length, or Build your own days from the exercise library (90+ movements). Drag to reorder days or exercises (tap Edit), and give each day a weekly schedule so your "Today's workout" is ready when you open the app.
• Keep more than one program. Tap Programs / Manage to hold several (say a cut block and a bulk block) and switch between them any time. Switching and deleting are free; building and editing days are PRO.
• Start a day to log sets. For each exercise, enter your weight and reps and tap to log each set.
• RPE (optional). Tap Add RPE to record how hard a set felt (6–10, in half steps). It's tucked away by default so quick logging stays quick.
• Warm-up sets. Flip the Warm-up set toggle before logging a primer set — it's marked with a flame and left out of your PRs, working-set count, tonnage, and progression suggestions.
• Advanced set types. With advanced tools on, tag a set as a drop set, rest-pause, or myo-reps — they count as volume without being mistaken for a new working set. PRO
• Rest timer. When you finish a set, the timer starts. It keeps running even if you lock your phone or leave the app, and sends a notification when rest is up. (Allow notifications when asked.)
• The rest alarm and your music. By default the alarm briefly pauses whatever you're listening to — and a tap on your headphones stops the alarm and resumes the music, so you never pull your phone out. Prefer the alarm to play over your music instead? Turn off Insights ▸ Settings ▸ Rest alarm ▸ "Alarm pauses my music." (In that mode there's no headphone shortcut — the alarm ends on its own or when you tap the app.)
• Deload week. Training feeling heavy? Start a deload week — for seven days every suggestion eases to about 10% lighter and progression pauses, then it ends itself automatically. Deload sessions are kept out of your trends and lift scoreboard, so a week that's lighter on purpose never reads as losing ground. PRO
• Plate math. The app shows exactly which plates to load for your target weight.
• lbs ⇄ kg on the fly. Tap the unit toggle any time — even mid-workout at a kg gym. Every weight, plate, and suggestion converts instantly. Your stored data never changes.
• Progression. The app suggests bumping a weight up only when you hit every target rep last time, and by an amount that fits the equipment.
• Swap an exercise. Tap Swap to trade the current move for an alternative — handy when a machine's taken or your gym doesn't have it. The swap logs under its own name with its own history.
• Supersets. Two exercises done back to back. Where your program pairs them the card shows Superset with … and the app runs it — log a set, it moves you to the partner with a short transition, then gives the full rest after both. Unpair changes today's session only, never your saved program.
• Pair two lifts yourself. On a day your program doesn't already pair things, tap Superset with [the next exercise] to make one on the spot. Offered on accessory work — not on heavy compounds with a deliberately long rest, and not on days that already have supersets built in.
• Live heart rate. Connect a heart-rate monitor you already own — a chest strap, or a wearable like WHOOP in broadcast mode — and your current heart rate shows on the rest-timer card while you train (tap Connect heart rate). Each workout saves your average and peak. It reads over Bluetooth only; nothing leaves your device.
• Cardio. Log Stairmaster / treadmill / other cardio any day. Tap History to see every past session (free), and swipe or long-press one for Duplicate to today to re-log it without re-typing.
• Classes. Log a studio class — Solidcore, SoulCycle, Pilates, yoga, barre. Every class counts toward your daily Exercise goal; flag a cardio-style class (spin) with Counts as cardio so its minutes join your cardio total. Tap History for past classes, with Duplicate to today.
• Mobility & stretching. Tap Stretch for a guided routine. The player holds each stretch with a countdown, chimes between holds, and auto-advances. Every pose shows an illustration. PRO
• Repeat a past workout. Open a session in your history and tap Duplicate to today to clone its exercises and sets into a fresh entry.
• Save a workout as a program day. Finished a session you'd like to keep? From a past workout tap Save as program day to turn it into a reusable day in your program — it reads back the exercises, sets, reps and working weights you logged, carries over any supersets, and lets you pick which weekdays it repeats on. Rest defaults to 90 seconds; fine-tune in the builder afterward.

🥧 Macros

• Targets. Your daily calorie and protein/carb/fat goals. Use the macro calculator to fill them in, or edit them directly.
• Today's basics. A 2×2 glance — calories and protein on top, Steps and Exercise below. Tap the Steps / Exercise chips to mark them by hand, or — with PRO — tap Connect Apple Health to fill steps automatically.
• Log a meal — the fast way. Tap Quick add to search a built-in offline food list, re-log a recent meal or a favorite, repeat yesterday in one tap, or scan a barcode (resolved fully offline against a built-in database of ~352,000 US/CA/UK/AU packaged foods). Or expand Enter manually for exact numbers.
• Save your go-to meals. Swipe left on any recent meal and tap Save to pin it to Favorites for one-tap logging.
• Set a weight goal. Enter a target weight and date. The card shows a countdown, your progress, and the weekly pace it would take.
• Daily non-negotiables. Define your own daily musts (e.g. "10k steps", "hit protein"). Check them off each day; miss none and your streak grows. PRO

⚖️ Weigh-In

Log body weight (and body-composition numbers if you have them). Your history builds a trend over time. Tap the keyboard's Done bar to dismiss the number pad.

📈 Insights

Your analytics lead this tab; reference Tools sit below; and settings/backup live behind the gear (top-right).

• Insights — daily-basics consistency, body-composition trend, weekly training volume, muscle distribution, a steps trend, day-type mix, and records. Trends are grouped into Overview / Training / Nutrition / Body / Supplements.
• Exercise weight trends — per-exercise progress over time. PRO
• Personal records — your best estimated 1-rep max, heaviest set, and top volume for every exercise. (The live "New PR!" moment during a workout is free.) PRO
• Nutrition insights — your goal's weight trajectory and how consistently you clear protein + calories. PRO
• Tools — macro calculator, exercise library.
• Settings (gear) — backup/export/import, display preferences, rest alarm, supplements & meds, and About.

⌚️ Apple Watch

If you have an Apple Watch paired to your iPhone, the Coach Lucas watch app installs alongside the phone app — there's nothing to set up.

• Start the workout on your phone. The phone stays the source of truth; the watch mirrors it.
• Your rest timer counts down on your wrist, so you can glance instead of digging your phone out.
• Log a set from the watch — nudge the weight and reps with the ± buttons, tap Log, and the next rest starts.
• No watch, or not wearing it? Nothing changes — the phone timer and notification work exactly as before.

Trainers & clients

Coach Lucas works as a lightweight coaching tool — peer-to-peer, no accounts, no server. Everything here lives in Workout ▸ My Program ▸ Trainers & clients.

• Share a program — hand a client a program by QR code (in person) or file. Structure only — exercises, sets, reps, rest, and any coaching cues — never your weights or history.
• Trainer tools — an authorable rep range per exercise, and the Clients view. The rep range travels with a shared program.
• Send progress to your coach (free) — a client packages what they've trained recently (training only; never body weight or food) into a file.
• Clients — import a client's progress file and review their sessions read-only. PRO

Supplements & medications

Under Insights ▸ Settings ▸ Supplements & Meds. PRO

• Supplements come as a common starter list — toggle what you take, set your dose, add your own, or swipe to remove.
• Medications start empty; add your own and log daily doses. If a dose changes from the previous day, it's recorded automatically. The app logs the doses you enter; it never recommends anything.

FAQ

• Do I need an account? No. There's no sign-up and no login.
• Where is my data? Is it in the cloud? On your device only. The app makes no network calls in normal use. A normal encrypted iPhone backup includes it — that's your phone backing itself up, not the app sending data anywhere.
• How do I back up or move my data? Insights ▸ Settings ▸ export a JSON backup (optionally password-encrypted) and import it on another device — both free. There's also a workout CSV export PRO — that one is your sets only, for spreadsheets; the JSON backup is what restores everything.
• Can it remind me to back up? Turn on Remind me to back up (Insights ▸ Settings ▸ Reminders). It's paced off your last export, so backing up regularly means you never hear from it — and it won't nag daily if you're overdue. Needs notifications on.
• What happens if I delete the app? All of its data is erased. Export a backup first if you want to keep it.
• Are the calorie/macro numbers accurate? They're estimates from a standard formula — a good starting point. Adjust over a few weeks based on what you see.
• Is any of this medical advice? No. Coach Lucas gives general fitness and nutrition guidance and estimates. It is not a substitute for a doctor or dietitian.
• Why didn't my rest-timer notification appear? Make sure notifications are allowed for Coach Lucas in iOS Settings.
• Can I use kg? Yes — tap the lbs/kg toggle on the Workout tab and the whole app switches. Your stored data always stays consistent.