Show HN: I made a community sourced fitness routine database
routinedb.com
routinedb.com
1. Images/videos showing the exercises
2. Program generators. I have {equipment} and n days per week. Which programs work for me? Or, I have {goal} and n days per week, what should I do? The programs would be populated with exercises from the DB, programs could be exported, etc.
3. As much ELI5 info as possible - the barrier to exercise for a lot of people (myself included despite my experience) can be not knowing wtf something is, or why to do it, and generally what the benefits are.
4. Treat warmups like any exercise - a critical part of the routine. Include lots of warm up exercises, whether it's something you make quantifiable progress with or not. Everything from skipping rope and light jogging to dead bugs. Include these as part of program generation.
Maybe something does this, but my favourite tracker (Strong) doesn't cover all of it and I'd switch in an instant if something did. I like the idea of switching programs every year or so, experimenting with warm ups, having convenient access to understanding programs and lifts better, etc. As it is, working out requires a crazy amount of research. Or a coach.
And all the possible mistakes explained thoroughly. What I want of an exercise database is detailed information on how to do the exercises right so I would use proper muscles and prevent injury.
Lots of trainers actually buy their programming from other trainers, since good programming is a lot of work, so you might as well go straight to the source.
You’ll probably need to buy more gear but that’s kind of unavoidable.
As mentioned the videos are great and explanations clear.
After the first use I was sold and paid for the annual subscription. But it's so buggy (especially when paired with an Apple Watch) that I've nearly stopped using it.
When I first started, I used the app DESPITE the bugs. Eventually the bugs got too painful to deal with. Now I do What Feels Right when I work out. Probably a worse strategy, but I prefer it over fighting through the bugs. (I keep the subscription in hopes that they will improve their app.)
So thanks for the tip!
This is my biggest problem with all these apps and videos.
I have trained with a great coach with a good track record of training serious athletes and rehabilitation.
In my opinion, all of these apps are useless at best (unless you already have a good idea of what you’re doing) and dangerous at worst because none of their instructions are complete.
3: oh come on... if your actual limitation is entering the name of the exercice in the google bar literally ONCE IN YOUR LIFE, then your ACTUAL limitation is a base level of motivation and you should rather find another activity.
4: warmups are WAY overrated for fitness. Just don't push too much with max weight and that's all, and listen to your body. I've injured myself way more in my youth where I was doing warmups but egolifting instead that now where I do 0 warmup but work at 90% max.
I'm half with you and half not on point 3. I've been working out for a long time, and I still need to refresh myself and review stuff quite often. Maybe my memory is terrible. I also want to be certain I'm getting form right and using all exercises I do as productively as possible though, so I feel the research is warranted in many cases.
I don't mind doing it, my health is worth it. I suppose this is my point though: In programming, I need to research constantly, but the internet is full of bad ideas and red herrings and half truths when it comes to solving all kinds of problems. Fitness is a little more cut and dry in some regards, but the misinformation and low quality is similarly very widespread. I'm very tired of the sifting and sorting, and I'd LOVE to have a resource I knew to come back to for all manner of things fitness. Many things try to be that, but they tend to fail in my experience.
I disagree on 4 - I've become a strong proponent of warm ups as I've gotten older. I focus a lot on locking in good form using lighter movements, loosening up, and getting acquainted with how my body feels that day. I don't think it's only an asset in injury prevention, but also in keying into your performance and how your body's feeling. Definitely less critical for young ones, but I've found it to improve my time at the gym very consistently.
Like nutrition though, we've all got a different set of preferences and needs. If you don't feel like you need a warm up and your track record proves it, I'd skip it. What I'd like to see though is the ability to insert a warm up I love into a routine I do as though it's part of that routine. Then it's very take it or leave it, but supports the shitty inflexible tree people like me who need to be coerced into moving their bodies.
It lets you pick gender, muscle group, exercise type (stretch, bodyweight, barbell, dumbbells, kettlebells) and has detailed instructions and videos. (It does not have sets/reps like the shared site.) Perhaps they would be good to use in tandem.
Personally, I think for sets/reps, it follows most exercise advice. Choose what you'll actually do. If that's 3 sets of 5 reps, fine. Do that. If you can get yourself to consistently do more than that over time, you'll benefit from the increase in volume. (When I'm active, I follow Starting Strength style - increase warm-up weight while decreasing reps; then a bunch of working weight sets.)
Mike Isratel's work on Maximum Recoverable Volume is probably the best piece of work for deciding things like rep ranges.
Unfortunately, a lot of exercise studies use untrained people. How that extends to even moderately trained people is usually pretty problematic. I'd say "forget it, just listen to people that have been doing it for a couple of decades" is probably better advice.
The primary mover of all set-and-rep ranges is going to be goals and hormonal context, so make sure that when taking advice from someone, know what they think those two things are.
But in my experience lifting heavy for 8-12 reps one day and then lifting ~80% for reps (I go for 30) after a rest day has had good results.
On the flipside, higher rep ranges don't give you bigger muscles - overall training volume (total weight moved per movement) is moreso the determining factor on "size"[0]. In general it's best to just do whatever you find difficult. Lots of "powerbuilders" use Undulating Periodization (sometimes Daily) to try and get the benefits of the CNS acclimation + the increased work capacity that higher rep ranges bring.
[0] https://www.strongerbyscience.com/hypertrophy-range-fact-fic...
[1] https://www.strongerbyscience.com/daily-undulating-periodiza...
That said i'm very sad by the abscence of likes. What dopamine rush can i hope to get by contributing to your database :( ?
Or at least comments.
Total time investment? 30 minutes, 3 times per week.
My entire physique has changed, including greatly increased muscle mass, energy levels, and stamina to do whatever physical activity. I've also dropped 30 pounds and have completely eliminated back problems.
The short answer is that each movement is a whole body movement, using kettle bells, slam balls, or barbells.
Almost every workout is a "super set" which means I either go back and forth between the 2 several times, or go down a line doing 3-4 movements.
I almost never rest more than 2 minutes between sets (big timer on the wall). Sometimes after a very hard set I might rest 3 but that's rare.
I can see this will be too much for a comment so I'm going to write this up. Thanks for the interest!
If you're willing to monitor your diet a bit and stick to the program, then you'll truly see amazing gains in a year.
One thing to note as with all lifting especially squats, depending on age, DOMS may be severe. The program starts as light as possible but even that may be too much. If starting from a very sedentary lifestyle it's probably best to start with a couple of weeks of cardio and light movement before lifting.
don't like the idea, use the idea!
Granted, if you're a beginner, there are much quicker programs (since noob gains are a very real thing), but 5/3/1 is a very simple program to follow, can be repeated for an extremely long time, and isn't very intense stress on the body. I increased my lifts pretty drastically over 2 years, but it felt incredibly slow/gradual - until I looked back over my increases from 2 years prior.
What is a core lift? Parallel squat? Standing shoulder press? Do I need equipment for this stuff? If I do require gear what do I need to get, how do I choose, what’s minimal? What is a safe way to find my “max lift”?
Etc.
I would find it useful if these kinds of workouts were prefaced with their end-goal in mind: general wellness? To bulk specific areas? To maximize real strength? To have trim and endurance strength? To increase resting metabolic burn?
Personally, I want to lose body fat, decrease body aches/pains, and make my brain sharper with minimal investment of time. I know strength training is a key component of this goal. But that’s about it. When I look into strength training, it often seems the advice is focused on strength enthusiasts, which is not me.
Older newbie dripping my toe into the water, I’ll listen!
In terms of barbell-oriented strength programs, 5/3/1 is a good program to do after you've mastered the basics and started to plateau with something like Starting Strength [0] or Stronglifts 5x5 [1]. Those two programs take advantage of the linear gains that are possible for people in their first year of training, and 5/3/1 is a methodical approach to continuing to improve strength when simply adding 5lbs to the bar every workout stops working.
Starting Strength is a great book for understanding the principles and benefits of barbell lifting (and the videos from the old DVD are very good). The introductory essay is considered to be one of the best summations of strength training and its benefits. A lot of people believe that they aren't interested in strength training because they don't feel attracted to the extreme manifestations of the sport, but then discover that it delivers mental health and brain sharpening benefits in ways that they didn't expect.
All of the programs I mentioned are built around the core barbell lifts, which are squat, deadlift, shoulder press, bench press, cleans, and rows.
Core lifts: Bench press, Squat, Deadlift, Overhead Press. Some people choose a different set of lifts.
The 531 thing means week one you do 3 sets of 5 on the core lift, week two you do 3 sets of 3, week three you do a set of 5, a set of 3, and a set of 1. Week four is deload, you do lighter weight for three sets of five. In all cases (except deload) the last set is actually for "AMRAP" i.e. as many reps as possible.
Ultimately weightlifting is not a modern science, it is an ancient practice akin to meditation or running or martial arts. There is ongoing research to optimize it but nobody here is going to the league and for us the most important thing is to show up consistently and track progress. The most impactful thing I ever did for my lifting was to create a spreadsheet I could update from my phone and write down how much I lifted and how many reps every time I went to the gym. I do something like this:
|Bench
-----------------------------
1/22/2021 |135, 135, 145
|5, 5, 5
Oh and stay away from planet fitness, that's not a gym[2]. Their business model is based on appealing to people who don't work out. You want to work out, go somewhere else.
[1]: http://www.anasci.org/ebooks/531%20by%20Jim%20Wendler.pdf [2]: https://www.facebook.com/planetfitness/videos/were-not-a-gym...
That said, while I'm able to generally sprint things quite well, my strength was always suffering as it's not a primary focus, so I do 5/3/1 alongside it and it works very well. I've definitely seen steady gains coming from it, and because of the low volume it's really sustainable.
1. Start today by doing literally anything active.
2. Do it again tomorrow.
3. Repeat.
There is no magic. Once you’ve got a habit of showing up, you can worry about exactly which fitness routine to use. Most programs get repetitive after 6-8 weeks anyway, so you need a foundation of a stable habit to fall back on when switching routines or burning out on one.
The secret is to show up. Every day. Just keep stacking those good days.
(This applies to a lot more than just fitness, btw)
(It’s also much easier said than done)
This is just not true. The most popular beginner weight lifting programs are comprised of ~3 workouts a week of ~30-60 minutes each. There's a reason for that. Exercising every day sure sounds nice, but it increases the chance of injury and often is too great a commitment for people with a sedentary lifestyle.
> Most programs get repetitive after 6-8 weeks anyway
You can easily follow a beginner program for many months before linear progression stops. Switching programs after 6-8 weeks as a newbie is absolutely pointless when you do compound exercises.
> (It’s also much easier said than done)
Yeah, it is when you force yourself to work out every day. 3 days a week though? Far more manageable.
You don’t need to do stressful exercise every day. But if you can get yourself to show up to the same location, and do anything – whether that’s stretching, or exercising, or going for a walk – you’re going to build a more sustainable habit than you would if you allowed yourself to skip it four days a week.
I've always thought body building is one of the hardest habits to start because your body punishes you when you do it the first few times. It's hard to feel motivated after it hurts to go up or down the the stairs. If you make it over that hurdle it's easy to keep up.
Then a couple months before the pandemic I joined the author's new subscription service called Mark Lauren On Demand. It's a library of workout videos and programs, organized by difficulty. It's like $8.99/month and I think it's the best thing I pay for. I'm definitely in the best shape I've ever been.
Workout videos are surely not a new idea, but I hadn't tried that format before this, and I like that the videos are literally him doing the exercises along with you, including warmup and cooldown. It means I can look at the timestamp and know exactly how long it'll take to do a workout that day. And I like that it's all scheduled out for me. I just have to show up (in my basement).
Book + workout program is at https://marklauren.com/
It doesn't teach you how to do any particular exercise, you'll need to geta that elsewhere. But what it does do is provide a number of templates for programming, with different endurance / strength / mass requirements in mind. And it tell you why the programming is the way it is, and expects you to start modifying it once you're more advanced. Kind of a "teach-a-man-to-fish" approach.
There's a reason why this is, by far, the most popular choice for beginner weight lifters.
I mean, it's OK if you want to start a career as a powerlifter, but not if you're just looking to slightly increase general fitness and not get injured.
For true beginners, classic light weight exercises with dumbells and cable machines, plus bodyweight exercises like pushups and unweighted squats are probably better choices.
I'm going to plug Renaissance Periodization again. If you want a safe, science-backed program with built-in progression and no overcomplicated exercises, spend $40 on their gym-free template:
However, I do agree that if you want to get just a bit more in shape, a simpler program without barbell compounds is a better choice. I was assuming that the grandparent wanted to get into weightlifting, as most people in my age group mean that when they talk about wanting to get fitter.
That's true, but so much time is spent on proper form for the prescribed movements precisely because they are so complicated.
> starting with relatively light weights, and only increasing weights when you can complete all sets
Which discounts progression via adding volume and keeping the weights relatively constant (which - unless the volume is extreme - is safer), and that's one of my main beefs with it - for people who want to get in shape casually and for whom significant strength increase isn't a primary concern.
But I agree that if you want to get into powerlifting as a sport, Starting Strength is probably not a bad idea for your beginner program. (actual powerlifters might want to chime in on that.)
Example: What does "Bent Over Lateral Raise" mean? Show me? Lateral ... to what?
I'm sure I can figure that out, but, for the newbies of the world it's another hurdle to keep them from actually starting/moving.
Written demo, video, photo, etc of each movement.
We are adding more movements daily. Please give me a shout if there's other information you'd want to see here.
Anything else structural wise you'd like to see?
I'm way past 5yo and I do not understand.
My recommendation, if you're really a beginner, just go buy one book that explains these things. They're all based on the same principles. The same knowledge is being repackaged, re-sold, re-presented by each subsequent personality.
You don't need more routines. You need the routine you'll do 50 or 100 times.
Since those specific goals are so common, they fade into the background. But if your goals are more or less one or more of those goals, then yes, do the same set of exercises 50-100 times (progressing weights/intensity/etc). That will stimulate improvements. Doing a bunch of different things every time is 100% better than sitting on the couch, but won't allow you to progress very much. You'll essentially only be progressing e.g. strength when you happen to overlap some motion with the right amount of increase to cause improvement.
But something that you'll do is better than a perfect thing that you'll get bored of and stop doing. Existence is the primary predicate and all that.
Incidentally, Starting Strength (the book) talks about this somewhat. He distinguishes between 'training' and 'exercising'. Training is about progressive overload. Exercise is about moving your body. If you want to change your body, you'll want to train.
My advice in the past is that 60% of your time in training should be for things you like and you're getting very good at. The non-compound movements have benefits, but unless you're competing at something, the benefits are across a broader impact spectrum.
How will this translate into a fitness routine? If you look at some of the 5/3/1 periodization routines, it'll be something like: bench press, shoulders/chest, lats, triceps. Doesn't matter as much which shoulder/chest or lat exercises, just take them to a proper RPE (search it).
Routines, in and of themselves, aren't super helpful if you don't understand some of the basic principles. For which some deeper resource -- a book, possibly -- is a wise investment.
While I have certainly a lot to learn on that topic, I feel like I haven't failed completely - of course all kinds of exercises come around again, and I'm increasing difficulty/number of sets. So there's room for optimization, but it's not a bad start, I think.
Thanks again :)
And while adding a likes/ratings/whatever system might be helpful, I'd much rather see a system that considers actual information about people's progress. Did you get stronger? Leaner? Did your mile time improve? Did you get bigger delts? At a high level, for a given goal, routine selection is a contextual bandit problem, but so far as I can tell no one treats it that way.
Right now it's more focused on form feedback, but adding live audio cues is on our roadmap. I'd love to know what other features you'd want us to build.
Does the detection work well? Is it worth the price?
Edit: tempo.fit seems interesting!
You can email me at my HN username @gmail.com, would be great to hear what you think!
Current TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/3OLYPP6V
Then Adidas bought them out and closed the individual apps and released a replacement for the main Runtastic app.
There were numerous threads on reddit asking for similar replacements, and I don't think there has been one. So I gave up looking.
https://ImpossibleFitness.com/exercises for fitness movements, lifts and exercises.
and
https://MoveWellApp.com/stretches for mobility training and stretching.
The goal is to make these more accessible to everyone and demo exactly what each movement takes.
Would love any feedback on things we can improve. We're 100% bootstrapped and are adding new movements + routines every week. Happy to add anything that the HN community would think is useful.
i.e. I follow a 10 week program that I repeat (you guessed it) every 10 weeks. At the end of the 10 weeks I will update the 1RM and the entire spreadsheet of ~120 rows of exercises, stretches, and warmups will immediately update to show me the correct weights to use.
Once you get past the beginner stages of exercise (learning movements, stretches, etc) fitness routines are just numbers on a page. For that reason I'll stick to Excel.
But this seems like a useful tool for those very new to the scene.
There's a lot of conflicting advice on this thread, and some that (I'd say) was questionable. On the other hand, it's apparent that humans can improve their physical fitness using a wide variety of different methods and modalities. That old adage about the best fitness routine is the one you stick to holds true, I think.
http://newbie-fitness.blogspot.com/2006/12/rippetoes-startin...
It can't be cross referenced: show me leg routines, show me plyometrics, show me opposing lifts, etc.
It can't be curated, which means it will accrete garbage, like duplicates, or bogus workouts.
It can't create programming.
It can't even be searched.
It's like "my first MongoDB app" or something. Go think about it and let it cook some more.
Full disclosure though, it's kinda self-promotion because I've been developing [Hardy.app](https://www.hardy.app) with a friend for over a year now. It's free and we're adding more features all the time, check it out if interested. :)
I added your wish to our subreddit as a feature request: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardyapp/comments/nzsmu2/feature_re...? If your username is there as it is here I can notify you once we have added such a feature. :)
Following a random exercise routine can result in injury.
You should at the very least talk to a lawyer and put a disclaimer in that page.
A trainer can check your form and help you execute the exercise safely but how does an exercise routine injure you?
Also, a Report button is highly recommended for anything involving user generated content.
please.... just lift super light and find your form.
Your audience will not necessarily be a 20 year old in good physical condition. It may be as well a 10 year old that doesn't know what to do with the information you are giving to them. Or someone with a pacemaker, or someone with some medical condition that puts them at risk.
Then... Not only people can get injured by following an exercise routine in good-faith... some people may injure themselves on purpose so they can sue you.
Will people be able to injure themselves anyways if you add a disclaimer to the website? Absolutely. But it won't be your fault anymore.
But that's only the start. If you allow people to write anything they want in a textbox, bad things can happen. People can write ANYTHING, not only exercise routines... And by anything, I mean, very illegal things.
And if you allow people to upload pictures, well... that can go very wrong as well.
They are all amazing
[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20150315012046/http://www.strstd...
- Get users (hah, easier said than done of course).
- Comments will help people find variations (not everyone has the same equipment, or have physical issues that require a variation of the workout, comments will fill that void).
- Split this up into categories (core, legs, etc)
- Link this stuff to YouTube videos (it’s just easier to watch someone doing it with proper form)
- Last but not least, become an app. A routine is a checklist, so make it so people can hit ‘done’ on a completed rep, maybe input the weight lifted. Track it, charts.
- If you don’t do any of this, I’m going to.
Might be worth considering having a centralized repository of exercises with curated links to videos which demonstrate how to perform that exercise with proper form. Then when creating the routine, you select from that list of exercises. This allows for a bit of consistency and quality control so people aren't throwing in random exercises.
Might also help to have an upvote feature so garbage routines aren't given too much weight.
Great job!
Good suggestions. Thanks for the feedback!
There are probably more similar solutions out there. Fitness apps are definitely an interesting space, where there are tons of them, but they seem to rarely marketing themself. Probably the customer acquisition cost would be higher than the custom lifetime value, i guess...
The club reopened ~1 week ago, so they stopped streaming but the content is still available.
I highly recommend if you're looking for ~1h of exercise per day :)
[1]https://www.routinedb.com/routine/ckpvxacen02200wl8f8z27z77
At some point in the past, I had spent... maybe 10-12 hours putting together a number of bodyweight + dumbbell exercises I picked up from YouTube. I used Giphy to record GIFs of the movement, and saved them all in a Trello dashboard (tagged and everything).
I used it every time I went to the gym to figure out what exercises I could do for a particular muscle group.
It has a few well known pre-built routines with different focuses, and then you can build your own if you so desire.
Auto weight progression, easy to use interface, rest timers, graphs, etc.
I still haven't found a replacement.
Especially because I assume (since I can't easily check it now) that it can't be used to put together a routine for people who are just terribly out of shape.
Looks great!
First, "Have you added any crossfit routines to routinedb?" There are at least two on there as of the time of me writing this. The Murph [1] and Strict Nicole [2]. I hope you come up with a way to credit the originators of programs / workouts that people submit.
Some programs / workouts are given away for free to drum up business for trainers; others, such as crossfit WODs (work outs of the day), are used in competitions, and other programs are documented in a book that is sold and is a source of revenue for the author.
> Thanks for the feedback. "They're everywhere. They're in books, they're on sites, they're in magazines, they're on forums." - this is the problem I'm hoping to solve with RoutineDB.
What is the problem you're trying to solve for? Discoverability? If that's the case, then why don't you create a flowchart linking to various resources on the web.
Who is your audience?
I assume you're in tech, so you know there are some criteria for success and goals that should be set before going on to build something. There are different approaches depending on the constraints. Similarly, this applies to training. There is no "best program". A flowchart would be able to help people with identifying goals up front and then determining the appropriate on-boarding point.
As someone who has spent a lot of time reading blogs, forums, magazines, and books on strength and conditioning I don't see how this will help someone progress. This seems more like a dictionary of "workouts" than anything structured and progressive.
If you're not already familiar with some of the online strength communities, then I can offer up a few suggestions to look over ways that they structure training programs as opposed to workouts.
https://www.strongfirst.com/ - minimalist training in terms of equipment (focus is mostly body weight and kettlebells) and time investment. aimed at "general physical preparedness"
https://startingstrength.com/ - powerlifting and football
https://www.elitefts.com/education/training/workouts-program... - powerlifting with the 5/3/1 program popularized by Jim Wendler being associated with this site previously
https://www.crossfit.com/ - following the crossfit WODs (work out of the day) isn't what the top crossfitters do. The top crossfitters (as of a few years ago) focused on doing some sort of progressive overload of the big compound movements (squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, pull ups) followed by what they call(ed) "metcons" or metabolic conditioning sessions. That's where they would complete the "WODs". The metcons would follow some prescribed patter, too, they wouldn't be random.
http://danjohn.net/ - "the goal is to keep the goal the goal" pretty much sums up his no nonsense routines. coaches and competes at a lot of different levels
https://gymjones.com/ - responsible for the 300 physiques and Henry Cavil in Superman. Or at least Mark Twight the founder was
https://www.californiastrength.com/ https://www.burgenerstrength.com/ - olympic weightlifting
There are some good reads on those sites about programming and progression. There are trainers that maintain blogs discussing how to take untrained individuals and get them up to speed without hurting them. Going from 8-12 hours slumped at a chair to lifting weights off the floor definitely requires some progression.
There are also numerous websites dedicated to training for specific sports. So, going back to goals can help to figure out where to go.
[1] https://www.routinedb.com/routine/ckpx0a5th172811md0gddqba6 https://www.crossfit.com/workout/2005/08/18#/comments
[2] https://www.routinedb.com/routine/ckpx0rb3e276411mdvq9zjqla https://www.crossfit.com/190607
https://github.com/kcal-app/kcal
EDIT: side note -- when signing up for the email the MailChimp landing page has a "return to site" button that points to "https://sites.cx/" (which is an NXDOMAIN for me).
I get “The string did not match the expected pattern.” when I visit the link.
Why do I say that? Because I was in an excellent shape in my twenties and by the mid forties it was, objectively, terrible even though I ate right and I was active. Very active. Amazingly active. I could do twenty knuckle pushups and be just in the "probably can't do more" state. I'm also someone who paid about $1k a month for a trainer for his ballerina wife's 2x a week training because "It is easier than hear her whine but I dont get it"
I'm also someone who was a semi-pro downhill skier during the time. I fucked up badly on slopes two years ago. I did everything wrong. Like 6 things. If I did not do 1 of those things, I would have been fine. It was utterly stupid. MRI said fractures, MCL, ACL tears, meniscus trashed - think fucking up at 68 mph on a Super G course because you think you are 25 and not 43 year old now slob. So the ballerina wife goes:
-- Get your dumb ass back into the shape you were in I met you or my little ass is gone. Get the damn trainer. Real trainer. You workout regiment does not matter if your form is not perfect.
But I got a PT who was an athlete rehab trainer. She put me back together to a point where I nearly cleared the FIS qualifier.
I hired her personally. It has been two years. I shed 20 lbs. I'm about where I was at 30. I do 5x a week 15-20 minute workouts every morning ( warmup + plyometrics + strength ) and I do 1h a week warmup + plyometrics with her. We are doing pretty much the same things I used to do except that she says "I want you to look there when you are doing it. It will create the right line for you to properly engage the right muscles rather than compensate." That's what makes a difference. Do you, for example, know that then you do a renegade rows you really should pull your arm straight up with a neck turn slightly up because if you don't you will not actually engage the right muscles in your core ( you would either do no neck turn and or you would do it too much which in both cases will not get you into the right line for your body)
TL;DR: hire a real trainer. They are expensive ( $1k/month for 4 sessions ) but they are what makes your regiment work, not the "regiment"