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Comment by jessejhernandez | Hacker News Reader

I'm hoping they can incorporate something for weight lifting too. It'd be awesome to chart your growth in a more intuitive way rather then just using Excel.

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One of the activities in their API is weightlifting: https://developers.google.com/fit/rest/v1/reference/activity..., so looks like this is only the start.

What data points does a phone collect that you see as a beneficial measure of lifting activity?

You can use it while you're at the gym.

Are there any good workout tracking apps on the market that focus on simple manual entry?

I think so. The last one I used was the Men's health application. It recommends workouts and allows you to log them

He meant for example what data points would the phone use to know you're working out your triceps?

The allure of the current set of exercise apps is that the device automatically tracks the effort, using existing features like accelerometer and GPS, and there's no input required. FitBit tracks steps, some apps use GPS to track distance covered and derive stats. It's nearly literally a no-brainer to use them, and they require no cumbersome gear to wear. Even a heart rate monitor is small and unobtrusive now.

Unfortunately for lifting and many other forms of exercise, the apparatus is not built into the device you already have or can strap on your belt and forget about. In addition to needing special-purpose measuring equipment, the user would have to incorporate the device into the exercise.

A barbell could know it's been picked up and put down, but how would it know how much weight is on it? RFID in the plates? A tennis racket or baseball bat could track swings and speed, but would anyone even care for that metric?

Buying an RFID weight set or a piece of equipment with more sensors on it, or attaching a phone to a bat are all very signifiant barriers of entry.

FitBit, Wear, Microsoft Band, iWatch aren't getting a ton of adoption for these simple metrics, how do you sell the others? Ie 80% of Americans have smart phones, 10% will invest in wear devices, maybe it's just .1% that will invest in bat technology.

I've fiddled with the Stronglifts app, it is surprisingly handy. It basically serves the same purpose as a stopwatch and notebook log, but in a nicer more automated package.

- Time your rest periods

- Track your progress

- Remember what weight you did last time

- Count your sets

Yeah this is what I'm referring too. It would be cool to have an intuitive app that could actually differentiate between bench press and shoulder press. I like to lift weights doing various exercises and typically once I am done I will go to google drive and insert it on a google spreadhseet.

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