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Guide

How to Create a Workout Plan

You can create a workout plan in IRONSLOG three ways: build it by hand day by day, start from a 12-week template and edit it, or answer four questions and let the AI workout planner (beta) draft a full weekly split for you to review. All three produce the same kind of plan — a weekly schedule the daily log pre-fills itself from.

Which of the three ways to build a plan should I use?

Building by hand gives full control if you already know exactly what you want to run. The 12-week starter template is fastest if you just want to begin training today. The AI workout planner is a middle ground — a full draft in under a minute, built from your goal, experience, equipment and days, that you review and can still edit by hand afterward.

What does a "weekly plan" actually consist of?

A schedule of day types across the week — push, pull, legs, upper, lower, full body, recovery or rest — each holding a list of exercises with target sets, rep ranges and starting weights. That schedule is what pre-fills the daily log automatically once it’s active.

Can I change a plan after I’ve started training on it?

Yes — edit any day’s exercises, sets or reps at any time, or use week overrides to change what a specific week looks like without altering the base schedule (useful for a planned deload or a peaking week). A plan can also be exported to and re-imported from CSV.

Whichever method you start from, building a plan follows the same six steps:

  1. Decide your goal and available days. How many days a week you can realistically train shapes everything else about the plan.
  2. Pick a starting method. Build by hand, start from the 12-week template, or use the AI workout planner (beta) to draft one.
  3. Assign day types across the week. Push, pull, legs, upper, lower, full body, recovery or rest — one per training day.
  4. Add exercises to each day. Choose from the 873-exercise library, filtered by your available equipment.
  5. Set starting sets, reps and weights. Conservative starting numbers are easy to raise once ghost numbers show you’re ready.
  6. Review and save the plan. AI-drafted plans are shown in full for review before anything is scheduled.

Key takeaways

  • A plan can be built by hand, from a 12-week template, or drafted by AI (beta) in under a minute.
  • A plan is a weekly schedule of day types, each holding exercises, sets, reps and starting weights.
  • AI-drafted plans are shown for full review before anything is scheduled — never auto-applied.
  • Any plan can be edited later, or exported to and re-imported from CSV.

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Frequently asked questions

Is the AI workout planner reliable enough to use as-is?

It’s currently in beta — treat the draft as a strong starting point to review and adjust, not a finished program you should apply without reading it.

Can I switch from a template to a custom plan later?

Yes — every plan, however it started, is fully editable afterward. There’s no lock-in to the method you began with.

Can I import a plan I already have in a spreadsheet?

Yes — IRONSLOG can import a plan from CSV with columns for exercise, sets, reps, weight, week and superset, and export any plan back out the same way.