We designed dcWorkout to be very easy to use. It doesn't have tons of screens or options, but it's got enough to get the job done. Since it's designed to be easy to use, this article should be rather short, but we decided we didn't want there to be zero documentation, so here goes.

dcWorkout all begins with the main screen with two large options defining what this app is designed to do: track workouts and view reports. On the main screen you can do just that, click "Workouts" to add/edit workouts and click "Results" to view reporting on your progress over time. Since the primary function is to track the workouts we'll start there.

Workouts

On the Workouts screen, you will see a list of workouts (labelled by the date of the workout) with a couple of buttons at the top. The first button is relatively straight-forward "New Workout" creates a new workout (which defaults to today's date, but you can change that on the next screen). The second button is the "Edit Exercise Types" button, which allows you to add your own exercise types or edit existing ones (more on this later). On the Workouts screen, you can click on any of the existing workouts to view/edit that workout. Additionally, there is a menu item that will allow you to add a new workout.

Edit Workouts

Once you've created (or selected) a workout, you'll see the Edit Workout screen. This screen will show you the date of the workout, which is how the workouts are listed on the other screens, so always check to be sure that you have the right date down for that particular workout. You will also see a list of the exercises that you have recorded as a part of this workout, so you can click on any of those exercises to view/edit them either to recall what you actually did, or to update the information. On the Edit Workout screen, you have three buttons. The first lets you edit the date of the workout (which is important because not only is that how the workouts are organized on the Workouts screen, but that date is used in the "Results" section of the app to track progress over time). The second button lets you add an exercise, which is probably the most important feature of the app, since this is where you actually track your exercises. The last button lets you save and close the workout (workouts save automatically by default, so don't worry if you don't his this button very often, this is just a convenient way to save the workout and return to the list of workouts on the previous screen). You also have the ability to add an exercise or save the workout using the menu options on this screen.

Edit Exercises

If you click the button to add an exercise, it will let you select which exercise you want, e.g. bench press, run, etc. Then, depending on the exercise type, it will send you to a screen where you can view/edit the details of that particular exercise. It will also send you to that view/edit exercise screen when you select an existing exercise from the Edit Workout screen, but in that case, it won't ask you what type of exercise it is, since that information is already stored in the database.

When you go to the Edit Exercise screen, you will see it in one of two distinct views depending on the type of exercise: strength or conditioning.

For strength exercises, you will be able to select the amount of weight, the number of reps and the number of sets. To choose those values, you will see a select box (what Android calls a 'spinner'). We chose to use spinners because it's easier to just select from a list when your at the gym walking between machines or resting between sets (rather than using text boxes where you have to pull up a keyboard and try to select tiny digits with your fingernail). Using these 'spinners' means that the values for weight and number or reps/sets have to be set elsewhere, which we'll discuss in a moment in the "Edit Exertypes" section.

For conditioning exercises, you will be able to enter a distance and time. In version 1.0, the distance is selected from a spinner, in later versions, you can enter the distance manually. That is an upgrade to allow for finer control of the distance value (mainly because my wife wants to track her runs in hundredths of a mile), just be careful to only enter numbers and decimals (e.g. 1.37) no fractions (e.g. don't enter 1 1/2) or letters of any kind (e.g. don't enter 1.35 Mi.) because entering anything besides numbers will break the reporting side of things. Once you've inputted the distance, you can enter the time by typing in the number of hours, minutes and seconds (sorry, we don't do fractions of a second... yet).

Edit Exercise Types

dcWorkout comes preloaded with a (small) set of exercises, but we've included the ability for users to edit that list and add their own exercises as well. The idea here is to keep the list of exercises small, so that it's easy for each user to select their exercises without having to scroll through long lists of exercises they might never do. To create/edit exercise types, you just click the "Edit Exercise Types" button on the Workouts screen. This will take you to the Exercise Types screen where you can click the button to "Add Exercise Type" or you can select an existing exercise to edit the details of that exercise (things like name, minimum weight and maximum weight).

Once you create (or select) and exercise type, it takes you to the "Edit Exercise Type" screen, where you can enter the details of that exercise type. The first field is the name, which is relatively straight forward, just make sure that the name is unique so that you don't end up with multiple exercises with the same name. The second option is the type of exercise, which lets you pick either strength (for workouts with weights, reps and sets, like bench press) or conditioning (for workouts that are tracked in time and distance, like running). After that, you can enter the minimum and maximum weights so that when you enter an exercise of that type, the app knows what values to display in the weight list. Finally, you can set the 'step' value, which is the number of weights to skip between possible weights. For example, if you have a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 100, that would display a hundred different options 1-100. That's where 'step' comes in. If you set a min of 0, a max of 100 and a step of 10, then it will only display 10 values, 10, 20, 30, etc. That way you can get as detailed as you want (with a smaller step) but still have a reasonable list of values to pick from. The default values are: MIN: 0, MAX: 100, STEP: 10, so if you leave any of those boxes blank, the app will assume those defaults (which can be helpful, because for most new exercises, I just add a maximum, which leaves the minimum at 0 with a step of 10.) Also note that in newer version of the app (1.1 or greater) you don't have to enter a minimum, maximum or step since you will enter the distance manually when you add the exercise.

That about does is for the workouts portion of the apps. So let's move on to the Results portion.

Results

The results portion of the app will show you some basic reporting for each exercise type, like total weight lifted, max weight in an individual rep and average weight per rep (or things like, average pace, best pace and max distance for conditioning exercises). To begin viewing reports, you will see a list of exercise types, just select the exercise type that you want to view and you're halfway there. The second step is to select the time range for the report, this is to allow you to view your progress over time. Once you've selected an exercise type and a report time, you're all set, you should now have a report showing you important stats about your exercises that show you where you are, and how far you've come.

Wrap Up

The last thing we want to highlight is how to delete things. We deliberately made this a long-press only option to help avoid accidentally erasing data while the phone was in our pockets during a workout. So the way to delete things is like this: anywhere that you have a list of items (like the list of workouts on the Workouts screen, or the list of exercise types on the Exercise Type screen) just press and hold on the item you want to delete, then the phone will give you the option to delete that particular data point. Please note that if you delete something, the app will also delete anything that is dependent on whatever you deleted; for example, if you delete a workout, all the individual exercises recorded on that workout will be deleted as well, or if you delete an exercise type, then any exercises you have recorded under that type will be deleted also.

We hope you've found this tutorial helpful. Enjoy the app, and let us know if you have any questions, suggestions or problems.

Thanks,

-dcPages