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RepCanvas

Training

Modify a workout in progress

How to add or remove sets and swap exercises during a session, and how those changes carry forward into the rest of your training program.

Real workouts deviate from the plan. RepCanvas treats deviations as part of the program: an extra set you added in week three becomes part of the prescription for week four onward. The intent is that your program reflects what you actually train, not just what you intended to train.

Adding a set

Below the last set row of any exercise, an Add set affordance creates a new prescribed row. The new set inherits the program’s defaults for rest, RIR, and tempo, and its target weight follows from your last set with the program’s progression rate applied. From the moment you save it, the set is part of the prescription for that exercise - future training weeks will show it too.

If you only want the set for today and don’t want it to carry forward, remove it before finishing the workout. Once the workout is finished, the change is part of the program. The program editor is the right surface for retroactive changes.

Removing a set

Tap the trash affordance on a set row to remove it from this week’s view. The set hides from the display but the program still prescribes it next week - useful when you are short on time and want to skip a set today without changing the long-term plan.

To stop the set from reappearing each week, edit the exercise’s set count in the program editor. The trash action handles the local case (“not doing this set right now”); the editor handles the structural case (“not doing this set ever again”).

Swapping an exercise

Tap into the exercise card header and choose Swap exercise. The picker opens, scoped by default to similar muscle groups so the swap stays in the same training intent. After confirming the swap:

  • The new exercise is part of the prescription for every future microcycle.
  • The historical record for the old exercise stays intact on its own history page - your progression there is preserved.
  • Sets you have already logged this week stay against the old exercise.

This split is intentional. If you swap mid-session because the dumbbells you wanted are taken, finish the session on whatever you used; future weeks adapt to your decision automatically.

Adding an exercise mid-session

Less common but supported: at the bottom of the day, Add exercise lets you add a lift that wasn’t in the program. The added exercise becomes part of the day’s prescription going forward. Use this sparingly - adding lots of mid-session exercises is usually a sign that the program needs editing rather than that the day needs more work.

Why the program adapts forward

The alternative - treating in-session changes as one-off and forgetting them - sounds tidy but is wrong in practice. Most of the time, when you add a set, drop a set, or swap an exercise, you are making a real decision about how the program should run. RepCanvas captures that decision in the program rather than asking you to remember it and re-edit later.

If a change really is one-off, the trash and remove affordances are still right there. The default just leans toward keeping your program honest.