Tracking Big Picture Progress: How to Use the Strength Visualizer

In your strength journey, tracking progress over time is key to understanding how far you've come. The Strength Visualizer offers a unique way to assess your long-term performance by estimating your 1-rep max (e1RM) across different rep ranges and visualizing your strength improvements. This tool is designed to give you a clear, big-picture view of your progress, helping you identify trends and make informed decisions about your training.

What is the Strength Visualizer?

The Strength Visualizer is a chart-based tool that displays your estimated one-rep max for each lift, allowing you to see strength improvements across different rep ranges over time. It provides a comprehensive view of your lifting history by charting all your workouts, enabling you to visualize how your strength has progressed.

How it Works

At its core, the Strength Visualizer uses your workout data to estimate your one-rep max (e1RM) using formulas like Brzycki, which is customizable in the app. By taking into account the reps and weight lifted during each workout, the visualizer calculates your potential max strength for each lift type. This is displayed in a chart, showing you how your e1RM changes across different sessions.

The visualizer supports:

• Multiple lifts: Choose specific lift types like squat, deadlift, or bench press.
• Custom time ranges: View progress over the past 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, or all time.
• Data filtering: Opt to display weekly bests or all your data. This helps smooth your data especially if each week you do a light version of a lift.

Why Use the Visualizer?

The visualizer offers several key advantages to lifters:

• View Your Entire Strength Journey at a Glance: The Strength Visualizer lets you see your complete history for a specific lift type, even if you have 10 years' worth of data. This means you can see your long-term strength progression in one clear snapshot, providing unparalleled insight into how your lifting journey has evolved.
• Predict Your Future Strength: By analyzing your trajectory of progress, you can estimate your potential strength for an upcoming meet or powerlifting competition. This makes the visualizer a powerful tool for planning and setting goals, helping you stay on track for those big events.
• Identify Plateaus: Spot any periods where your progress stalls, giving you the insight to make necessary adjustments in your training program.
• Understand Training Effectiveness: By visualizing trends in your e1RM, you can determine which phases of training were the most effective for strength gains.
• Set Realistic Goals: The visualizer helps you set data-driven goals by providing a clear understanding of your current strength level and how it has evolved.

Using the Strength Visualizer

Here’s how you can make the most of the visualizer:

1. Select Your Lifts: Choose which lifts you want to focus on by using the side-panel lift chooser. This allows you to compare performance across different exercises.

2. Adjust Time Range: Use the time range selector to narrow or expand the chart’s date range. Want to see how your squat has improved in the last six months? Or maybe you’re curious about your all-time performance? The time range feature gives you flexibility.

3. Customize Display Options: Toggle between showing all sets or just your best weekly lifts. You can also choose to show or hide the actual weight values for each set on the chart.

4. Interactive Data: The chart is fully interactive, allowing you to hover over specific points to see detailed information for each set, such as the weight lifted and the corresponding e1RM. This lets you identify your best performances. As you mouse hover over a date the entire session will appear in the card to the right. For lift entries with a URL (such as a youtube link to your lift video), you can also click points on the data to open the lift video in a new tab.

Conclusion

The Strength Visualizer is an essential tool for anyone serious about tracking their strength progress over the long term. It simplifies complex data into clear, actionable insights, helping you stay on track and make informed decisions about your training. Whether you're preparing for a competition or just aiming to hit new personal records, the Strength Visualizer ensures you're always aware of the big picture in your lifting journey.