To The Bar Training Guide

Start here

Create or access your account

Choose a sign-in method

1. Open To The Bar Training.
2. Choose an email account or Continue with Apple.
3. For email, complete any confirmation step sent to your inbox.
4. For Apple, choose whether Apple shares your email or supplies a private relay address.

If you already use To The Bar with an email account, choose the option to link Apple to that existing account. Creating a second account would create a separate training history.

Complete the useful profile settings

• Add a display name, optional biography and profile photo. When cropping a photo, move its focal point so your face stays centred in circular and square displays.
• Choose kilograms or pounds and any supported distance preferences.
• Create gym profiles and record available equipment if you want planning to reflect where you train.
• Choose optional exercise-library packs under Account. General exercises remain available; Olympic lifting, Strongman and functional-fitness benchmarks can be included as required.
• Choose timer, haptic, notification and Apple Health preferences.

App map

Find your way around

Today

Your selected date, workspace and relevant sessions. Switch between personal, client and club views when those roles are available. Pull down to refresh shared data.

Create

The fast route to a single session. Choose manual creation or available assisted planning and move from details to exercises and targets.

Calendar

A month view of planned and completed training. Change workspace filters to view your own, client or club schedules.

Blocks

The detailed planner for drafts, posted sessions, benchmark templates and multi-week training blocks.

More

Exercise library, History, My Coaching, My Clubs, Messages or Notifications, and Account. The exact list reflects your roles and licences.

An athlete can also be a coach or club administrator. A staff role does not remove the personal athlete workspace; use the workspace or Intended for control to make it clear whose training you are viewing or creating.

As an athlete

Plan, perform and review your training

Create a quick personal session

1. Open Create and enter a session name. If the name is missing, the app brings the validation message into view.
2. Confirm the date, training location and Intended for: You.
3. Search for an exercise by name. Open the information view for its description or demonstration link, or tap the selection control to add it.
4. Use See full exercise list when browsing is more useful than search.
5. Continue to targets and enter sets, reps, load, time, distance or other supported values.
6. Publish the session, or use the ellipsis and Save to drafts if it is not ready.

Understand the exercise controls

• Tap the exercise name to open its description, coaching instructions and available YouTube example without selecting it.
• Tap the circle or tick at the right to add or remove that exercise from the session. A filled tick means it is selected.
• Use Favourites only to temporarily hide non-favourites while choosing exercises. Turning it off restores the normal search results.
• The search field filters the available names. Clear the search or use the visible Back control to return to the main picker; the X dismisses the keyboard/search state.
• When an exercise is missing, choose Create new exercise. The current search text becomes the proposed exercise title.

Follow assigned training

A session assigned by a coach or club appears in the relevant Today and Calendar view after synchronisation. Open the card to see notes, exercises and targets. Your logged copy remains associated with you; changes made by a coach follow the assignment and amendment rules shown in the app.

Control completed-result sharing

During completion choose one of the available scopes: private, coach, or coach and club. Only authorised people in the selected relationship can review a shared result. Health-derived calorie information remains private even when the training result is shared.

Review progress

Use History, exercise detail and session summaries to review previous work, charts and personal bests. A new exercise has no prior record, so its first valid result establishes the relevant baseline PB. Zero external load can still create a repetitions PB for bodyweight work such as pull-ups.

Planning

Create sessions, drafts and training Blocks

Choose the right starting point

• Create: fastest way to publish one session.
• Blocks > Plan a detailed session: a more deliberate session workflow with date, focus, location, recipients, notes, exercises and targets.
• Blocks > Create a training block: plan multiple sessions across weeks and map progression.
• Blocks > Drafts: continue anything saved without publishing.
• Blocks > Schedule: review posted personal, client and club sessions and open eligible entries to amend them.

Personal, coach and club audiences

The combined planning card shows the capacity in which you are acting and the recipients available in that context. Personal planning simply shows you. Coach planning offers active clients and training groups, with an option to include yourself. Club planning lets authorised staff choose the club, all active members, teams or squads, or searched individual members.

If you coach for one club, that club is selected automatically. If you coach for more than one, the app asks you to select a club before continuing. Selecting the same person through a group and individually produces one assignment, not duplicate sessions.

Use teams without losing individual control

Club recipients are group-first: start with all active members or a team, then search for a specific member only when necessary. A person can belong to more than one team, such as Weightlifting, Yoga and CrossFit. Membership in several teams does not create duplicate copies of the same assignment.

Create multiple supersets

Select at least two exercises for a superset group. Finish that group before starting another; the builder identifies each group separately. During editing you can add to a group, remove an exercise from it or remove the grouping without deleting the exercises.

Amend a posted session

Open the scheduled entry, choose its edit action, change the permitted date, recipient, notes, exercises or targets and save. The app identifies when the amendment affects only a recipient copy and when other assigned copies remain unchanged.

During training

Log and complete a workout

Record each set clearly

• Successful is green and contributes to successful results and eligible PB calculations.
• Missed is red and contributes to the missed-attempt statistic.
• Not logged is grey and is counted separately. It does not inflate the missed statistic.

Sets left untouched when the session is completed are marked not logged. Superset exercises share a streamlined logging page so you can move through the group without repeatedly loading the full workout history.

Use timers without losing the session

The session timer and exercise timing state are stored independently from the current screen. If the app moves to the background or iOS later restores the view, return to the session and continue. Confirm the actual duration before completion, especially for a session entered retrospectively or left open for a long time.

Add, swap or create an exercise

Use the session actions to add another exercise or replace the current one. Search by name. If there is no match, create a personal exercise from that workflow; the search text pre-populates its name. When swapping, the number of sets is retained and incompatible tracking values are reset.

Finish and review

1. Select Finish and optionally add anything else.
2. Review successful, missed and not-logged totals.
3. Confirm or edit the session duration.
4. Choose tracker calories or an estimate, where enabled.
5. Add session comments and choose result visibility.
6. Complete the workout and review the summary and PBs.

Edit a finished workout

Completed data is read-only by default. Open the completed workout, select the ellipsis and choose Edit completed session. Make the change—including supported calorie, note or sharing changes—then select Save. This prevents casual taps from altering a finished record.

Library

Exercises, personal content and benchmarks

Search and learn

The planner searches exercise names rather than every muscle or metadata field, keeping results relevant. Tap an exercise name to see available instructions and video links before adding it. Mark frequently used exercises as favourites for faster access.

Use the exercise-library content toggles

1. Open More > Account.
2. Under Exercise preferences, open Exercise library content.
3. The General exercise library is always on and cannot be hidden.
4. Turn Olympic weightlifting on for Olympic lifts, derivatives and supporting movements.
5. Turn Strongman on for carries, loaded objects and Strongman-specific movements.
6. Turn Functional fitness benchmarks on for named Girls, Hero and classic workout templates.
7. The Adaptive and inclusive switch is ready for approved catalogue content; it will not add unverified movements before that catalogue is available.
8. Select Show all content packs to reset every optional pack to visible.

These switches change discovery and planning search results only. Turning a pack off does not remove exercises already used in sessions and does not erase favourites, PBs or history.

Favourite an exercise

Open More > Exercise library and use the star action for the exercise. Favourites are available from the picker and receive priority when app-assisted sessions are generated. Removing a favourite does not remove the exercise or its history.

Manage personal exercises

1. Create an exercise from the library or from the no-results option during planning or a live exercise swap.
2. Set the title and primary muscle. Open Secondary muscles and turn on every additional muscle meaningfully involved.
3. Choose the equipment and training environment. These fields determine when assisted planning can suggest the movement for a gym.
4. Under What do you want to track?, choose the first and second logging columns. Examples include Reps + Weight kg, Time + Distance, Reps + RPE or one useful metric plus None.
5. Add an optional YouTube example, movement instructions and comma-separated search tags, then Save.

Personal exercises belong to their creator and can be edited or deleted from their detail actions. Deletion is guarded where an existing workout record still depends on the exercise.

What the tracking columns do

The first and second columns define the values shown for every set of that exercise. Choose the two measures that describe a result, rather than turning on unrelated fields. Time-based movements can use Minutes, Seconds or Hours; distance can use metres, kilometres, miles, yards or feet; power and conditioning can use Watts, Calories or Velocity. The two columns cannot use the same metric.

Insert a benchmark workout

Search approved benchmark names from the library or session creator. Opening a benchmark shows its structure. Choosing Create session from benchmark or adding it to the current plan inserts its component exercises as a structured grouped workout—for example runs, pull-ups and push-ups—rather than replacing exercises already in the session. You can add warm-up, strength or accessory work around it.

As a coach

Program for clients and stay close to the result

Set up My Coaching

1. Open More > My Coaching.
2. Complete the coaching profile and use your joining PIN or invitation tools to connect clients.
3. Organise active clients into training groups where group programming is useful.
4. Use the Planning workspace for quick sessions, detailed sessions, drafts and multi-week blocks.

Create a coach training group

1. Open More > My Coaching.
2. Under Clients and training groups, select Manage training groups.
3. Tap Create group, enter a recognisable name such as Beginners, Saturday Weightlifting or Return to Training, then Create.
4. Open the new group and select the ellipsis.
5. Choose Add user, search the connected clients, select everyone to add and tap Done. This stages the changes.
6. Open the ellipsis again and choose Save to apply the membership list.

Use Remove user in the same menu to stage removals. You can also rename or delete a group there. Deleting a group removes only the grouping: the clients stay connected to the coach and keep their personal data. A client may be included in more than one training group.

Use a group while programming

1. From My Coaching, choose Create a client session or start an equivalent detailed plan.
2. In Planning as coach, tap the training group. All active clients in it become selected.
3. Adjust individual client ticks below the group if this particular session needs an exception.
4. Turn on Include me as an athlete if you also want an independent copy on your own calendar.
5. Continue and publish, or use the ellipsis to save the work to Drafts.

If one person is selected through several groups or both a group and their individual row, To The Bar resolves them to one recipient and creates one session copy.

Assign a session

Choose Intended for: Coach, then select a group or individual clients. Enable include-self if you also intend to perform the session. Recipients are deduplicated across groups and individual selections.

Review work and communicate

Coaching activity brings relevant completed results and athlete notes into a reviewable feed when the athlete shared them with the coach. Open the client or session for detail. Use direct messages for an individual conversation and announcements where a broader update is appropriate.

Understand coach and athlete roles

A coach can remain an athlete. Personal sessions belong in the personal workspace; client programming belongs in the coaching workspace. Club roles are separate again, allowing the same person to train, coach private clients and act for a club without merging the audiences.

As a club

Manage programming, classes and administration

Roles and licences

Club access is based on a role plus any scoped permissions. The standard roles are:

• Owner: full control, including ownership, billing and club deletion.
• Admin: day-to-day administration without owner-only billing, transfer or deletion powers.
• Head Coach: leadership across programming, teams, exercise standards and results.
• Coach: coaching access scoped to assigned responsibilities or teams.
• Class Manager: class schedule, bookings, attendance and announcements within assigned scope.
• Athlete: member access to relevant training, teams and classes.

Licences are assigned independently from roles. An owner, admin or coach can also hold an athlete licence and be selected for training.

Use Club Admin

Open More > My Clubs, choose the club and select Club Admin. Owners and admins can manage the club profile and logo, joining PIN, members, roles, permission overrides, licences, activities, teams and administrative history. Billing and ownership controls remain owner-only.

Assign an athlete licence

1. Open Club Admin > Assign athlete licences.
2. Turn the licence on for each person who should be selectable as an athlete and receive club training.
3. A staff member can hold an athlete licence without changing their Owner, Admin, Head Coach, Coach or Class Manager role.

Removing the athlete licence removes that person from athlete teams and training groups, but their club role and staff permissions remain. The screen shows the number of licences used against the club allowance.

Create a club Activity

1. Open Club Admin > Club activities.
2. Tap New activity.
3. Enter the activity name—for example Weightlifting, Yoga, Hot Yoga, Engine, CrossFit, Open Gym or Youth S&C.
4. Choose an icon and colour so it is easy to recognise in schedules.
5. Leave Available for new classes on and tap Save.

Activities describe what the club offers and appear when staff create classes. Tap an existing Activity to rename it, change its icon or colour, or turn Available for new classes off. That archives it from future class menus without altering historical classes or results. Use Edit and drag the rows to change their display order.

Create a club team or training group

1. Open Club Admin > Teams and training groups.
2. Tap Create team, enter a name such as Weightlifting, Yoga, CrossFit, Performance Squad or Beginners, then Create.
3. Open the team, select the ellipsis and choose Add user.
4. Search and tick the members, tap Done, then use the ellipsis and Save to apply the staged changes.
5. Use Remove user and Save when a person's team access changes.

Only active club members with an athlete licence appear in the add-member list. A member can belong to several teams—for example Weightlifting, Yoga and CrossFit. Teams are reusable member groupings; they do not create sessions or classes by themselves. Deleting a team leaves the people in the club, although active assignments may need to be removed first.

Use teams when planning for the club

1. Start a club session from Create, Blocks or Club planning.
2. Confirm Intended for: Club. A sole manageable club is selected automatically; with several clubs, choose the correct one.
3. Select All active members, open Teams and squads, or use Specific members for an exception.
4. Continue and publish. Anyone included through more than one selection receives one copy.

Create and run classes

1. Open the club and select Club schedule, then create a class.
2. Choose one of the club's Activities and, where required, the relevant team or training group and coach.
3. Set start time and duration. Turn Repeats weekly on for a series, then select weekdays and an end date.
4. Turn Limit class capacity on to set places. Choose booking and cancellation cut-offs; a cancellation from a full class promotes the earliest waiting member.
5. Use the optional booking-rule switches to limit active bookings, limit weekly bookings or restrict repeated no-shows.
6. Choose the class-leaderboard score format and publish it for eligible members.
7. From the club class view, manage the occurrence or series, bookings, attendance and no-shows.
8. Review the class leaderboard for athletes who submitted and shared an eligible score. Use the available cohort and historical filters for fairer comparison.

A member manages their own booking from the athlete-facing class view. The club management view is reserved for class and club actions.

Club results, notes and messages

Authorised staff can review results and notes shared with the club from the relevant activity, class or result views. Leaderboards contain only eligible shared scores. Use club announcements for broad updates and direct messaging where the relationship permits it.

Apple Health

Choose tracker data or To The Bar estimates

If you use Apple Watch or another tracker

1. Open More > Account > Apple Health.
2. Enable Use tracker workouts when available and approve the requested read access.
3. Record the workout on the tracker and log the To The Bar session.
4. At completion, the app looks for a matching workout during the confirmed session window and uses its aggregate active energy.

If you do not use a tracker

1. Add body weight for estimates and complete the session normally.
2. Confirm duration, session type and effort at completion.
3. Review the clearly labelled rough active-calorie estimate or skip calories.
4. Optionally enable Save To The Bar estimates to Apple Health to write the workout and estimate.

The app does not write an estimate when it finds an external tracked workout for the same session. This avoids creating a duplicate workout. If Watch data has not appeared yet, allow the Watch and iPhone to sync, then open the completed summary and refresh from Apple Health.

Health permission is optional and can be changed in iOS Settings or the Health app. Calorie figures are general fitness information and are not medical measurements.

Account and data

Privacy, security, notifications and synchronisation

Cloud and offline behaviour

Training data is stored locally for responsive, offline-capable logging and synchronised with the cloud. When a connection returns, the app uploads pending changes and refreshes shared data. Pull to refresh on Today, Calendar and supported lists, or use Account > Sync now.

Security

Use a unique password if signing in with email. Authenticator-app MFA adds a second sign-in step. Do not delete the authenticator entry before disabling MFA inside To The Bar. Biometric unlock can protect access on the device.

Notifications

The notifications area shows invitations, messages and other supported activity. Opening unread items clears their in-app state and updates the app-icon badge. If a badge remains, open the relevant list, pull to refresh and return to the Home Screen.

Your sharing choices

Review the audience whenever you create programming and the sharing scope whenever you complete a result. Leave a club or coach relationship when it is no longer required. Health-derived calories remain private regardless of result-sharing scope.

Delete the account

Open More > Account > Delete account, read the deletion summary and confirm. This action is permanent. Entries previously written to Apple Health must be managed separately in the Health app.

Troubleshooting

Resolve common problems