Chavo v1.1.0

A new custom workout generator, smarter chat tools, and a foundation for notifications

I’m excited to announce Chavo v1.1.0 to the world. This is a long-awaited release of Chavo (for me, personally) and one of the main visions of this app. After experimenting, we have finally opened up our chat to new tools and came up with a robust, clean user experience for building custom workouts on the fly.

⚡️ Instant Workout Builder

Our generated workouts started off on a very small scale — previous versions would only allow specific muscle groups and only took your workout history into account. In this new version, you will be able to get workouts by letting us know:

  • What muscles you’re trying to target
  • What equipment you have (e.g. if you are limited by any)
  • How much energy you have today
  • What your time constraints are

Chavo will use this information to build the best workout that we can for you. We additionally take into account your goals, fitness level, workout history, and your specific exercise progress over time.

One interesting challenge we faced was the speed. Because we are now processing so much more data — your entire history, recovery, goals — the generation takes a little longer than a simple database query. In previous versions, you might have been stuck staring at a loading spinner. I didn’t love that.

So, what do you do when you don’t like something? You make a change. I completely refactored how this works. Now, workout generation happens as a background task. You can close the app, go do something else, and we’ll send you a notification the second your custom plan is ready. It feels much smoother and respects your time.

We finally feel that this is in a good position, and we’re excited to show it to the world and get some more feedback on it. This system is certainly not set in stone, and we will 100% keep on tweaking it and making it better in the future.

💬 Smarter, Context-Aware Chat

We have created new tools in our chat app. Currently, our chat feature is good, but not great. Sometimes it doesn’t have the context.

We built a new “Discuss Workout” feature for you where you select a workout right in the chat and Chavo will have complete context of that session to discuss. The results so far have been good! Give it a try, you might get some nice insights!

Now that we have the foundation for these tools, we will be building out more in the future.

🏗️ Building the Foundation

We’ve also been busy under the hood. We have rebuilt our backend architecture to support a robust notification system. While this is largely invisible right now, it paves the way for timely reminders and celebrating your PRs in the very near future.

The Vision

Workout generation was one of the main visions of this app. I wanted an app that can keep track of my progress, plan my days, suggest improvements to my workouts, and ultimately have a coach that works for me to ensure I stay in the best shape of my life according to my goals.

What we still want to do is to be able to build out entire plans like this in the future — maybe 1, 3, or 6 weeks at a time. We want for you to provide a goal such as “I want to bench press 315” and we want to be able to build an exact workout plan to get you there.

While we are still far away from that goal, it is at the same time very much in reach. If we can scale out the perfect single-workout, there’s no reason it can’t be scaled out to multiple days or weeks. Chavo will be (and probably already is) the ultimate fitness companion.

🔬 What We’re Experimenting With

Beyond this release, I’ve been spending a lot of time exploring what’s next.

Voice agents during a workout - The vision here is mainly having Chavo walk you through every set, every rep, hands-free. No more staring at your phone between sets. You just listen, lift, and go. With our current tools and system in place, I’ve been experimenting with having a more hands-off approach to a live workout.

Goal oriented planning - This is not meant to be a simple workout logger. There’s no better feeling than hitting a weight, which was once difficult, easily. I want to automate the whole process of placing a fitness goal in our system and walking you through it every step of the way. I’ve been experimenting with a feedback loop system in order to get you to your goals. Let’s be honest - sometimes life happens and it can be difficult to stay on track. A quick and intuitive feedback loop is required to help you achieve your goals.

None of this is ready for prime time yet, but this is the direction we’re heading. More to come!

The future is bright, but it requires vision to see it and discipline to reach it. Whether you’re chasing a PR or building a new version of yourself, never lose focus. Trust that the work you’re putting in today is building the foundation for tomorrow.

Have faith in the process. Have faith in the future.

Let’s get to rocking. 🚀