Exercises

How the exercise catalog works, with muscle group and equipment filters.

Every exercise in Sparta comes from one of two places:

  1. The built-in catalog of common exercises.
  2. Your own custom exercises (see custom exercises).

This page covers the built-in catalog.

The catalog

The catalog ships inside the app. It’s the same on iPhone and Android. It works offline, so you don’t need an account or a network connection to browse it.

Each built-in exercise has:

  • A name, available in English and Brazilian Portuguese.
  • A muscle group like chest, quads, biceps, abs or upper back.
  • An equipment type like barbell, dumbbell, machine, bodyweight or other.
  • A default target type: reps for most lifts, duration for things like planks and holds.

When you add an exercise to a workout, Sparta seeds the first set with sensible defaults based on that target type.

Reps vs duration

The target type decides what each set asks you to hit.

  • Reps is the standard for lifts. Each set tracks weight, target reps and rest.
  • Duration is for things that are naturally timed: planks, dead hangs, wall sits, carries. Each set tracks duration in seconds, optional weight and rest.

You can switch a set from reps to duration at any time. Each workout you build keeps its own copy, so future catalog tweaks don’t rewrite your templates.

Picker filters

When you add an exercise to a workout or to a live session, the picker shows:

  • A search box that matches the name in your current language.
  • A muscle group filter.
  • An equipment filter.

Both filters are flat. Pick a muscle group like quads directly instead of drilling through Legs > Quads.

Missing an exercise?

If something you do isn’t in the catalog, you have two options:

  1. Make it a custom exercise just for you.
  2. Send us a request and we’ll consider adding it to the built-in catalog for everyone.

What’s next