Howdy, I’m Santo!

If you’re following Kai’s Substack, you probably already know about Buildspace, where Kai and I first connected online! The Kai’s Howdy World’s series caught my attention because of its emphasis on the overlap between fitness and coding, which inspired me to answer any questions the readership might have as a fitness professional.

I’ve been a fitness and health professional for the last 14 years, helping people achieve goals like:

• Participating in their first amateur boxing competition

• Running their first half marathon

• Losing up to 20 lbs of fat in 12 weeks while toning up

• Improving their fitness performance

• Recalibrating their health after less-than-ideal living circumstances

Among many other goals.

Kai posed an insightful question after reading my article titled The Goldilocks Principle: Structure Your Stress to Achieve Success.

The question was, “How do we know our training is too stressful? How do we monitor our ‘console’ for an optimal workout?”

This is a great opportunity to introduce the concepts of "the Editor and the Console" for her newsletter. 

I really enjoyed this analogy and how it applies to fitness:

What is an Editor in Coding?

In coding, an editor is where you write your code—essentially a digital notebook for inputting computer instructions. Popular code editors include Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, and Atom.

Think of the editor as the planning phase of your workout routine. Just like you write code to build a program, you design your workout plan to build your fitness.

What is a Console in Coding?

The console is a tool that displays what’s happening with your code as you run it, showing both output and errors. It’s like getting real-time feedback on your code’s performance.

In fitness terms, the console represents monitoring your body’s responses during a workout. It tells you if your plan is working (output) or if there's an issue (errors).

For the high-performing entrepreneurs I work with, managing various responsibilities daily can make it difficult to find time to work out. When they do, they might feel unable to give 100%. The key is not to aim for 100% all the time but to give 100% of what you have on any given day to ensure continual progress.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” —Heraclitus. 

This quote resonates with me when I think of this concept.

By finding the right balance with stress and listening to our bodies, we can use stress to our advantage. Some weeks you might push hard, while other weeks might require you to take it easy.

Auto-Regulating Stress in Workouts

Understanding allostatic load, sets, and reps is crucial. The body internalizes different stress types:

• Distress: Negative stress

• Neutrals stress: Neutral stress

• Eustress: Positive stress

Our body doesn’t differentiate between stress from work deadlines and from workouts—it sees all as stress. This total stress impacts our fitness performance and is known as allostatic load.

To manage workout stress, track your sets and reps. This documentation helps you adjust your effort based on how stressed you feel, avoiding burnout or injury.

For clients I work with online, we use an app that delivers a tailored program with exercise videos, allowing users to track sets, reps, weights, and rest periods. Some people prefer to track using:

• A physical notebook

• Notion

• Google Sheets

• A simple note-taking app

It doesn’t have to be complicated; it just needs to be documented.

Howdy, Kai interruption here!

I want to touch on something crucial for us designers venturing into the coding world. This tracking documentation that Santo describes here could also be a great metaphor for a repository or repo.

A repository is where developers store all their code, track changes, and collaborate. Think of it as a super-organized file cabinet for code. The most common tool for managing repos is Git, and platforms like GitHub or GitLab are where these repos often live online.

Designers who understand how repos work can know when and how to share their design files or prototypes in a way that integrates smoothly with the development process.

Ok, back to Santo!

Manipulating Sets & Reps

A typical rep scheme might look like:

• 3-4 sets of 8-12 repetitions

• 3-4 sets of 6-8 repetitions

The scheme depends on the training response you seek. By progressively overloading—aiming to increase your training load by around 10% weekly—you stay within the Goldilocks zone for improvement.

Sometimes, external stress affects workout performance. On weeks with lower stress, you might easily complete 4 sets of 12 reps; during high-stress weeks, you might manage only 3 sets of 8 with the same weight. Focus on the minimal effective dose to use allostatic stress advantageously.

Measuring Training Readiness

A training readiness score helps evaluate your body's ability to perform a workout on a given day. Here are some metrics I use with my clients:

• Hours of sleep: Up to 10

• Sleep quality: 1 to 4 (1 = low, 4 = high)

• Nutrition: 1 to 3 (3 = ate well, 2 = mindful but some treats, 1 = not nutritional)

• Mental readiness: 1 to 3 (1 = not ready, 3 = ready)

• Lifestyle stress: -5 to 0 (-5 = high stress, 0 = low)

• Soreness/fatigue: -3 to 0 (-3 = very sore, 0 = none)

The total can range from -1 (minimal sleep and high stress) to 20 (fully ready). If you score low, consider walking or doing zone 2 aerobic work to manage stress instead of strength training. Higher scores indicate readiness for more intense workouts.

Wrap-Up

I met Kai through Buildspace, and their approach to developing an MVP (Minimal Viable Product) mirrors successful training:

1. Generate ideas

2. Create

3. Get feedback

4. Iterate

5. Get more feedback

6. Share with the world

Tracking workout metrics is crucial to determine if you're progressing toward your goals. Without data, decisions are often based on emotion. Changing habits, thus changing your identity, can be emotionally challenging. Though logic can’t override emotion, data shows progress and generates momentum to tackle bigger challenges.

Having clear goals and relevant metrics is invaluable for gauging whether your exercise plan is effective.

Thanks for allowing me to share my thoughts! If you’re interested in coaching or more content, feel free to fill out an application.

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This article was originally published in Kai's Howdy World, my monthly newsletter where I share my journey as a product designer learning to code. If you're a designer who's coding-curious or looking to level up your technical skills, subscribe to the newsletter to join our growing community!