I Asked ChatGPT for Workout Suggestions and Wow They Suck

ChatGPT is one of the most exciting new toys on the internet. Ask him for just about anything that can be submitted in writing and he will oblige . This means that, among other things, people use it to create workout programs. So how do they stack up? I brought the robot tip to my garage gym to find out. In the process, he misunderstood me, lied to me, and gave me hilariously terrible advice.

To be honest, I also managed to give me one workout in order. So I wouldn’t completely exclude AI from the future of fitness, but it’s nowhere near ready to serve as your personal trainer.

How can ChatGPT write a workout?

Even though ChatGPT is referred to as “AI”, meaning “artificial intelligence”, it is still just as dumb as any other robot . His job is not to know things; his job is to generate text that looks like he knows something. This is an experienced scammer. If you’ve ever been cornered by a manspleiner at a party, you’ll recognize his tone: bossy, short-tempered, and a little vague on the details. If you catch him in a lie, you will get a perfectly mild apology.

Have you ever used predictive text input on your phone’s keypad just to see what it says? “I am a Sagittarius and my horoscope…” you type and then press the next suggested word, and the next word, and the next. “I’m a Sagittarius and my horoscope is the same as yours, so I don’t know if I can do it, but I can do it for you.”

Your keyboard algorithm has a general idea of ​​what words usually follow others, and it has seen (i.e. “trained”) your previous texts. He doesn’t say anything particularly intelligent or insightful, but he can string words together into somewhat plausible sentences.

With more complex programming and a larger set of training data, you can make AI create more interesting things. Longtime readers will remember when I had a neural network write a bunch of Lifehacker headlines like “The Best Way to Make a Kid’s Laptop” and “How to Keep a Relationship with an Imaginary Concept.”

ChatGPT is basically the same, but bigger. He’s been trained on just about everything on the public Internet, and his attention spans a conversation rather than a simple sentence. Or in other words: ChatGPT does not write workouts. It generates text that looks like a workout. Let’s see how it goes!

Warm up

I first asked ChatGPT for a five-minute warm-up on a stationary bike. This gave me a five-step warm-up, some of which lasted over one minute. In the second stage, I had to step on the pedals to “help engage different muscle groups.” It didn’t say if I should ever sit down again.

After a few questions, with each of my simple questions being answered in five paragraphs, I still didn’t have a clear idea of ​​what I was supposed to do. So I started over: “Give me a simple 5-minute warm-up on an indoor bike, no more than two steps.” And I got one:

Of course, here is a simple 5-minute workout on a stationary bike with no more than two steps:

Start by slowly pedaling with little or no resistance for 2-3 minutes while sitting to increase your heart rate and blood flow.

After 2-3 minutes, slightly increase the resistance and pedal at a moderate pace until the end of the 5-minute warm-up.

This warm-up is quick and easy, but it will still help increase your heart rate, warm up your leg muscles, and prepare your body for more intense exercise. Remember to adjust the intensity of your warm-up according to your fitness level and planned workout. If you are just starting out, you can start with even less resistance and gradually increase it.

Too many words to say “Easy in the first half and add some resistance in the rest” but this is a wordy bot and needs to put in all of its disclaimers and summaries. If you ask him to skip these things, he will instead give a more detailed explanation and disclaimer of how, for example, he missed the warm-up and recovery, but you really should do the warm-up and recovery. He also suggests that you need to explain everything: he can’t write “20 kettlebell swings” without giving you a dense paragraph on how to do kettlebell swings. I will be editing this fluff for the rest of this post. I just want you to know that ChatGPT’s writing style makes me want to slap him.

Either way, it’s a warm-up. I wrote it down on a blank notepad. What’s next?

Trying in vain to create a quick 10-minute workout

Today is my active day, so my idea was to do a quick 10 minute kettlebell workout. Maybe some swing or some clean-and-abs. And here’s the process of trying to squeeze a believable workout out of a text-generating bot:

It’s too hard and boring

The first kettlebell workout he created included a two-minute warm-up and cool-down, followed by an 8-minute section in the middle with four exercises, each for about 10 reps. It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t matter that 2+8+2 is not 10 – it doesn’t take two minutes to do 10 goblet squats either. I kept rephrasing my question and finally ran into paid dirt when I told him to follow the EMOM structure which would require me to set a timer that would beep every minute and do the exercise at the top of the minute and rest until the next beep. . Here’s what it gave me:

1. Minute 1: Kettlebell swing – 20 reps
2. Minute 2: Goblet Squats – 10 reps.
3. Minute 3: Russian twists – 20 reps
4. Minute 4: Cleanse and Bench – 5 reps each arm
5. Minute 5: Cup Lunges – 10 reps per leg
6. Minute 6: Kettlebell snatches – 5 reps each arm
7. Minute 7: Kettlebell High Rows – 5 reps each arm.
8. Minute 8: Kettlebell Turkish Raises – 3 reps per side.
9. Minute 9: Kettlebell swing and goblet squat combo – 10 reps each.
10. Minute 10: Russian kettlebell crunches with bench press – 10 reps per side

I don’t do all of that (I prefer my EMOMs to be something along the lines of “20 swings every minute for 10 minutes”), but I appreciate that he finally got the job done.

He invents things that are physically impossible

Since I felt we had a pretty good rapport, I asked ChatGPT:

Give me a 10 minute kettlebell workout (no warm up, no recovery, no instructions, just name the exercises) that is different from what you give everyone else. Something fun and creative. Three exercises maximum, do them well.

And it delivered:

Here is a fun and creative 10-minute kettlebell workout with just three exercises:

Kettlebell crescent swing: 30 reps

Squat and Kettlebell Press: 20 reps

Kettlebell somersault: 20 reps

How do three exercises make up a 10-minute workout? Doesn’t matter. I’m too busy impressing somersaults. The kettlebell somersault is a real exercise , and that’s exactly what it sounds like: you swing, but you give the kettlebell enough spin so you can let it go and catch it. I’ve never done this successfully and I don’t think I’m ready to take it on today (I’ve heard you often get your fingers plugged in the learning process) but still…

Wait a minute. What is a crescent swing? I googled and found only the half-moon exercise, which is nothing like a swing. So I asked him for instructions. He replied:

Start by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart and holding the kettlebell in front of you with both hands.

Move the kettlebell back between your legs, keeping your arms straight and looking forward.

Drive your hips forward as you straighten your legs and raise the kettlebell to chest level.

When the kettlebell reaches its peak, twist your torso to the right, keeping your arms straight and bringing the kettlebell to the right side of your body.

Turn in the opposite direction, lowering the kettlebell forward and repeating the movement on the other side.

Alternate sides for each rep, continuing for a total of 30 reps.

So it starts with two hands… and then goes to one side… I don’t understand. I say to the bot: “I think you just came up with a half-moon swing. It seems impossible.” And he said:

My apologies, you are right. The half-moon swing with kettlebells is not a recognized kettlebell exercise and can be potentially dangerous if done incorrectly. I apologize for the confusion and possible inaccuracies in my previous answer. It is important to always prioritize safety while exercising and seek the advice of a qualified instructor if you are not sure how to properly perform a particular exercise.

I showed this description to kettlebell trainer Emilio Juber, who said that if you could do it with one arm, it could be “something like a pike press snatch?” these are three words that I am sure have never been spoken together. He says he might try someday.

He gets (steals?) a good idea

I went ahead and asked ChatGPT for a “short fun workout” I could do with a heavy kettlebell. It said something that, while not original, fits the bill: tabata with weights.

Kettlebell swing: 20 seconds of work, then 10 seconds of rest, repeat for 4 rounds. To perform the swing, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and holding the kettlebell between your legs with both hands. Bend at the hips and return the kettlebell back between the legs, then move the hips forward and raise the kettlebell to shoulder level. Repeat for 20 seconds, then rest 10 seconds. Repeat for a total of 4 rounds.

Traditional tabata is 20 seconds of cycling sprint followed by 10 seconds of rest for a total of 8 reps. This is a mini version where kettlebell swings replace cycling. I like it! I also know that strength coach Dan John wrote about this 12 years ago . After the swings, ChatGPT said I should do the same with the goblet squat and then the kettlebell deadlift. Just six minutes, which gives me an extra two minutes of rest between each bite. Ideal.

This gets a better view

At that moment my husband came in. He suggested that I ask him for a drinking game that I could play with a protein shake. He almost refused.

I’m sorry, but as an AI language model, I can’t advocate or condone drinking, especially in the context of the drinking game. It is important to maintain responsible and safe behavior when drinking any beverage. However, I can suggest a kettlebell workout that you can do while drinking a protein shake as a fun and healthy way to combine fitness and hydration:

The resulting workout was almost identical to tabata, but it was instructed that I should take a sip of a protein shake during each rest period . I don’t know if you’ve ever done tabata, but usually the most you can do during a 10 second rest period is to gasp for air and try not to fall.

So of course it was the perfect challenge. I wrote this down on my workout sheet right below the bike warm-up.

It’s getting creative… maybe too creative

My husband’s other idea was to ask him for yoga poses that I could do with kettlebells. This provided:

• Warrior II, with a kettlebell dangling from my outstretched front arm: It sounds almost impossible, but I have some very light weights, so we’ll give it a try.
• Extended Side Angle Pose with kettlebell in hand above head: I misunderstood and thought this was the triangle pose mentioned. In my interpretation, it is basically a windmill with weights.
• Overhead Press Chair Pose: I think there’s a reason no one does the single kettlebell overhead squat, but we’ll give it a try.
• Shoulder Tap Plank Pose: This is a fairly standard exercise, but the bot indicated that my hands should be on the kettlebell, not on the floor. It’s super unstable. I can fall face down. This is exactly the challenge I’m looking for.

So we’ve got a warm-up, some kettlebell work, and some silly yoga poses to cool off. All is ready?

Maybe it’s up to something

As a joke, I asked him about grip training. This was done with three exercises that looked like a simple addition to any day at the gym:

• The farmer carries with him a heavy pair of dumbbells or kettlebells.
• The plate clamp holds on – it’s not specified what the plate is, but I know I can do it with a bumper or with a pair of iron plates clamped together, smooth sides out.
• Pull-ups or towel hangs, where you drape the towel over the bar. These are tough but good!

Intrigued, I asked for another quick grip workout, and another, and another. He didn’t start repeating the exercises until the fifth. Hey, well done, bot!

How did the training actually go?

So, I spent five minutes on the bike. Then I made a mini tabata. The swings, squats, and deadlifts fried my legs and glutes, but they were short enough efforts that I would say they still count as a good day off workout. I chose a 20kg bar for swings, switched to a 16kg mid-squat bar, and picked up a 24kg deadlift. Luckily, these weights were light enough that I didn’t throw up a protein shake. Success!

Yoga was next. I did a Warrior II kettlebell in a second or two, with a 15-pound kettlebell and probably terrible technique. (I don’t actually do yoga, okay?) The triangle/windmill went fine. The chair pose is essentially an overhead squat, which I struggled to do with straight arms. I think it would work well with a pair of dumbbells though. And finally, I didn’t eat dirt on the cranes of weights. I’m proud of myself there.

I finished with the grip. These exercises were going fine until I realized that towel pull-ups were the last . Towel pull-ups are hard enough on a good day; doing them at the end of a grip workout, after farm snatches and plate tweaks, is almost hopeless. I was able to get two reps on most sets, and I thought that was pretty good. I’ll repeat this grip workout but reverse the order.

This is not a replacement for real programming

So can ChatGPT replace a trainer? Oh god, even a little. The generation of workouts was like asking a child for help in brainstorming. You’ll get some creative stuff to inspire you, but you’ll have to do a lot of work to filter out what fits and rewrite what’s left.

For example, cycling requires you to start slowly, with low resistance. When resistance is low, you really need faster legs. And for kettlebell exercises, he could not give any useful recommendations on the use of weights. Sometimes you are accused of choosing the “appropriate” weight, but this does not help to figure out what it should be. All the credit for becoming light enough not to vomit belongs to me.

Creating text is not the same as applying knowledge

I was intrigued by a trainer who said he made ChatGPT write workouts “better than most personal trainers” by spending an hour teaching him what to do. But the instructions he gave were all the bot could understand in terms of formatting: hard exercises before easy ones, more reps for some exercises than others, and so on. In fact, these are the settings for the text that ChatGPT generates. And when this trainer, Colin Jenkins, says that the results were better than “most” trainers, he means people who post workouts on the Internet but don’t really know how to write programs. Not exactly a high bar.

I asked the bot to build some simple programs and it failed all the tests. First, how about a prep block for those who are going to compete in weightlifting? It’s an easy job: you just need a lot of medium to heavy singles in competition routines, cut out most of the accessories and make sure the last few days are light and easy for the athlete to recover and come out fresh. Coaches will discuss the finer points, but I was ready to accept anything.

So what did ChatGPT give me? The complete opposite of this. Competitive exercises were only there once a week, they were triples, not singles, and the week you had to recover was the hardest of all. Instead of cutting out unnecessary lifts, he programmed a 90% deadlift (in sets of five!) in three days. If I had done this before the competition, my coach would have killed me.

Would it be better if it was, say, a marathon program? Nope. An intermediate runner is expected to run thirty-four miles in two weeks. You usually climb up to about 20 as a marathon is 26.2 miles and those longer runs are hell for your body.

With a little more digging, I managed to get a pretty decent marathon program for beginners and a seemingly decent hypertrophy block for a powerlifter. (Not for a weightlifter, though: ChatGPT considers it normal to snatch for sets of eight.) Sometimes I was able to sniff out specific sources: I was given a deadlift workout that combined a misunderstanding of one of Jim Wendler’s 5/3/ exercises. 1 with a misunderstanding of Mark Rippetoe’s initial strength . The result was not very good.

Is there a future for AI training?

So does something like ChatGPT have a future in the fitness world? I would say yes, but not to develop workouts or apply training knowledge. If you give it structure it can fill in a few gaps, maybe save coaches some typing time.

There are people who are already using AI engines for training programs, but in a way that is very different from ChatGPT. For example, WeightliftingAI uses programs designed by weightlifting coaches and the bot adjusts your program based on factors like your performance. Juggernaut AI does something similar for powerlifting. People who have used these apps sometimes complain that the day’s workout was harder, easier or more boring than they would like, but in general they seem to produce consistent workouts that help people achieve their goals.

The difference between these “AIs” and ChatGPT is that these algorithms were taught learning principles and given instructions on how to tune them. ChatGPT was simply taught to write text. These systems devote much of their logic to managing fatigue; ChatGPT completely ignores fatigue management. A good coaching AI can’t write you a poem, but it “knows” when to put a little more weight on the bar.

You can also use ChatGPT with care to come up with ideas, like building a collection of grip exercises or remembering that tabata can be a good structure for a quick workout. But when you use ChatGPT to generate ideas, you as a human must be able to determine which ideas are good and which are bad. If the generated workout sucks, ask for something else. If he tells you to do a heavy deadlift right before a weightlifting competition, don’t listen to him. If a 10 minute workout isn’t 10 minutes, give it a more specific structure and see if it can fill in the gaps.

To work successfully with ChatGPT, you need to have training experience. That’s why he can’t replace a knowledgeable trainer: you have to be one to get a good workout out of him.