The 30-second version
Open any day in the Workout Builder, or the day editor in your calendar, and open the Paste to build bar. Paste text that looks like this:
Name workout: Lower Body 1 Add Section: Warmup A1 Deficit Pushup 3 x 15 A2 Ring Row 3 x 10 Add Section: Training A1 Back Squat 5 x 3 rest 180 sec B1 Romanian Deadlift 3 x 8 B2 Walking Lunge 3 x 12
Press Build Workout. The workout is named, the two sections are created, and the exercises that share a letter (B1 and B2) are linked as a superset. Weights are not part of the paste, so you add those afterwards in the day editor or the Progression grid.
How to write each line
Every line is one thing. The first word tells Progress what that thing is.
| Line | What it does |
|---|---|
Name workout: Lower Body 1 | Names the workout. Only the first one counts. |
Add Section: Warmup | Starts a new section. Everything under it goes into that section until the next section line. With no section lines, everything lands in one unnamed strength section. |
Add Free Form Section: Finisher | Starts a free-form section. The lines under it are kept as written, with no sets or reps parsing. Good for circuits and anything that is not sets and reps. |
A1 Back Squat 5 x 3 | An exercise: letter and number, name, then sets x reps. |
Supersets
The letter in front of an exercise is its group. Neighbouring lines with the same letter are linked as a superset, so A1 and A2 are paired and B1 stands alone until a B2 joins it. The number is just the position in the group. The letter and number are optional, so Back Squat 5 x 3 works too.
Sets and reps
5 x 3or5×3is five sets of three.3 x 10-12keeps the rep range as typed.3 x 10-12, 1 x 12-15puts several set groups on one line: three sets of 10 to 12, then one set of 12 to 15.- Leave out the number of sets and it is one set:
Assault Bike x 100m.
Time, distance and other measures
Put a unit after the number and the exercise switches off reps: Row x 500m, Run x 5km, Bike x 50cal, Sprint x 200w, Plank x 90s, Carry x 1:30. Distance units are meters, kilometers, miles and yards.
Rest
Add rest at the end, either way round: rest 90 sec or 90 seconds rest. Minutes work too: rest 2 min. It applies to every set on that line.
Lines with no sets
A line like A1 Romanian Deadlift with no sets or reps still builds. You get the exercise with no sets, ready to fill in later. This is handy when you want to sketch the exercise order first and decide the numbers afterwards.
Adding notes to an exercise
Type a space, a dash, another space, then your note at the end of the line. Everything after the dash becomes that exercise's note.
A2 Ring Row 3 x 10 - slow lowering B2 Walking Lunge 3 x 12 - hold dumbbells B3 Face Pull - light, high reps
Two things to know. A hyphen with no spaces around it is part of the name, so Chin-Up 3 x 8 stays Chin-Up. And a dash followed by a number is read as a range, so 3 x 10 - 12 is still 10 to 12 reps. Start a note with a word, not a digit.
The preview before you build
As soon as you paste or type, a preview appears under the box showing what Progress understood: the workout name, each section, and every exercise with its sets, rest and note. Nothing is saved until you press Build, so you can fix the text and watch the preview update.
Two small tags help you spot problems:
- No sets yet means the line had no sets or reps, and it will build as a name only.
- Couldn't read sets means the line looks like it was meant to have sets, such as
Leg Extension 3 by 15, but the format was not recognised. Rewrite it asLeg Extension 3 x 15and the tag disappears.
Lines that only say Rest or Off, and lines that start with a label and a colon like Coach note: easy day, are left out on purpose.
Build a whole week with Paste Week
On a desktop screen, the Matrix view in the Workout Builder, and in the program editor, has a Paste week from Excel bar above the weeks. It opens a small spreadsheet that works the way Excel does.
- Each column is a day. Column A is the first day shown, B is the next, and so on through G. Each row is one line of that day's workout, written exactly as above.
- Copy from your own sheet. Select the seven day columns for one week in Excel or Google Sheets, copy, click a cell in the grid and press Ctrl + V.
- Edit it like a spreadsheet. Click or drag to select, type to edit a cell, Delete clears, Ctrl + C / X / V copy, cut and paste, Ctrl + Z / Y undo and redo. The grid adds rows as you go.
- Pick the week in the Paste into menu, then press Build week.
A summary row under the column letters shows each day's workout name and exercise count as you go. A column with no workout lines is treated as a rest day. If you paste more than seven columns, the extras are ignored and the status line tells you.
Paste Week is a desktop feature. On a phone, use Paste to build for one day at a time from your calendar.
When a day already has a workout
If you build into a day that already has something in it, Progress asks first instead of piling a second copy on top. For one day you can Add to it, Replace it, or Cancel. With Paste Week, which can touch several days at once, there is also Skip those days, which builds only the empty ones.
Every build shows an Undo button for a few seconds, so a wrong choice is easy to take back.
Download the 12-week template
If you plan programs in a spreadsheet, start from a sheet already laid out for Paste Week. It is one blank sheet with 12 weeks stacked down the page. Each week has a banner, a Monday to Sunday header row, and 16 blank rows to write one line of the workout per row. The seven day columns, A to G, line up with the columns in Paste Week.
Fill in a week, select that week's block of seven day columns, copy, and paste into Paste Week. Week 1 is A3:G18, Week 2 is A21:G36, Week 3 is A39:G54, and every week is 18 rows after the last. Leave the banner and the day-name row out of what you copy. Repeat for each week of the program. A short how-to sits in column I, outside the part you copy.
Troubleshooting
Nothing was added.
Progress needs at least one workout name, section line or exercise line it can read. Check the preview: if it says nothing is readable yet, each exercise needs its own line, such as A1 Back Squat 5 x 3.
A line came in as a name with no sets.
The sets part was not in a format Progress reads. Use 3 x 10, 3x10 or 3 × 10, with the sets first and reps second. Words like "by" are not read.
My note ended up in the exercise name.
Put a space on both sides of the dash, and start the note with a letter. Back Squat - pause at the bottom works. Back Squat -pause does not.
A cell with several lines pasted strangely.
Cells that hold several lines work, and Paste Week splits them into rows for you. Quote marks that Excel adds around a multi-line cell are stripped automatically.
Where did my weights go?
Weights are not read from the paste. Add them in the day editor, or type them into the Progression grid, which accepts entries like 5 x 5 @ 225 and lets you copy and paste across weeks.