You're not short of programming knowledge. You're short of somewhere to keep it.
You've run structured blocks before. You know what 2 RIR feels like on the fourth set, and roughly how many weekly sets your chest tolerates before the pump stops meaning anything. This is a hypertrophy program app built for that lifter. It writes the block, counts the volume, and holds the reasoning, so the next block starts somewhere better than a blank sheet.
You've run at least one real block. You know MEV from MRV as a felt thing and not a chart. You can tell a productive week from a merely tolerable one, and you have opinions about where the stretched position belongs in a session. None of your training is guesswork.
What's guesswork is what happened four months ago. So you keep a sheet. Tabs by block, a column for weekly sets per muscle, a note in the margin beside a hack squat you dropped in week 3: hips, not knees. That made sense at the time. It works. It works right up until the block ends and you open a fresh tab.
Then the new block doesn't start from your data. It starts from a summary you write from memory, at eleven at night, out of a sheet that recorded every set you did and not one thing about why you did it. You re-derive the volume that worked. You re-learn the swap you already learned once. Somewhere in week 2 you remember why you moved off hack squats, and it's too late to matter.
You're not tired of training. You're tired of the admin around it.
Nine questions. Days per week, session length, equipment you can actually reach. Up to two priority muscles, injuries to work around, block length, and which philosophy you want it built to. Back comes a periodized block: weeks that progress, rep ranges by exercise role, an RIR target per week, and a deload where the methodology puts one. Exercise order, rest length and day placement are enforced in code rather than requested in a prompt, because a model asked politely will drift on all three.
Every completed set rolls up to sets per week per directly trained muscle group over a rolling twelve-week window, read against MAV reference targets rather than against nothing. A set counts once per group even when the lift names several primary muscles. Secondary activation stays in the detailed breakdown without inflating the MAV comparison. Alongside it: push to pull, upper to lower, compound to isolation, free weight to machine. Each one is tiered balanced, watch, or skewed. The column you used to maintain by hand is gone, because logging is a side effect of finishing the set.
Flag a yellow day, or a sore muscle group, on the way into the session. A set comes off the compounds, RIR eases, and the intensifier steps down one notch rather than vanishing. A triple drop becomes a drop set, and so does a myo-rep match. On a bad enough day the intensifier comes off altogether and you are left with plain working sets. The intensifier chip stays on screen with a line through it, so you can see exactly what was taken and put it back if you disagree.
None of that is the reason to stay, though. The reason to stay is what happens at the block boundary: the volume you actually ran, the exercises you swapped and the reason you gave at the time, the weeks you cut short and why. That's the part a log throws away, and it's the part that carries from one block into the next here.
Every plan is generated against a written training philosophy, not a generic prompt. Each one is our own reading of a coach's public work: caps on sets by exercise role, rep-range bias, RIR by week. Which intensifier belongs on which kind of movement, and how the deload is constructed. Change the coach and the shape of the block changes, not just the names of the exercises. These are studied approaches, not partnerships or endorsements.
Exercise selection follows the research, and every muscle gets trained through at least two positions across the week with the stretched position first in line. Compounds stay at three to four working sets and never get an intensifier bolted on. Progression is load on the compounds and lengthened partials on the stretch-position accessories. The deload cuts volume and keeps every training day.
Start at MEV, build toward MAV, approach MRV, deload, reset. Added sets carry the early weeks; once volume reaches MAV the progression knob switches from sets to intensifiers. Drop sets on secondary compounds, myo-rep matches on stretch-position isolations, triple drops on cables. Compounds never get intensified. Exercise choice leans toward stimulus-to-fatigue ratio, especially late in the block.
Hypertrophy that keeps its range and its control. Full-body frequency, real unilateral work rather than a token single-leg finisher, and conditioning that stays honest about what it costs the lifting. Best when you want size without spending the next block rehabilitating something.
Strength work paired with deliberate mobility and glute-core control. The point isn't a lighter block. It's a block that doesn't slowly reduce the number of positions you can load.
Creative variations, high intensity, and a low tolerance for filler. This is the most aggressive of the five when you show up under-recovered. Intensifiers get pulled first, before sets and RIR, on the theory that a hard set you can't recover from wasn't a hard set.
Proven periodization with no single-coach bias. Pick this if you read all of them and agree with most of them, which is most people.
Answer the intake once. Days, equipment, priority muscles, injuries, block length, and the philosophy you want it built to. A full periodized block comes back, free, with no card. Already running something you like? Bring it. The importer reads Strong and Hevy CSV exports, so the memory starts from work you've already done rather than from today.
Judge a hypertrophy program app on three things a workout logger does not do. It should build a periodized block rather than a list of workouts. It should count weekly sets per muscle group for you instead of leaving you a spreadsheet column. And it should carry what you learned into the next block. Fire Your Coach is built for lifters who already program themselves: it writes the block, tracks sets and RIR, and keeps the reasoning behind every change you make.
You choose a coaching style during intake and the plan is generated against a written philosophy for it. The Jeff Nippard style prioritizes stretched-position work and lengthened partials and holds compounds to three or four working sets. The Dr. Mike Israetel style runs MEV to MRV and switches from adding sets to adding intensifiers once volume reaches MAV. Natacha Oceane, Shona Vertue and Ryan Humiston styles are also available. These are our readings of publicly available work, not partnerships or endorsements.
Yes, and changing it is recorded rather than treated as a failure. You can edit the block: add or remove exercises, reorder a session, change the sets. Edits apply from the current week forward, so finished weeks stay as they happened. Inside a session you can swap a movement, cut it short, ease the load, or go off plan entirely, and each of those is stored as a typed deviation. Plan versus actual is the point, not compliance.
No, and the difference is what happens after generation. A generator writes a plan and forgets it, so every new block starts from an empty prompt. Fire Your Coach writes the block against a coaching philosophy and then keeps it: every set, every swap and the reason given at the time, every readiness adjustment, and the weekly volume that actually resulted. The next block is written with all of that in it. You still make the calls.