What Happens When a Personal Trainer Decides to Build a Training App

I want to tell you about the moment I found myself hand-coding muscle diagrams at four in the morning, arguing with a computer about whether a trapezius is a rhomboid.

This is the story of how Badonka Boost was built and why I believe it’s going to change the way Jacked Ass Club members train.

It Started With a Simple Question

As a NASM certified personal trainer, I’ve spent years watching clients struggle with the same problem: the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it consistently. Programs get abandoned. Notebooks get lost. People forget what weight they used last week. They skip rest days because nothing is tracking them. They plateau because nobody is telling them it’s time to push harder.

I didn’t want to build just another workout app that spits out random exercises. I wanted to build something that thinks the way a good personal trainer thinks that is structured, progressive, and relentlessly focused on getting results.

So I started building Badonka Boost.

What I didn’t fully appreciate at the time was just how deep that rabbit hole goes.

185 Exercises and the Method Behind Them

Badonka Boost isn’t a random exercise generator. Every workout is built on what I call the Jacked Ass Method which is a four-pillar framework that ensures every single session covers Activation, Strength, Stability, and Progression. No exceptions.

The exercise library covers 185 movements across 13 movement categories from activation and squat patterns to carries, shoulder stability, and everything in between. Upper body, lower body, full body. Dumbbells, resistance bands, the Jacked Ass Belt, Badonka Bands, and bodyweight. Equipment you actually have access to, not a commercial gym fantasy.

And every one of those 185 exercises is organized into 6 progressive stages of physical development that span a revolving 12-week cycle:

• Stage 01 – Base: Build joint stability, improve flexibility, strengthen your foundation
• Stage 02 – Endurance: Improve circulation and muscular staying power
• Stage 03 – Strength: Build lean muscle and burn body fat
• Stage 04 – Agility: Enhance coordination, functional strength, and bone density
• Stage 05 – Interval: Crank up the metabolism with high-intensity bursts
• Stage 06 – Peak: Test your mental toughness and reach new limits

The sets, reps, tempo, rest periods, and workout format all shift automatically as you progress through the stages. The program gets harder because it’s supposed to. That’s not a bug. That’s the point.

The Muscle Diagram Problem (Or: How I Ended Up Hand-Coding at 4am)

Here’s where it gets interesting.

One of the features I was most excited about was a muscle diagram that highlights exactly which muscles are working during each exercise. You pull up a Hip Thrust and the glutes light up. You do a Bent-Over Row and the lats, rhomboids, and rear deltoids all illuminate. Visual, immediate, educational.

Simple idea. Wildly complicated execution.

I was working with SVG files, you know, those are the scalable vector graphics that make up the front and back body outline diagrams you see in the app. The plan was to name each muscle region, assign it an ID, and then let the app highlight the right regions based on which muscles each exercise targets.

Except here’s the problem nobody tells you about muscle anatomy diagrams: how do you distinguish the trapezius from the rhomboids in a two-dimensional drawing when the rhomboids sit on a layer directly beneath the trapezius?

You can’t see them. They’re hidden. In the SVG file, the path coordinates for the rhomboids and the trapezius are physically stacked on top of each other, and when the automated code tries to map muscle names to visual regions, it assigns them in the wrong order. The whole underlying sequence gets thrown off. What the code thinks is a hamstring is actually a glute. What it thinks is a lat is actually the lower back.

The only fix? Go in and hand-code which muscles are which. Manually. Path by path.

So there I was at four in the morning, staring at a screen full of SVG coordinate data, essentially teaching a computer the difference between a trapezius and a rhomboid by pointing at individual anchor points and saying no, that one, the one underneath. For 54 muscle regions across the front and back of the body. Twice, because I had to add the rhomboids back after the first pass missed them entirely.

Was it tedious? Absolutely. Was it worth it? Every time a client opens an exercise and sees exactly which muscles are firing, yes. One hundred percent.

Simplification: The Design Principle That Changed Everything

Once the foundation was built, my attention kept returning to the same question: how do we make this less cumbersome?

Because the dirty secret of fitness apps is that people quit using them not because they stop working out, but because the app gets in the way of the workout. You’re mid-set, you’re focused, you’re in the zone, and then you have to fumble with your phone to log your reps. Momentum gone.

The original design required manual entry for every set: weight used, reps completed, for every exercise, every session. Across 8 to 10 exercises with 3 to 4 sets each, that’s potentially 60 taps per workout. Nobody does that consistently. I wouldn’t do that consistently.

So I rebuilt it from the ground up around a smarter model.

Smart Pre-Fill: The app remembers exactly what you did last session and pre-fills every set automatically. You used 35 pounds for 12 reps on the Hip Thrust last Tuesday? That’s already loaded. If nothing changed, one tap confirms it and you move on. The app tracks your progression automatically and tells you when it’s time to add weight and you don’t have to think about it.

Voice Commands: Let’s say you did change something. Instead of tapping through a number picker, you just say it. “40 pounds, 10 reps.” Or just “same.” The app parses natural speech and fills the fields. No typing, no tapping, no breaking focus.

Haptic Feedback: And here’s the one I’m genuinely proud of. Let’s say you’re working out and you’re jamming to Bruno Mars because good music makes every workout better and nobody should have to pause their playlist to know when to rest. When your set is done and the rest timer ends, your phone vibrates with a distinct pattern. Two pulses when rest starts. Three rapid pulses as the timer counts down. One firm pulse when it’s time to go again. You feel the cue through your pocket or armband, you never have to glance at your phone, and Bruno keeps playing uninterrupted.

No audio conflict. No paused music. Just you, your workout, and the right cue at the right moment.

What Else Is in the App

The workout engine is the core, but Badonka Boost is built to support the full picture of what it actually takes to change your body:

Workout Dashboard: See today’s session, your full weekly schedule, and your progress at a glance. No hunting, no navigating because what you need is right there.

Recovery Tracking: Every day you log sleep quality, energy, soreness, and stress. The app calculates a Recovery Score and factors it into your weekly adjustments. Training hard matters. Recovering from it matters just as much.

Protein Tracker: Calculated based on your bodyweight and your specific goal whether that’s glute growth, strength, fat loss, longevity, or athletic performance. Daily tracking, weekly averages, and a clear target. Nutrition doesn’t have to be complicated.

Progress Tracking: Body measurements, progress photos, strength PRs, weekly adherence percentage. Your data, visualized over time, so you can see what’s actually working.

Active Recovery Days: The 7-day weekly schedule includes dedicated active recovery days where you can log runs, swims, walks, cycling sessions, yoga, or anything else that keeps you moving without breaking your body down.

AI Coaching: Built on the Jacked Ass Method framework, the app’s AI answers exercise questions, modifies movements for injuries or limitations, and makes weekly adjustments based on your actual performance data. It never invents a new program but works within the system because the system is what gets results.

Shareable Stats: When you finish a workout, you can take a selfie, overlay your session stats (exercises completed, volume moved, stage, streak) and share it directly to social media. Accountability is one of the most powerful tools in fitness. Sharing your wins, big and small, builds the habit.

Motivation, Accountability, and the Habit That Changes Everything

I’ve trained people long enough to know that motivation alone doesn’t build a body. Consistency does. And consistency comes from systems from showing up having the next right action already decided for you, from seeing your progress accumulate over time, from having something that holds you accountable even when your own willpower is running on empty.

That’s what Badonka Boost is designed to be. Not a hype machine. Not a random workout generator. A structured, intelligent system that meets you where you are on Day 1 and walks beside you through all 12 weeks adjusting, progressing, and pushing you in the right direction at the right time.

The onboarding assessment asks the questions a real trainer would ask: your goal, your experience level, your available equipment, how many days you can train, how long you have, how you’re recovering, whether you’re getting enough protein, what your biggest training challenge is. Your entire program is built from your answers. It’s not generic. It’s yours.

Free for Jacked Ass Club Members

Here’s the part I’m most excited to tell you: Badonka Boost is completely free for Jacked Ass Club members.

This isn’t a freemium app with the good stuff locked behind a paywall. If you’re part of the Jacked Ass Club community, you have full access to all 185 exercises, all 6 training stages, every smart feature, and every tracking tool from day one.

The app is invite-only. Your access comes through your membership, which means every person using Badonka Boost is part of the same community, on the same system, working toward real results together.

The 4am Was Worth It

I won’t pretend building this was easy. There were nights (many nights) where I was debugging SVG coordinate data, rewriting the muscle mapping logic, testing voice command parsing, and questioning all of my life decisions simultaneously.

But every time I come back to why I built this, the answer is simple: my clients deserve a tool that works as hard as they do. Something that removes the friction, reduces the guesswork, automates the tedious parts, and keeps them focused on the one thing that actually matters which is showing up and putting in the work.

Badonka Boost is that tool.

If you’re a Jacked Ass Club member and you haven’t requested access yet, now is the time. Your program is waiting. Your stages are set. The only thing missing is you.

Let’s get to work.