Fitness Tools for Gym, Nutrition and Calories with ReppySetGo

There are dozens of fitness apps out there that track calories and macros, provide you with a fitness program and tell you exactly what to do. Thing is, I’m a control freak. I don’t like being told what to do.

I’d rather learn the underlying concepts and build my own nutrition plan and gym program. One that suits me. I’d recommend this approach to anyone, because we’re all built slightly differently.

If you’re a control freak too, I made something for you.

I built a collection of fitness tools called **ReppySetGo**. You may or may not find them useful. They are free to use. No sign ups, no subscriptions. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

MACRO CALCULATOR

If you want a good starting place for nutrition, **this is it**. To get started, you only need to put in your weight. The calculator will do the rest.

It assumes:

• Maintenance = 16 times your bodyweight in pounds. This has proven to be accurate in my experience.
• Macro splits = 25% protein, 25% fats, and 50% carbs.
• Protein intake = 1 gram per pound of bodyweight. Protein can go as low as 0.73g per pound with zero adverse effects on muscle growth, but if you aim for the full gram you’re giving yourself a nice big margin to fall short without killing your gains. If you’re cutting, then you should hit the full gram to preserve muscle (as well as continuing to train as hard as ever).
• Fats = between 0.3 and 0.5 grams per pound of bodyweight. Any less and you will torpedo your libido and testosterone. Too much more and you might be throwing your macro balance off. Fats can’t supply energy fast enough for an intense workout; carbs can. I’m not on a low-carb diet, so I use carbs to make up the difference when I have my protein and fats set.

There are pre-set buttons for cutting and bulking and a fine-tune slider to dial it in just for you. There is also an advanced section for more control. This will allow you to change the protein intake amount, and balance the fats and carbs against it. If you’re on a specialist diet, you can manipulate the values to suit you.

If you don’t know where to start, **you can trust the basic version**. It’s still the scheme I follow every day.

MACROMATCH

Sometimes you need to find an extra 20g of protein to make up your daily target. After a while, you’ll probably find yourself eating the same stuff all the time because it’s easier that way. This gets boring. Maybe you want to shake things up a bit.

**You can use this tool to find foods** which satisfy any criteria: minimums or maximums of protein, fats, carbs, and calories, on a per-serving or per-100g basis, with buttons to select specialist diets like vegan, lactose-free, nut-free, etc.

The tool will give you 5 random suggestions which match your criteria. If you don’t like what you see you can hit shuffle, or you can see the full list. The foods database covers a wide range of general, basic foods.

ZONE 2 HEARTRATE

Zone 2 cardio is excellent for fat loss. If you’re hitting 60–70% of your maximum heartrate, you’re in zone 2. **This tool will give you the numbers in beats-per-minute (bpm) for your 60–70%** so you know what to aim for.

CUT OR BULK?

These two sections will give you general advice about cutting or bulking. The cutting calculation is quite arbitrary, but holds up in my experience — if you do a hard cut when you’re already skinny, you are going to get worried looks and concerned eyebrows from people who know you. I learned this the hard way. **This tool can nudge you in the right direction**, which for me was “bulk up a bit first”.

1-REP MAX CALCULATOR

I train alone, so it’s hard to find out my true 1-rep max on a bench press because there’s nobody to spot me. **This tool will give you an estimated 1-rep max** based on your best multi-rep working set. It includes the four major 1-rep max formulas (Epley, Brzycki, Lombardi, and Mayhew).

You can choose from 7 different popular compound exercises, or set it to “general” for any exercise which is not listed. The tool will also give you percentage splits at 10% intervals, so if you’d like to know what 80% of your 1-rep max is for a certain lift, this will tell you.

VOLUME MATCHER

Let’s say you usually rip 10 reps with a 20kg weight on a given exercise. You’re on holiday and you’re using the hotel gym. They only have 25kg weights. **Put those numbers in this tool** and it will tell you 8 reps will get you the same volume. Good enough in a pinch.

Changing the weight-to-reps ratio — especially dramatically — can create different stimulus. Two different combinations of reps and weight are not exactly “the same” even if they produce equal “volume”. So this is not an everyday-use tool.

But let’s say you just moved permanently to a different gym, and their equipment has different weight selectors, plates or dumbbells. This tool will let you reprogram your workout to the nearest-neighbour so you can pick up more-or-less where you left off.

If you’re scientifically minded and you want to run a few tests to compare high reps v low reps, or machines vs free weights, this can help with that, too.

IN CLOSING

My aim here is to provide the tools I use as a starting point for people who are overwhelmed, confused, or want to get going without needing to do three weeks of research first. **Hopefully, this helps you**.

I am not a qualified nutritionist or doctor. This article is based on my own experience and should not be taken as medical advice. Do consult a qualified individual if you have any doubts.

If you haven’t already, you can **visit ReppySetGo here**.