BRIDGEATHLETIC
Exercise History For Athletes
The Gist
Background
BridgeAthletic digitized strength training workflows, enabling athletes to track workouts and results in real time.
Problem
Athletes lacked a fast, intuitive way to view exercise history during workouts, leading to guesswork, reduced confidence, and lower motivation.
Solution
We designed a mobile Exercise History experience that surfaces real-time and long-term performance data directly within the workout flow.
Result
The new experience reduced the time athletes spent finding prior exercise data by about 65% and increased reported confidence during workouts.
Behind the Design
Role
Lead Product Designer
Responsibilities
UI, UX
Research
VQA
Timeline
6 Months;
Conception to Launch
Team
1 CTO
3 Engineers (iOS, Android, QA)
1 Designer
Background
Before BridgeAthletic, athletes relied on printed workouts and manual result tracking, forcing strength coaches to spend significant time entering data before assessing progress or adjusting plans.
BridgeAthletic modernized this workflow by delivering digital, editable workouts with to tablets and smartphones, streamlining data capture and enabling faster progress evaluation.
Problem
Despite offering modifiable workouts and real-time results tracking, BridgeAthletic lacked a streamlined way to access a complete training history.
Without a consolidated record of past performance, users had difficulty reviewing progress and evaluating the effectiveness of their training programs.
Solution
We introduced a new navigation page that gives athletes quick access to their exercise history through high-level summaries and exercise-level details. Athletes can filter by time or exercise, track key metrics, and view past performance directly within their current workout, making progress easier to assess and more motivating.
65
%
65% Faster Access to Exercise History
Athletes can now reach prior performance in two taps, reducing lookup time by ~65% and helping them make confident decisions mid-workout.
01
Foundational Research
Contextual Discovery
What Observing Athletes Revealed
At the time, the CTO and CMO were holding weekly meetings with strength coaches from universities and professional teams. We leveraged these relationships to gather insights directly from athletes.
I conducted interviews with athletes who were actively using the app, focusing on their motivations, frustrations, and unmet needs. Anecdotal feedback supported my findings and inspired new feature ideas. Throughout these interviews, I documented recurring themes and key user needs based on athlete commentary.
One athlete summarized their motivation:
“I am working hard and sometimes I have setbacks. Is this effort worth it? I want to know that I am getting stronger.”
Through user interviews and continuous refinement of user journeys and wireframes, I identified two primary needs:
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A comprehensive view of exercise history, ranging from high-level workout summaries to detailed, exercise-specific data.
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Real-time access during workouts, allowing athletes to quickly reference prior performance while training.
To address both needs, I updated the design scope to include a dedicated Exercise History page accessible from the main navigation, as well as in-workout access to individual exercise histories.
Top Insights from Athletes
Our research uncovered several key pain points that hindered athletes' ability to review, evaluate, and make data driven decisions effectively, highlighting critical areas for improvement.
Limited Visibility
Athletes struggled to find their exercise history. With data limited to one workout at a time, they lacked a clear view of progress.
In-Workout Guessing
Without quick access to prior results, athletes often guessed weights and reps during training, reducing confidence and effectiveness.
Motivation Gaps
Athletes mainly used the app to complete workouts. When progress wasn’t visible, especially after setbacks, motivation dropped.
Early Concept Sketches
To shape the foundation of the design, I created quick sketches that visualized key data needed for an efficient review of past progress. These early explorations made it easy to test, iterate, and identify what would best support athletes’ real-time needs.
Athlete Persona
The athlete persona represented individuals training under a structured program who needed quick access to past performance to stay confident, motivated, and aligned with their coach’s expectations.
User Stories
User stories grounded the design in real athlete needs, emphasizing fast access to prior performance, progress tracking over time, and clarity during workouts to reduce guesswork and improve confidence.
As an athlete,
1
I want to compare prescribed versus completed weights and reps so I can verify I’m following my training plan.
2
I want to quickly review my Barbell Front Squat weight from my last workout so I can confirm my progress.
3
I want to evaluate the rate at which I’m gaining strength so I can work with my coach to fine-tune my training plan.
User Journey
The user journey mapped key moments before, during, and after workouts, highlighting friction points where athletes struggled to find historical data and opportunities to surface insights at the moment they were most valuable.
Opportunities for Business
I continually refined design requirements to focus on core business value and user engagement through three primary goals.
Performance Access
Linking exercises directly to historical data reduced friction and supported faster, more confident decisions making.
Progress as Motivation
Making strength gains visible reassured athletes that their effort was paying off, reinforcing consistency and long-term commitment
Deeper Commitment
Surfacing performance data during and after workouts expanded engagement beyond task completion and strengthened communication.
02
Approach
Streamlining Workout Insights
This phase focused on prioritizing the most meaningful metrics, such as weight, reps, and recent performance, so athletes could quickly interpret progress without distraction or cognitive overload.
Initial Wireframes
Initial wireframes tested layout, hierarchy, and navigation patterns to ensure exercise history was discoverable, scannable, and accessible within one to two taps across common athlete workflows.
Enhancing the User Experience
Iterative refinements improved clarity, reduced friction, and aligned interactions with real training behaviors, ensuring athletes could move seamlessly between current workouts and historical context.
03
Final Design
Final Design Walkthrough
The final mobile experience supports athletes at multiple levels by combining in-workout context, daily summaries, and long-term performance trends. The first screen keeps athletes focused during training by showing prescribed and completed sets for the Barbell Deadlift alongside upcoming exercises. The second screen provides a high-level view of each workout, summarizing total reps and weight completed compared to what was prescribed.
The third screen highlights performance trends for a single exercise, allowing athletes to assess progress and identify patterns over time. Together, these screens balance real-time decision-making with reflection and motivation.
04
Measured Impact
Outcome
Following the release of the Exercise History feature, we conducted post-release interviews with 11 athletes across three teams.
In these interviews, 72% of athletes cited increased motivation, transparency, and overall engagement as direct outcomes of the feature. Athletes shared that access to their exercise history helped them track progress when motivation dipped, better understand their long-term training goals, and engage in more meaningful conversations about performance.