When the exercise list became a galaxy

I wanted to turn Kinoku's exercise list into something people could open and play with. Charts and visualisation are some of my favourite parts of the app to work on, and the catalogue already had plenty to draw from.

Every exercise lists the muscles it works, with figures that Kinoku uses to share training volume between them. Exercise Galaxy gives each of the 1,321 exercises a star and places moves with similar muscle profiles near each other. Presses gather together, rows find their neighbours, and you can move through the space to see what sits where.

Switching to Body breaks those stars into lights on the muscles they work. The same catalogue becomes a figure you can turn around, with the colours and exercise icons carried over from the app.

There are limits to what that picture says. The muscle figures are estimates, and being close in the galaxy says little about equipment or how two movements look. The body's shape and poses are drawn, too. There is data behind the picture, but some of what makes it look like a body is simply drawing.

On its own, a spinning galaxy doesn't do much for your next workout. I wanted to find a useful place for it inside Kinoku, while keeping the part that made it fun to explore.

The questions under the clip

I shared the clip on r/dataisbeautiful and r/SideProject. By October 3, the SideProject post had passed 80,000 views and 500 upvotes, while the dataisbeautiful post had passed 25,000 views and 140 upvotes. Those were the counts I saved then, and they gave me an audience for something that had started as a visual experiment.

People liked the look of it, but several also asked what they would use it for. Some were more interested in the ordinary parts of Kinoku, such as keeping runs and lifting in one history without an account. Others wanted to pick muscles on the figure and find the exercises that worked them.

In my replies, I talked about bringing the galaxy into the app and giving the body more movements. I also promised a research round after a reader asked where the muscle figures came from. The website now links a source review for a small part of the catalogue, with the gaps stated beside it. The exact percentages remain estimates.

The useful question running through those replies was what someone could do after they had watched the lights move. Inside the app, the galaxy could connect to the training they had already logged.

A sky with your own moves in it

That is the part I wanted to make useful in Kinoku 1.5.0. Your moves lights up the exercises you have trained, with a choice of showing how often or how recently you did them. The rest of the catalogue stays around them, so your history has a place in the larger map.

You can see the groups you return to and explore the moves around them. A replay lights up your history over time, and the coverage view counts the exercises you have trained in each muscle group. Those counts describe what is in your log; they don't tell you whether your training is balanced.

Routines give the same map another use. The exercises in a routine join into a constellation in the order you do them, with the rest of the sky dimmed. A push day has its own shape, and opening one of its stars takes you back to an exercise you know.

Browsing can lead into a workout, too. Train today adds a move to today's session, while Add to list lets you gather exercises as you look around. From that list, you can start a workout or save a routine. There is a path from looking at a nearby star to putting that exercise in your plan.

Something to make from your training

I also wanted the galaxy to make art you could share. Your own moves give the picture its shape, and the lines between them turn familiar exercises into constellations. A routine can become a card with its name and numbered moves, while a video can build your training history month by month.

The share view keeps the angle you are looking from and offers different looks, including a print version. Someone can keep a picture of their training or send it to a friend, with the exercises still behind the image. The galaxy and its sharing are free in the app.

For me, that gives the visual experiment a place alongside the rest of Kinoku. It can show the moves someone returns to, help them put a few into a workout, or turn their history into a picture they like. I wanted to keep room for all of that in an app people might use for years.

The browser galaxy is there to explore, and the reading guide explains how the stars are placed. If you try the app version, I'd like to hear what your own training looks like in it.