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How Training Lab handles injuries and pain
This page explains how the mechanism actually works, including what it doesn't do.
"Injuries & Issues" covers more than injuries
Everything you enter here is treated the same way, whether it's an ankle you sprained last month or shoulders that have been stiff for years with no clear cause. Give the area, when it started (or "ongoing" if there's no single starting point), and how it affects you. The more specific you are about the impact, the more useful it is.
Entry 1
- Area (e.g. left knee, lower back)
- Lower back
- How it started
- Ongoing, from years of desk work
- Current impact on training
- Stiff after long sitting. Deadlifts and bending to the floor make it worse.
Your first plan relies on careful reading
When your plan is generated, the AI that writes it reads your description directly. It's told to build exercise choice around what you described, and to pick a lower-risk alternative instead of guessing when your description doesn't give it enough to judge. If you mention something that calls for a doctor first, such as chest pain, fainting or a recent surgery, the plan's first warning tells you to get medical clearance before you start.
Exercise swap adds a hard filter
Swapping works differently. Every proposed replacement is checked against the body regions matched to the area you described, before you ever see it.
- Proposed replacement
- Checked against your matched body regions
Main muscles overlap: excluded
If a replacement's main working muscles fall in a matched region, it's excluded. You never see it as an option, and the app refuses to apply it even if it were somehow selected.
Supporting muscles overlap: shown with a warning
If only a supporting muscle is involved, it's shown with a visible warning, and you have to tick a box accepting the risk before you can select it. It never sits unlabeled next to the safe options.
No overlap: shown as usual
It sits in the list with the other options, no tick box needed.
When you have an injury listed and a replacement isn't in our exercise library, it's left out too, since there's no muscle data to check it against.
It's built to exclude more exercises than strictly necessary so it doesn't miss a real conflict.
Cautious on purpose
The matching works from keywords in the text you typed. It isn't a clinical assessment. It's built to exclude more exercises than strictly necessary so it doesn't miss a real conflict, which means it will sometimes flag or remove something that would have been fine for you. That tradeoff is intentional.
What this isn't
None of this is medical advice, a diagnosis, or a substitute for a doctor or physical therapist, especially for anything ongoing, painful or unclear. If an exercise causes sharp, unexpected or worsening pain, stop and check with a professional, whatever your plan says.
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