Machines and cardio

You train on the machines and finish on the treadmill or the bike. Badger has a ready-made program for that, every common machine in its library, and a pace chart for your cardio. This guide covers those four things.

Your first 5 minutes

  1. Open You → Routines and pick Full Body Starter in the Beginner Programs folder.
  2. Tap Set as active program. Its days now show on Today.
  3. On Today, tap Day A, then Start.
  4. Your exercises are listed with their sets. Do each set and tap the box on its left to mark it done. If your weight or reps differ from the plan, tap the set and change them first.
  5. To add the treadmill at the end, tap + Add at the bottom of the screen. Search "treadmill" and log your distance and time.
  6. Tap End workout when you are done.

The Full Body Starter

Two full-body days, Day A and Day B, that you alternate three times a week. Day A is leg press, chest press, lat pulldown, seated dumbbell press and a plank. Day B is goblet squat, seated cable row, dumbbell bench press, leg curl and dumbbell curl.

The first three exercises each day are 3 sets of 10 to 12 reps. The rest are 2 sets: 10 to 12 reps for the press, 12 reps for the leg curl and curl, and 30 seconds for the plank.

When every set reaches the top of its reps for a few sessions, a line above the weight field suggests a little more weight. Until then it reads Work toward 12 reps. The program is in a new install. If you installed Badger a while ago, it arrives with an update (see Built-in programs).

Find your machine in the picker

Search by what the machine is called at your gym. "Leg press", "chest press" and "lat pulldown" find themselves, and "stationary bike", "rower", "stairmaster" and "cross trainer" find the cardio machines.

To browse instead, tap Equipment at the top of the picker and choose machine. Only machine exercises are left in the list. See Pick an exercise for a workout.

Does your gym have two leg presses that feel different? Add each one under You → Machines, then pick the one you are on with ⋮ → Set machine… during the workout. Each machine keeps its own history and records. See Picking equipment during a workout.

Treadmill time and distance

Treadmill logs a distance and a time for each set. Type the time as digits: 2, 5, 0, 0 reads 25:00 (see Typing a duration).

Distances are in kilometers or miles, set under You → Settings → Logging → Distance unit. Incline and speed have no field, so put them in a set comment, using the comment icon beside the set. The stationary bike and the rowing machine log distance and time too. The elliptical and the stair climber log time only.

The Best pace chart

Open the treadmill in the exercise library and tap the record at the top of its page. The progress screen leads with Best pace: your fastest set of each day, worked out from the distance and time you logged.

  • Treadmill, running and walking show minutes per mile or kilometer, for example 8:03 /mi. The line goes down as you get faster.
  • Bikes show Best speed in mph or km/h. The line goes up as you get faster.
  • Rowing machine shows time per 500 m.

The details are under Pace and speed.

Ignore the rest for now

Bars, progression rules and training maxes are for barbell programs. You can leave them alone.

When you are ready

To build your own routine around the machines you like, the program guide shows how. To see your strength and volume over time, the data guide shows where to look.

Want the full picture? See everything Badger does.