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PDF, spreadsheet or app: how to deliver workout programs to clients
The short answer
A PDF is the easiest format to make and the weakest to train from. It cannot show a movement, record a set or work out a weight for the person reading it, and it cannot change once it is sent. A spreadsheet adds logging and editing, for clients you adjust by hand. An app can show the movement, record the work and, in some, work out the load for the person holding the phone.
59.9%
of web page views worldwide happen on a phone1
3 jobs
a static program leaves with the buyer: pick the weight, remember it, progress it
3 of 3
longer trials found no lasting adherence gain from going digital2
Coaches debate this constantly, and usually from the coach's side: which tool is fastest to build in. The person training has a different question. They are standing in a gym with a phone in one hand, and they need to know what to do next.
How do the three formats compare?
| Spreadsheet | App | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Making it | Fast, in any tool you already use | Fast if you are comfortable with sheets | You build inside it, or bring a program in |
| Reading on a phone mid-session | Laid out for paper, so it means pinching and zooming | Small cells and sideways scrolling | Built for it |
| Exercise demos | Links that leave the document | Links that leave the sheet | Next to the exercise, in most |
| Logging sets and weights | None, unless printed | Yes, typed into cells | Yes, set by set |
| Working out the weight | The buyer does it | A formula can, from a max the buyer enters and keeps up to date | Some apps work it out for each person from the sets they log |
| Changing it after you send it | A new file. Old copies stay out there | Instant if everyone shares one sheet. Separate copies drift apart | Instant |
| Seeing a client's progress | No | Only if they share the sheet back | Yes, in most |
| What the buyer has to do | Open a file | Open a link, and sometimes sign in | Install an app or open a link, and sign in |
| Working offline | Yes, once downloaded | Only after it has been set up | Check before you choose: it differs |
| Cost to you | Free | Free | A monthly fee or a share of each sale, depending on the app |
No format wins every row. The table is most useful read sideways: find the two or three rows your clients care about, and choose on those.
Why does the phone matter so much?
Because that is where the program will be opened. Phones produced 59.9% of web page views worldwide in October 2026. In Australia the split with desktop was about even.1 In the United States, 91% of adults own a smartphone and 16% use one as their only internet connection.3 A program sold through a social media link is opened on the device that link was tapped on.
- Phone59.9%
- Desktop38.5%
- Tablet1.6%
Share of page views, October 2026.1
That is hard on the PDF. Twenty years of usability research from Nielsen Norman Group reaches the same conclusion each time: PDFs are sized for paper, not for screens, and people are slower and more frustrated using them on screen than using a normal page. Their advice is to use PDF only for documents people will print.4 The same research found people losing time checking whether the PDF in front of them was the current version.4
Spreadsheets have their own catch. Google Sheets works offline only after it is set up. On a computer that means a supported browser, an extension and a setting turned on while still online. On an iPhone it means the Sheets app, with recent files made available offline.5 Gyms in basements do not have signal, and your client finds this out mid-session.
What can a PDF not do?
A PDF can carry a good program. What it cannot do is respond to the person using it.
Take one line: back squat, 4 sets of 5 at 80%. The percentage is relative, which is the point of writing it that way. But it is 80% of a number the page does not know. The buyer has to know their max, or test it, or estimate it, then do the sum, and redo it as they get stronger. Experienced lifters manage that. Many people buying a first program have never tested a max.
The usual answer is to prescribe effort instead: "leave two reps in reserve". It works, and it is what we suggest for any static program in how to write a workout program for clients. It still leaves three jobs with the buyer: choosing the weight, remembering what they lifted last week and deciding when to add load. Two findings say those jobs are done imperfectly. Lifters misjudge the reps they have left by about one rep on average.6 And in a 12-week trial, lifters training without a coach present raised their loads more slowly, and gained less strength, than supervised lifters on the same program.7
So the useful question about a format is who does the adjusting.
| Format | Who works out the next weight |
|---|---|
| The buyer, from memory | |
| Spreadsheet | A formula, if the buyer enters a max and keeps it current. Or you, client by client, which is one-to-one coaching and stops at the hours you have |
| App | It depends on the app. Some only record what was lifted. Some work out each person's next weight from the sets they log |
That last row is the real difference between the formats. It is not the screen. It is whether anything is paying attention to what the person lifted.
Does the format change whether people follow the program?
Probably a little, in the short term, and the evidence is indirect.
- Digital delivery tends to help early. A systematic review of ten randomised trials found that seven reported better adherence to home exercise when a digital tool was added. The three trials that found no difference were the ones with longer follow-up.2
- The best-known trial bundled the app with people. In a trial of 80 patients, exercises delivered through an app with phone calls and text messages beat paper handouts by 1.3 points on an 11-point adherence scale. The authors called the importance of that gap unclear.8
- Logging and feedback are the active part. A meta-analysis of 28 trials found that apps and trackers with automatic self-monitoring and feedback raised activity by about 1,850 steps a day.9 An earlier meta-analysis of app-only programs found a smaller gain that was not statistically significant.10
- Self-monitoring is the technique with the best record. Across 122 evaluations of activity and eating programs, it explained more of the difference between results than any other technique.11
The pattern across these is that the screen is not what helps. Logging helps, feedback helps, and a person checking in helps. A format matters to the degree that it makes those easy.
Which format fits your situation?
| Your situation | A format that fits |
|---|---|
| A free sample or lead magnet, read once | |
| A fixed plan for people who print it and train at home | |
| One-to-one clients whose numbers you adjust every week | Spreadsheet, or coaching software |
| A program where the right weight differs for every buyer | An app that sets loads per person |
| A program sold to many people, followed in a gym on a phone | App |
| Exercises most buyers will not know | Anything that shows the demo next to the exercise |
| You want to know who has started and who has stopped | Something with logging you can see |
A PDF is a fair way to find out whether anyone wants the program. It is a poor way to deliver the training, and the gap shows as soon as people start. The same questions arrive by message: what does this exercise look like, which week am I on, what weight should I use.
How do you test your own program?
Take the role of the buyer for one minute.
The one-minute phone test
Every item you cannot tick is a message you will be answering later, or a session someone quietly skips.
One program. The right weight for every athlete.
A PDF hands every buyer the same page and leaves the weights to them. Adjusting them person by person is one-to-one coaching, and that stops at the hours you have. DUAL does the adjusting in software. You write the program once, by percentage, RPE or reps in reserve, and each athlete trains the main lifts at a weight sized to them. Core work, cardio and exercises with no library match keep the numbers you wrote.
Bring the PDF or sheet you already have. A whole program of up to 16 weeks comes in at once.
See how the weights are setThe coach writes it once
Back squat
4 sets x 5 reps at 80%
Each athlete gets their own
- A woman new to lifting, 62 kg25 kg
- A man a few years in, 82 kg82.5 kg
- A competitive lifter, 90 kg155 kg
Example athletes. Each weight is 80% of DUAL's opening estimate of that person's squat. It is a starting point, and the first sets they log correct it.
It starts from the person
Bodyweight, experience and any best lifts they know set a starting weight on the main lifts. There is no test day.
It learns from every set
They log the weight and how hard it felt. Every set sharpens the estimate of their strength.
It sets the next weight
You state the intent. DUAL turns it into a weight rounded to plates they can load, and brings it down in the same session if they max out early.
Questions people ask
For a simple plan, and buyers who already know the exercises and their own weights, yes. For most buyers, no. A PDF cannot show a movement, record a set or work out a weight for the person reading it. It is a document about training, not something to train from.
For a one-to-one client, use something you can both see and edit, so you can adjust it each week and read their numbers. A shared spreadsheet does this for free. Coaching software or an app adds demos and easier logging on a phone.
Use one tab per week and one block per training day. Give each exercise a row, with columns for sets, reps, effort, rest, the weight used and notes. Freeze the header row, keep it narrow enough to read on a phone, and share a copy for each client so their logs stay separate.
Not reliably. A file can be forwarded, and passwords travel with it. Programs delivered through an account are harder to pass on, because access belongs to the buyer, not to the file.
Sources
Every source was read and checked on 10 November 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.
- StatCounter Global Stats. Desktop vs mobile vs tablet market share worldwide, and the same series for Australia. October 2026.
- Lang S, McLelland C, MacDonald D, Hamilton DF. Do digital interventions increase adherence to home exercise rehabilitation? A systematic review of randomised controlled trials. Archives of Physiotherapy, 2022.
- Pew Research Center. Mobile fact sheet. 2026.
- Nielsen J, Kaley A. Avoid PDF for on-screen reading. Nielsen Norman Group, 2020.
- Google Docs Editors Help. Work on Google Docs, Sheets and Slides offline. 2026.
- Halperin I, et al. Accuracy in predicting repetitions to task failure in resistance exercise: a scoping review and exploratory meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 2022.
- Mazzetti SA, et al. The influence of direct supervision of resistance training on strength performance. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2000.
- Lambert TE, et al. An app with remote support achieves better adherence to home exercise programs than paper handouts in people with musculoskeletal conditions: a randomised trial. Journal of Physiotherapy, 2017.
- Laranjo L, Ding D, Heleno B, et al. Do smartphone applications and activity trackers increase physical activity in adults? Systematic review, meta-analysis and metaregression. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2021.
- Romeo A, Edney S, Plotnikoff R, et al. Can smartphone apps increase physical activity? Systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2019.
- Michie S, Abraham C, Whittington C, McAteer J, Gupta S. Effective techniques in healthy eating and physical activity interventions: a meta-regression. Health Psychology, 2009.