We’re John and Ryaan. Barbell Hacks is where we build thoughtful tools for strength training.
A strength training app that brings personalized workout plans, progress tracking, and coaching intelligence together.
Here’s a real day in the app: heavier trap-bar work, higher-rep back-offs, then bodyweight accessories. Try it with a plan built around you.
Try the free betaFree during beta. No credit card required.
Lower undulating, completed
Load climbs to 405 lb, then drops as reps go up.
3 × 10Hanging leg raise (bodyweight)
3 × 10TRX Y-raise (bodyweight)
John’s session, shown as logged. Your plan is built around you.
Every set arrives with its load, its reps and an expected RPE — and the scheme that chose them. Log the work and it feeds straight back into your progression.
Try the free beta
The same engine, pointed at a roster. Individual programming for every athlete you coach — private clients or a full team — without writing every session by hand.
Beta testers can find access, updates, and ways to tell us what’s working or getting in the way.
Training and product
John is the founder of Barbell Hacks and has coached athletes and lifters since 2011. He also works as a senior lidar engineering technician at Aurora, testing sensors for autonomous trucks. Strength Architect draws on his hands-on coaching, thousands of measured barbell repetitions, and a habit of testing assumptions against data. A former U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant, he builds training tools around a simple conviction: training should be individualized, quantitative, and honest about uncertainty.
Engineering
Lead engineer for Cakewalk Next at BandLab, where he writes low-latency real-time C++ for audio on consumer hardware. Cofounded Artusi, whose self-grading music theory and ear-training tools are used in conservatories and universities worldwide. Before that, senior research engineer at MIT and associate director of its Digital Humanities Lab. Harvard CS; plays lutes and conducts baroque opera when he is not shipping.
Want to test the app or share an idea? Tell us what you’re training for and where better tools could help.
hello@barbellhacks.com