Getting started as a coach

Your first hour on IronOS, in the order that works best. Most coaches are programming a real athlete by step 6.

1. Sign in at coach.ironos.app

Your invite email lands you on a page to set your name and password. After that, coach.ironos.app is your home. It works on any laptop or tablet browser; there is no coach app to install. You will find a demo athlete (Alex Demo) already on your roster with nine months of training history, a form check, and next week programmed, so you can click through the Inbox, calendar, Strength Trends, and the Durability Score before your first real athlete joins. Open the gear menu (top right) and choose Remove demo athlete when you are done with it, or Add demo athlete to bring it back with fresh dates.

2. Look at the exercise library first

Open Programming, then the Exercise library icon on the left rail. It comes pre-loaded with the platform library (barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell, bodyweight, cable, machine, cardio). Add your own exercises with "+ New exercise", and star the lifts you program most so they sort to the top.

3. Add an exercise of your own

In the Exercise library, type a name into "New exercise" and pick its group (Barbell, Dumbbell, Kettlebell, Cable, Machine, Bodyweight, Cardio). The group sets sensible defaults: barbell lifts get an automatic warm-up ramp in the athlete's app, the others do not. Then tag it: upper, lower, core or full body; compound or isolation; movement pattern (squat, hinge, horizontal push, vertical push, pull); primary muscle and any secondary muscles. Those tags drive the athlete's progress views and the durability math, so they are worth a few seconds. For bodyweight, cable and machine work you can mark it as a timed hold. Last, the technique cue: a short form reminder athletes see the first time they meet the exercise. Write your own, or press Draft with AI to get a starting point and edit it until it sounds like you. Press Enter to save. Once an exercise is in the library (yours or the platform's), right-click it and choose Add video URL to attach a YouTube demo: your athletes see a play button on that exercise in the logger and can watch it inline. The video is your choice for your athletes only, so two coaches can pick different demos for the same lift.

4. Build a few workouts

The Workout library is the other icon on the left rail. A workout is a named template: exercises, sets, reps, and RPE targets. Build the three or four sessions you use most; you will drag these onto athletes' calendars, so it is worth getting them right once. It also works the other way: click the + on any calendar day to build a session in place, then drag that session back onto the library to save it as a template.

5. Invite an athlete

Open the menu (gear icon, top right) and choose Invite athlete. They get an email with your name on it, set a password, and download the IronOS app for iPhone or Android. Until they accept, nothing else needs to happen on your side. If they already use IronOS on their own, the same flow sends them a request to join your roster instead. What they see, in case they ask: the Today tab shows the session you programmed with RPE targets and plate math; they log sets as they go and hit Done; the Calendar tab shows the week ahead and their history; Messages is a direct line to you. Anything they log, comment, or record lands in your Inbox.

6. Program their first week

Select the athlete, then drag workouts from the library onto days. Click a session to edit it for that athlete without changing the template: swap exercises, adjust sets, set the rest between them, add a note they will see in the app. Copy week and Paste week from the menu at the right of any week row. Built something on the calendar you want to reuse? Drag that session onto the Workout library and it becomes a template. Changes save automatically and reach the athlete's phone within seconds.

7. Live in the Inbox

The Inbox is where coaching happens. Completed sessions, athlete comments, form-check videos, missed sessions, and RPE that runs hot all land there as cards you can reply to inline. Replying sends a push notification to the athlete with your name on it and clears the card automatically; anything you have replied to lives in the Sent tab. Cards that need no reply, dismiss with the x.

8. Set notification frequency per athlete

In the Roster, each athlete has a frequency: daily, weekly, monthly, or off. Daily athletes ping you as things happen. Weekly and monthly athletes still show up in the Inbox, but the badge fires on Sunday (or the first Sunday of the month) so a lighter-touch client does not fragment your attention.

9. Watch the Durability Score

The Roster and each athlete's Dashboard show a Durability Score: current strength against an age-adjusted expectation, built from their logged working sets. A falling trend gets flagged in your Inbox. It is a signal to look closer, not a verdict.

Shortcuts worth knowing

None of these are required, but they make programming a full roster noticeably faster.

Calendar

  • Drag a session to another day moves it. Hold C (or Option) while dragging to copy it instead. Drop with C held on the same day to duplicate it in place.
  • Copy and paste a session with the copy icon that appears when you hover a calendar pill (or in the session editor header). The toolbar shows what's copied, and a paste icon appears on whichever day you hover. The copy stays on the clipboard until you copy something else or press Esc.
  • Right-click almost anything a session, an empty day, a note, a library card, or the week gutter, for a menu with the actions that apply. Same actions as the icons, with bigger targets.
  • Shift-click sessions to select several then drag one to move the whole block, ⌘C to copy it with day spacing preserved, or ⌫ to remove it. Esc clears the selection.
  • ⌘C, ⌘V, ⌫, ⌘Z copy the selection or the open session, paste onto the day you're hovering, remove, and undo. Every removal, paste week, and clear week shows an Undo toast for a few seconds.
  • Removing a plan never touches the athlete's log. A strength log with no plan behind it shows a dashed edge and a LOG tag; right-click it to create a plan from it. Imported cardio like Watch walks is expected to have no plan, so it isn't tagged. Deleting a log is its own action inside the log viewer.
  • Press ? in the portal for a shortcuts panel with all of this.
  • Drag a session onto the Workout library saves it as a template. The session stays on the calendar.
  • Week menu (the ⋯ at the right of each week row, or right-click it) holds Copy week, Paste week, and Clear week. A copied week shows a violet outline until you paste. Paste and Clear act immediately with an Undo toast.
  • Hover a session to see its full exercise list. A completed session shows what was logged and the athlete's note.
  • Hover a day to reveal the note and add-workout buttons. A day with more than one session opens a list when clicked.
  • Click Programming while already on it to jump the calendar back to today.
  • Escape closes whatever panel or popover is open.

Exercise library

  • Right-click an exercise for everything about it: star it, rename, aliases, technique cue, muscles and movement pattern, auto-warmup, duration and cardio modes, delete. Starred exercises sort to the top of their group.
  • Add video URL (in that same menu) attaches a YouTube demo to the exercise, platform exercises included. A thumbnail confirms the link parsed, and a small ▶ marks library rows that have one. Your athletes get a play button on that exercise in the logger: the first time they meet it the thumbnail is open, after that it tucks behind the ▶. The pick is yours alone, other coaches choose their own.
  • Double-click a name to rename it in place.
  • Drag an exercise onto a group header to move it to that equipment group.

Session editor

  • Right-click an exercise row to put it in a superset group (A through D). Grouped exercises are kept together in the list.
  • Drag a row to reorder exercises. Drag the small grip on a set block to reorder blocks within an exercise.
  • Type a range straight into sets, reps, or RPE: 2-3, 8-12, 7-8.
  • The rest field on a set block sets the rest after each of that block's sets: type 90, 1:30 or 2m. Because it is per block, a heavy top single and its back-off sets can rest differently. Leave it blank and the app uses its own default: five minutes for barbell work at RPE 8 or above, three minutes for lighter barbell work, ninety seconds for everything else. The athlete can still stretch or shorten a rest in the moment, and what they actually took shows in the log.
  • Enter in the add-exercise box adds whatever you typed, even if it isn't in the library yet.

Inbox and Roster

  • Star a card in the Inbox to pin it as a follow-up. Enter sends any inline reply.
  • Click the "Last: …" line on a Roster row to open that log without leaving the Roster. Click the Durability number for the full breakdown.

Things worth knowing

  • Your athletes are yours. IronOS will never market to them or pitch them anything inside the app. It’s in the Terms.
  • Athletes can log workouts you didn’t program. Those show up on their calendar in a different color so you can tell your prescriptions from their own sessions.
  • An athlete can leave your roster from their app at any time. When they do, your access to their data ends; their history stays with them.
  • Email support@ironos.app for anything at all. A real person reads it.