Training around your joints

Tell Liftspan which joints need care and the exercises that load them are left out of everything it plans for you, replaced with ones that train the same muscles. It is free, and it is the single most important setting in the app.

The areas you can flag

You pick these during setup, on the screen that asks Anything to train around? To change them later, see below.

What changes when you flag a joint

• Your plan. Moves that load the area are never picked for your Liftspan plan, your starter programs, swaps, or the stand-ins used when you change rooms.
• Today shows it. A note on Today reminds you which areas you are working around.
• Moves that use the area. Many good moves still use a flagged joint without loading it badly (every row uses the shoulders, for example). In the plan Liftspan builds, these are only picked when the room has no other way to train that muscle, and one never opens a session. When one is in your workout it carries a note: "This one uses your knees. Go light and keep it pain-free, swap it if it pinches."
• Lower back: if a day has no core work, a spine-stability move (like a side plank, bird dog or dead bug) is added at the start, so sessions open with a stability block.
• Your own programs are your call. If you add a move that loads a flagged joint to a program you build, Liftspan marks it "⚠️ Loads your knees" and offers a named alternative with a Use button, but lets you keep it.
• The daily check-in PRO works the same way for a single day: type "knee is sore" and today's knee-loading moves are swapped out. See the daily check-in.

Joint-friendly mode

Joint-friendly mode is a separate switch, on the same screen. It is turned on for you automatically if you are 50 or over, and you can turn it on or off at any age. It changes how hard and how fast Liftspan pushes, rather than which exercises you get:

• Smaller weight jumps where your equipment allows it, so tendons keep up with muscles.
• 30 more seconds of rest between sets.
• Fewer total sets in each session.
• Riskier moves ranked lower, and advanced moves left out for people new to lifting.
• Warm-up sets on by default before your heavier lifts.
• Shorter training blocks: a deload week after every three working weeks instead of every five. This is set once, when you finish setup. Turning the mode on or off later does not change your block length.

Changing your joints later

1. Tap the 🏅 You tab.
2. Scroll to the Working around card.
3. Tap an area to add or remove it. The 🛡️ Joint-friendly mode switch is just below.

If you have already started training, Liftspan only swaps the moves affected by the change and keeps every weight you have worked up to. Today shows an "Adjusted for knees" card listing what changed. If you have not trained yet, the plan is simply rebuilt.

Related guides: Lifting with a bad shoulder: exercises to avoid and what to do instead and Deadlift lower back pain: causes and fixes.

Why it works this way

Most lifters past their first few years carry something: a shoulder that does not like pressing overhead, a knee that complains about deep loaded bends, a lower back that wants respect. A warning on an exercise you were already told to do is not much help. So Liftspan grades every move in its library against each area you can flag and leaves out the ones that load it before your plan is ever built, then fills the slot with a move that trains the same muscles.

The goal is to keep you training the muscles around a cranky joint, which is usually what you want, while working around the movements that aggravate it. It works around the joints you flag; it does not diagnose or treat anything. Not medical advice: if something hurts, stop, and talk to your doctor or physical therapist.

Common questions