A generator is not a coach.
There are apps that log your legs as your most fatigued muscles, then program back-to-back heavy leg days anyway. Ask one why and it has nothing to say.
Sterka writes your next session before you walk in — sets, weights, reasons on record. When recovery says no, it vetoes its own plan.
For lifters who've outgrown the template but won't pay €200 a month for a coach. You keep your lifts, your days, your equipment; the engine writes the numbers. If writing your own set-and-rep scheme is the fun part, keep your logger.
A fixed-program app computes its numbers too — for one method. Neither repeat nor deload rebuilds your Thursday:
THURSDAY · CHEST AT 22% · PUSH DAY VETOED
Below 30% recovered, the engine won't anchor a session on that muscle. A rule, not a mood. The day rebuilds around pull; bench waits and loses nothing. A plan would hand you bench anyway.
The real program starts with a screening: Sterka coaches lifters, not patients.
Friday already knows what Tuesday did. No percentage math at the rack.
Don't take the claim. Check it.
First, what a prescription looks like:
FRIDAY · BENCH · TRIPLES · 50 / 52.5 / 55 KG
Sets of three, working up. Prescribed, not suggested: you lift; the engine does the deciding it exists to do.
Prescribed is the easy part; any template manages that. The proof is the why. Type a hard set you did recently: the engine turns it into a four-week wave. Three working weeks that tighten toward a test set, one that backs off. Check the arithmetic here, so you're not re-deriving it every session. That's the difference between following a plan and trusting one.
78% asks 48.75 and the bar takes 50.0 — week 2's 80% exactly. Same load, one rep closer to failure: RIR 3, then 2.
Newer lifters never see this wave: intensity stays capped until training history earns it.
RIR is reps in reserve: stop that many clean reps short of failure. The 3+ test is an AMRAP: as many clean reps as you have.
The fine print: units and block two
Kilograms, rounded to 2.5; pounds work the same, rounded to 5.
Shown is block one, the builder. Block two trades the fives for a 95% test single, and the reps you deliver on it write the next block's max. The engine rotates the blocks for you.
The engine's math on one set, not a plan for you: the real one starts with a screening. The full wave, step by step: how the engine works.
Does the math check out?
Join the WaitlistA generator computes. A coach communicates.
The difference is the entire product. You stop being the translator between your life and your program.
Shoulder’s cranky. Can we not bench heavy today?
Noted — nothing heavy through a cranky shoulder. I’d move the heavy pressing out a day, chest is at 41% anyway, and give today to legs. The wave doesn’t care which day it gets paid. If it turns sharp, have it looked at.
Proposal · Heavy bench moved out a day · today rebuilt as a lower-body session Status · Accepted — applied to today’s session
When you’d rather not talk: swap an exercise with a tap, reorder the day, edit any load by hand. The coach is the intelligence, not the only input.
A human coach costs €150–200 a month.
And it’s worth it; that’s the point. A good coach programs, adjusts, explains, and remembers: the four duties the money buys, and exactly the four things software can now do honestly. The handshake isn’t included, and neither is watching you lift. The rest shows up at six on a Sunday morning, if that’s when you train.
Categories, not competitors: bring your own favourites. The program-app range is drawn from US store prices and shown in euros, approximate. The coach range is the going rate for one-to-one strength coaching; Sterka’s price is one tier, everything included, stated before you sign anything.
The coach is AI. Your program isn’t.
An AI that writes your workout can hallucinate your workout. Sterka’s can’t: the numbers come from a deterministic engine, same history in, same session out, no moods. The coach only speaks them and drafts changes you approve. It asks before it prescribes: questions first, weights second. It won’t sell you meal plans or supplements, and it won’t make medical calls. Sterka is a resistance-training app. It coaches lifters, not patients.