The Movement Athlete is a popular, paid subscription Calisthenics App for both Android and iOS. It seamlessly combines the modern concepts of Calisthenics and digital information and presents it to us in a neat, highly customizable package. I’ll take an in-depth look at this popular Calisthenics App, its structure and all its features. There is a lot of ground to cover, since The Movement Athlete has so much to offer. To keep things organized, I have divided my The Movement Athlete review into sections. This is a paid subscription app only, but there is a 7-day free trial so you can sample all these features. I have also secured the following 10% discount code for you: CWW10.
This is a big review because there is a lot to say. Don’t want to read? You can watch my concise YouTube video review of The Movement Athlete too:
How The Movement Athlete App Works
As a Calisthenics app for your smartphone, The Movement Athlete works almost independent from an internet connection. Once you have the app installed, including the workout you wish to follow, you can do your workout anywhere. The Movement Athlete aspires to be your personal coach, with a variety of high-end functions. At the core lies an A.I. algorithm that helps you formulate the perfect workout for you. I’ll go over the most important features included in The Movement Athlete app.
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Workout Progression A.I. Algorithm
The Movement Athlete uses an advanced A.I. algorithm to determine the most optimal workout strategy for you. It uses two basic inputs for this: an initial assessment and historical data on how well you did during individual exercises. The app uses this information to adjust your workout almost on the fly. You are asked to give feedback on your current exercise during the workout to make this happen. I’ll discuss both the assessment and the feedback mechanics separately, below. The algorithm goes a long way keeping your workout challenging but achievable, while also giving you a tool to create an effective path toward your desired goal.
Exercise Feedback
You are asked to provide feedback after an exercise. For instance, you could be asked to do a certain number of repetitions, then asked how many you managed. Depending on your answer the A.I. algorithm immediately adjusts your workout. You can also be asked to rate the exercise itself on a scale from very hard to very easy.
This feedback is important, and it is important that you are perfectly honest with the app. It uses this information to custom tailor the workout to be the most efficient for your stated goals (more on that, below). If you’re dishonest, you will see less efficient and possibly adverse results.
Personal Missions, Fundamental Quests and Exercises
Your Personal Mission states your desired Calisthenics goal, which then comprises several Fundamental Quests and Exercises. The quests each unlock a progressively harder quest with harder exercises to do. The algorithm builds the right workout and quests for you to achieve. It figures this out first with an Assessment, then adjusts the workout flow based on your Exercise Feedback.
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The Assessment
Every new user must do the initial assessment which is necessary for the algorithm to create a personal program for you. The basic setup is easy enough and you’re asked to provide a name, your gender, e-mail, your main goals and your own estimates to your current level of fitness.
The questionnaire takes around 5 minutes to complete. Some questions can be specific, like asking how many Pull-Ups you can do or how easy it is for you to maintain a V-Sit. This is all vital information for the algorithm, and it pays to really sit down and answer the questions earnestly.
The algorithm then builds a personalized Calisthenics Program for you, with exercises you can do at once.
The Workouts Option 1: My Program
The most important section of The Movement Athlete app is the Workouts. The Workouts section is divided between My Program and On-Demand Workouts (more on that, below). My Program contains a personal workout plan that the algorithm has custom tailored for you to reach your Personal Missions and Quests.
Each personal workout plan starts with foundational exercises that are an important basis for you want to achieve. Each exercise will have a green bar that fills up along with a percentage meter indicating your current progress.
Once you’ve sufficiently mastered these foundational exercises, you can add new exercises to your program. These exercises are in the same flavor as the foundational exercises, but progressively more difficult and building up to your Quests and Missions. You can add up to 5 additional exercises, but I recommend limiting it to a maximum of 2 or 3.
The Workouts Option 2: Skill Mastery
The Skill Mastery Section, under My Program, allows you to pick and focus on a specific skill. This is a deviation from your personalized workout plan and allows you to hone one move. You can then set the workout time and the app generates a workout specialized to your capabilities and available equipment. It takes the assessment information, and any information it has already collected from your exercise feedback to create the most efficient workout for that skill.
You’re not limited to a set number of skills, and you could try them all, if you wanted to. Realistically, you can’t train for every skill. I recommend limiting yourself here and becoming very good at 2 or 3 different skills, instead.
The Workouts Option 3: Muscle Groups
Another interesting option is to choose a muscle group to exercise, instead of following the personalized workout plan. It works the same way as choosing a skill to master, but instead of choosing an exercise you choose either a general muscle group or a specific muscle to exercise. Then you set a timer and let the app generate a workout.
The Movement Athlete’s algorithm uses your assessment and your training history to generate the most efficient workout plan for you.
This option is a little more advanced since you must introduce a Calisthenics Split routine for good results, like splitting your upper body from your lower body and doing either sufficiently. Still, the algorithm makes it the easiest it can get without a personal trainer.
The Workouts Option 4: Mobility Program
The Movement Athlete comes with an in-built Mobility Program. Unlike the Skill Mastery and Muscle Group exercises, the Mobility Program is the least at odds with the My Program’s Personalized Workout Plan. You can usually do them side-by-side or prepare for any of the other option’s exercises by doing mobility exercises, first.
It again works the same way by choosing your muscle group, setting the amount of time and letting the algorithm do the rest.
On-Demand Workouts
The On-Demand section includes workouts that can be done on top of your personalized workout plan. This can help balance your skillset, build more volume or maintain your current skill level. Especially maintaining or even finetuning your current skill level is great when your regular progressive program has moved on to other things.
The algorithm does play a part here and you are only able to do or add exercises to your On-Demand Workouts that you have already unlocked through any of the options in the My Workout section. This minimizes the risk of injury and overtraining your Calisthenics.
You choose either standalone, specific exercises or a complete program. The algorithm remembers your previous performance and the exercises get harder as you progress. For On-Demand Programs your options are either to build strength, muscle or to burn fat. These also use the algorithm to assist you, but do resemble a more standard, one-size-fits-all training program.
Your Journey: Progression Tracking
Most of the progression tracking is done internally in the Movement Athlete app. One way to learn about your progression is by looking at the Skills section, also called the My Journey section. Here you will find a list of all the skills you can learn with the app and what your progression is. You can see which skills remain locked, which you have unlocked, and those you have mastered.
This section is only for your reference, and you cannot start a workout from here.
My Journey is divided into two sub-sections, the Main Skills and the Individual Skills. The Main Skills are all those skills that make up your personalized workout plan. Once you unlock a skill, you can view its details and how you are progressing along that specific skill tree.
A very nice feature here is the ability to take a picture or video and upload it for future reference. You can use this footage later to work on your form or simply to compare your physique then and now.
Finally, the Single Skills library contains all the individual skills in the app separately. Each skill comes with a description of how to do them and a short animation. This is also where you can set these skills as already mastered, should you have mastered them already (for instance, from before you started using The Movement Athlete).
My Program: Customizing Workouts
Going back to the My Program section, you can always customize the personalized workout plan that the algorithm made for you. These settings are an important part of The Movement Athlete app, as it also includes what Calisthenics Equipment you have available as well as setting the workout durations and rest times. The algorithm takes this information and adjusts your next workout to it.
As for equipment, I do recommend you get the big three tools:
You can change your workout duration and rest times, but the beginner best leaves these at their default settings. The algorithm will increase the difficulty of your exercises accordingly.
Nice finishing touches and Quality of Life additions are the ability to personalize your profile with a name and picture, turning on or off the audio, accessing the knowledge base or retaking the assessment.
Working Out with The Movement Athlete App
Working out in The Movement Athlete begins with an overview page for each workout session. You can download that whole workout onto your device from this page for offline use, later.
Before the workout
You can view and change a few variables for that workout session. You can change that workout’s time but also review and change the required Calisthenics equipment. This allows you to either prepare for the workout, or simply remove those pieces of equipment from the list you own, and the app will adjust the exercises.
You can also chat with a The Movement Athlete coach. This is a real, human coach so the response time can vary. Typically, they do take several hours to reply to your questions. This is too long for any direct feedback you need right now. It is a great resource for personalized feedback of a general nature or if that question doesn’t pertain to anything very specific to that day’s exercise.
The overview lists all the exercises for that workout session, and they are always divided into the following structure:
- Warmup
- Skills
- Strength
- Muscle
- Endurance
- Cool Down
During the workout
The workout session itself is continuous without any pauses unless you hit the pause button. The app cycles through the list of exercises from the pre-workout overview from start to finish. After finishing each focus area (skills, strength, muscle and endurance) you are given a quick summary of how you did. The workout continues when you press the continue button.
Each individual exercise is accompanied by a high-quality animation of the movement. You can pause the exercise in the top-left corner and resume it by pressing the resume button. Navigating between exercises happens by clicking on the arrows on the left and right, meaning you can go back to a previous exercise as well as skipping the current exercise.
You are given either a target number of repetitions to achieve or do a continues hold or movement on a set timer.
After the exercise you are always asked to give your Exercise Feedback for that important algorithm to do its job. Again, be truthful here because The Movement Athlete will use this information to adjust your next workout and possibly even your next exercise.
There is a rest-time between exercises which you can quickly adjust with a handy “+10 seconds” button, should you need more time.
After the Workout
You get a workout summary after each workout. The information on this screen shows you the total workout time, how many exercises you have mastered but also how much you have progressed on each skill during that workout. This gives you an immediate sense of progression for the work you put in right away.
Our Experience with The Movement Athlete
After working out with the app myself, I have some pointed feedback to share. A lot of it is very positive, but I have some points of critique as well. Let me start with the critique.
If you couldn’t achieve any repetitions, the app will leave that exercise be for another time. However, it will not automatically pick an easier Calisthenics move to replace that technique. Starting with an easier alternative would be better.
Another thing to consider is that the algorithm creates a highly personalized workout plan. This makes training with a partner less feasible, and at least you’re not doing the same things at the same time.
I liked the variety of progressions contained in The Movement Athlete. This allows for a nice and gradual progression up a skill tree and avoids steps that are too big. This allows you to level up quicker and gives you a real sense of achievement by building on successes instead of failures.
The app allows for both long and short workouts. You can set a general maximum workout length with a minimum of just 15 minutes. This can also be applied to your individual skills. This makes fitting your workout into a busy professional life a lot easier. It also allows you to add a shorter, additional workout to your existing workout without running into time constraints or making the workout session so long that you’ll simply exhaust yourself before the end.
The different equipment profiles are also a major Quality of Life addition. You can switch between profiles quickly, for instance if you’re at home, at a Calisthenics Park or at the gym, and make use of just the equipment available. The app adjusts the workout on the fly.
Pricing & Discount
10% off with our code: CWW10
The Movement Athlete is not free, but there is a 7-day free trial for you to try. You don’t have to pay anything up front to use this free trial. That lets you do the assessment and sample your first workouts. After that there is also a 60-day money-back guarantee if you don’t like the app, anyway. That is quite a generous offer, as 60 days is typically the amount of time you need to really appreciate a Calisthenics Program. This means The Movement Athlete has absolute faith in their app and that you will like it.
The subscription model looks like this:
| Monthly | Quarterly | Yearly |
| $24.97(6.30 a week) ~22.47 with discount | $49.-(4.- a week) ~44.10 with discount | $157.-(3.70 a week) ~141.30 with discount |
You get everything The Movement Athlete has to offer, no upsells or cross-sells or any of those shenanigans. A yearly subscription would save you around 50%. Use the code CWW10 to get that additional 10% discount at checkout.
I recommend at least getting the quarterly subscription. That gives you enough time to truly understand and sample the app. You can always make use of the 60-day money-back guarantee within that timeframe.
There is also a one-time lifetime access fee of $997. The discount code does not work for this level, however.
Conclusions About The Movement Athlete Review
I can certainly see why The Movement Athlete is so popular. The interface is easy to use and easy to understand. The content is likewise easy to understand and digest on the fly. Seeing your own progress for the foundational and additional skills is a great way to keep your motivation high.
Big selling points are the Assessment and the Personalized Workout Plan. The app’s algorithm does a really good job at creating an effective and efficient personal plan that mimics the advice of a professional, human coach surprisingly accurately. If you’re not a professional coach, athlete or physiotherapist (and you can’t afford one, either), this is the closest you can get to that level of personalization.
The best part of the Movement Athlete app is the completeness of each skill progression. It combines this with relatively small skill-increases when you’re progressing, each being relatively easy to master when compared to the previous step. This allows you to build on success rather than fighting an uphill battle for the next progression.
I hope you now know enough to make your own decision whether to give The Movement Athlete a try based on my review. If you do, don’t forget the CWW10 discount code and do let me know what your experience was in the comments below.
Frequently Asked Questions about The Movement Athlete
Here are some frequently asked questions about The Movement Athlete and Calisthenics apps in general.
Is The Movement Athlete legit?
Yes, it is legit. The Movement Athlete consists of a team of coaches and professional athletes who’ve come together and developed a Calisthenics app. Their training regimen are real and effective. The training regimen the app produces are tailored to your personal strengths and weaknesses and which goals you set for yourself.
Does The Movement Athlete offer a free trial?
Yes, but no. There is a 7-day free trial and when you buy a subscription there is always a 60-day extended trial, no questions asked when you quit. As with any serious workout regimen, 7 days is NOT enough to adequately judge the results and even 60 days is kind of short. At best, you’ll get a feel for the app and its software itself.
Does The Movement Athlete really work?
Yes, it works. The Movement Athlete’s workout regimes can give you significant gains over time. Key here is that you show discipline and perseverance and that you do not cheat the assessment workout by giving false results. If you follow the app’s instructions, you will see long term results.
Are there any alternatives to The Movement Athlete?
There are quite a few Calisthenics apps out there apart from The Movement Athlete. The more popular ones are:
– Cali Move Complete Calisthenics
– Berg Movement App
– Madbarz App
You can read an in-depth review of these apps and more of them in our Best Calisthenics Apps Review.
Is The Movement Athlete Good?
Yes, The Movement Athlete is a good Calisthenics app for people looking for a customized, personalized Calisthenics program without the need to pay a professional coach. The Movement Athlete uses an advanced AI algorithm that uses information based on an initial assessment and historical training data while you’re using the app to update your personal training program. This keeps the program challenging but achievable for you specifically. You can even set which Calisthenics equipment you have available to you at that time and the algorithm will adjust the workout on the fly.
