Endurance Workout DSL

Use this DSL to describe one structured endurance workout in Rules mode. A training plan can contain many workouts; each workout is parsed and validated separately. One line represents one step, and the steps run from top to bottom.

This page covers running, cycling, and swimming endurance steps. For exercises and sets, use the Strength Workouts structure instead.

Before you begin

• Choose the exact sport before writing the workout; sport controls zone and unit interpretation.
• Configure the athlete's pace, power, or heart-rate zones before using z1, z2, and similar references.
• Decide whether each step ends by time, distance, energy, or a sensor condition.
• Use the visual builder when you do not need text-based editing.

Write each line from left to right

Each line contains up to three space-separated parts in this order:

Use at most one target in ③. A step may target pace, power, heart rate, cadence, or grade, but not several at once. Split multiple goals into separate steps or keep secondary guidance in the workout notes. work: 20m and work 20m are equivalent; the colon is optional.

① Choose the step type

Write one of these keywords first. Keywords are case-insensitive:

Use recovery for an active easy segment and rest when the instruction is to rest. The saved step type preserves that distinction for display and export.

② Add the ending condition

This determines when the step ends—by time, distance, energy, or a sensor condition. Use only one primary ending condition per line. A later power or hr value is an intensity target, not another duration.

③ Add an optional target

All after the first measure, space-separated:

Legacy aliases pwr, cad, and rpm still parse, but newly generated DSL uses full words.

DSL keywords, units, and zone tokens are case-insensitive: WORK 25M HR Z2 parses the same as work 25m hr z2. Saved or regenerated text is normalized to lowercase keywords.

If you want to reference the athlete's current zones instead of locking exact values, use:

work 25m hr z2
work 10m power z4
work 20m pace z2

These mean "execute against the athlete's current Z2 / Z4 range." If zones change later, the system can interpret the workout with the new ranges. Use explicit values like hr 140-150bpm, power 220-250W, or pace 4:30-4:45 when you want to lock the target.

Keep the first duration rule separate from targets:

work hr<150bpm
work 25m hr <150bpm

The first line ends when HR crosses the rule and cannot add another target. The second line lasts 25 minutes and uses HR 150 bpm as a ceiling.

repeat: same mini-block, many times

repeat 4 {
  work 4m power 270W
  recovery 2m
}

• repeat 4 runs the enclosed steps four times.
• The two lines inside the braces form one round. This example creates four rounds of 4 minutes at 270 W followed by 2 minutes of recovery. Some builds also let you close with end / endrepeat instead of }—use the form accepted by the current editor.

You can also repeat until a condition is reached:

repeat until 30m {
  work 4m power 270W
  recovery 2m
}

repeat until cadence<80rpm {
  work 30s power 300W
  recovery 30s
}

repeat until accepts time, distance, calories, heart rate, power, and cadence conditions. Nested repeats are intentionally rejected. An integration that cannot represent a condition must report it as unsupported or explicitly degraded instead of silently changing the workout.

Example 1: run

warmup 5m
work 20m pace 7:20-8:20/km
recovery 90s
work 3km
cooldown 5m

• warmup 5m: five easy minutes.
• work 20m pace …: twenty minutes main work, ~7:20–8:20 / km.
• recovery 90s: ninety seconds easy.
• work 3km: three km of work, not another 20 minutes.
• cooldown 5m: five minutes easy to finish.

Top to bottom = session order.

Example 2: bike

work 8m power 220-250W
recovery 2m
work 5m hr 150-160bpm

• Line 1: eight minutes, 220–250 W.
• Line 2: two minutes easy, nothing else.
• Line 3: five minutes, HR 150–160.

Example 3: four intervals

repeat 4 {
  work 4m power 270W
  recovery 2m
}

Four times: hard 4 min @ ~270 W, then easy 2 min. Without repeat you’d paste those two lines four times.

Validate and save

1. Select Rules in the workout editor.
2. Enter or paste the DSL.
3. Use the parse/preview action before saving when it is available.
4. Compare the normalized text and visual preview with the intended step order.
5. Save the workout, reopen it, and confirm the sport, duration, repeat count, and target.

Saved text may be normalized to lowercase keywords and canonical units. Normalization is expected; a change in workout meaning is not.

Sports and DSL capabilities

Planned workouts keep an exact sport such as road running, trail running, treadmill running, road cycling, mountain biking, indoor cycling, pool swimming, or open-water swimming. Related sports still share run, cycling, or swim zones and load analysis, while exports to Suunto, Intervals.icu, and COROS prefer the exact sport mapping.

In the API, sportType is the broad family such as running, cycling, or swimming, while subSportType is the canonical subtype such as TRAIL_RUNNING or INDOOR_CYCLING.

A disabled sport in the selector means the structured editor cannot represent it without losing meaning yet. It can still be used as an activity type, and the app will not silently convert an unsupported structure into a different workout.

Verify the workout

• Every step appears in the preview in source order.
• Each line has one primary ending condition and no more than one target.
• Zone references resolve against the intended sport and athlete profile.
• Repeat blocks contain the expected steps and number or ending condition.
• Reopening the workout preserves the same structure and sport subtype.

Troubleshooting

• A line reports an unknown keyword: use a supported step type or target name and remove punctuation that is not shown in the grammar.
• A duration or distance is wrong: check the unit and position. The first measure after the step type is the ending condition.
• The parser rejects multiple targets: keep one target on the line and move secondary guidance to notes or another step.
• A threshold-duration line rejects a target: work hr<150bpm already uses heart rate as its ending condition; use work 25m hr <150bpm for a fixed-duration step with an HR ceiling.
• A repeat fails: close the braces, avoid nested repeats, and verify the repeat until condition.
• The preview changes after switching sport: zone and unit meaning depend on sport. Re-select the correct sport and review every target.
• Export reports degradation or unsupported structure: simplify only after reading the provider warning; do not assume every device supports conditional repeats.

Next steps

• Use the Manual Workout Editor for the visual and text workflows.
• Build exercise-based sessions with Strength Workouts.
• Add the saved workout to a plan through Create a Training Plan.