Personal Trainer · Nym and Fitbod

Is Nym or Fitbod better for your first workout in two years?

After two years off, you might want to know whether a walk counts as a workout. We compared two ways to spend your 20 minutes after work: a 24-set session from Fitbod’s free web generator, and a gentle two-week plan from Ridge, the Nym on the Personal Trainer page.

Pick Fitbod if you want a library of over 1,000 exercises with videos and loads that climb from what you log. Pick Nym if your question is where to start. Start with Ridge’s four-line plan. Ask for a log to track your sets, or a check-in in week three on Plus.

The same request to both

“I have not exercised in two years and I get about 20 minutes after work. Where do I start?”

What Ridge did with it

What you get from Ridge is a two-week starting plan, three days a week, rather than a workout for tonight. You are told to “start embarrassingly easy”, and the whole plan fits in a table:

Ridge’s plan for the first two weeks, three days a week
Minutes	What you do
3	Easy walking and a few shoulder and ankle circles.
10	Brisk walk: you can talk, but you notice you’re working.
5	Two gentle rounds of 5 chair sit-to-stands, 5 wall push-ups and 10 calf raises.
2	Slow walk and breathe.

On the other days, a relaxed walk if you feel like it. Then the rules. Week three: add two minutes to the walk or one strength round, not both. Intensity: finish feeling you could have done a little more. Don’t chase soreness. Aim to walk the same route after work three times a week. And it listed when to stop (chest pressure, faintness, sharp pain, unusual shortness of breath) and who should see a doctor first. The full answer is on the Personal Trainer page.

What Fitbod does with it

With Fitbod you start from a profile rather than a question. Its gym profile asks you for a goal (Build Muscle, Get Stronger, Get Lean, Lose Weight, or general fitness), an experience level (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced), your equipment, and a workout duration anywhere from 1 minute to 4 hours. The free web generator has no duration field; filtered to Beginner and Bodyweight on 20 September 2026, this is the first of the three workouts it produced:

Fitbod’s Workout 1 for Beginner + Bodyweight, from the free web generator
Exercise	Targets	Sets
Hand release push up	Chest	5 × 6 reps
Single leg glute bridge	Glutes	3 × 30 seconds
Lunge	Quadriceps	4 × 5 reps
Prone Y’s	Back	5 × 10 reps
Cobra triceps extension	Triceps	3 × 6 reps
Bicycle crunch	Abs	4 × 8 reps

Twenty-four sets across six exercises, each with a video in the app. In the app itself you also set a duration, from 1 minute to 4 hours, and a goal, and the session is drawn from a library the site puts at over 1,000 exercises.

The same request as Fitbod gym-profile settings
Setting	Value for this request	Where it is set
Goal	General fitness (the options are Build Muscle, Get Stronger, Get Lean, Lose Weight and general fitness)	Gym profile
Experience	Beginner (the lowest of the three levels)	Gym profile
Equipment	Bodyweight Only, so every exercise comes from the weight-free part of the library	Gym profile
Duration	20 minutes, from a range of 1 minute to 4 hours	Gym profile
Split	Full Body or Fresh Muscle Groups	Gym profile
“Two years off”	No field for it. With nothing logged, every muscle group starts at 100% recovered	Not in the profile

Each muscle group carries a recovery percentage from your logged sets, and the app prioritises recovered muscles, so tomorrow’s session differs from today’s. That’s a sensible way to run a gym habit once you have one. What it doesn’t do is answer the question as asked: whether 24 sets of push ups and lunges is the right first evening after two years, or whether a brisk walk counts. Ridge started there.

Where Nym and Fitbod differ

The answer

Nym

You get a plan and the reason behind it. Start with walking and four easy movements three times a week, and here is what to change in week three.

Fitbod

Follow the generated session for six exercises and 24 sets. You can watch a video of each exercise in the app.

Where your plan comes from

Nym

Tell Ridge how long you have been away and how much time you have. For this request, the plan starts with walking so you can finish without feeling exhausted.

Fitbod

From your profile and your recovery. The algorithm favours your fresh muscle groups and adds progressive overload based on the sets you log. Your profile has no field for time away, so your first session is the same as anyone’s.

The log

Nym

Ask and your Nym builds you a log around Ridge’s plan: date, walk minutes, the three movements, one word for how it felt. Open your log inside Nym on your desktop or phone. It is a small private app with its own database, so your entries stay between visits. Change your routine and the app changes with it. Your Nym can open it and type in tonight’s sets while you’re still talking. Two apps on Free, five on Plus, so you have room for this one.

Fitbod

You log in Fitbod’s own screens, the same for everyone, and get recovery percentages and a one-rep-max estimate from the loads you enter. With an Apple Watch or Wear OS watch you log from your wrist. What you log stays in Fitbod.

Week three

Nym

You already know from Ridge: two more minutes on the walk, or one more strength round. Come back and say how week two felt, or let your Nym read the log, and your plan adjusts.

Fitbod

You keep getting sessions from the generator. Your progression comes from the loads you log, and you see each session when it arrives rather than a plan you can read ahead.

Platforms

Nym

You use Nym in the browser or in the desktop app (Mac, Windows, Linux), and any app it builds for you looks the same on your phone. Ridge’s plan is four lines you can carry in your head on the walk.

Fitbod

You use it on iOS or Android; the web is for onboarding only. The Apple Watch and Wear OS companion apps log your sets from your wrist. You pay $15.99 a month or $95.99 a year after a 7-day trial. Once the trial ends you can still read past workouts, but you need a subscription to generate or log anything. The web generator costs you nothing.

The two side by side

Nym and Fitbod from their own pages
Detail	Nym	Fitbod
Runs on	Web; desktop app (Mac, Windows, Linux)	iOS and Android; web for onboarding only; Apple Watch and Wear OS companions
Exercise library	Whatever Ridge knows, chosen for you in conversation	Over 1,000 exercises with videos
Inputs	The sentence you typed	Goal, experience, equipment, duration (1 minute to 4 hours), split, target muscles, bodyweight-only toggle
Adapts from	What you tell it next time, or what is in your log	Logged sets: recovery percentage per muscle group, one-rep-max estimate, progressive overload
Your log	A private app built around your plan; kept between visits; your Nym can fill it in	Fitbod’s own logging screens plus Apple Watch and Wear OS companions
Free	$5 in credits a month, one Nym, two personal apps	Web generator; app is a 7-day trial, then read-only past workouts
Paid	Plus, $20 a month: more credits, five apps, texting, scheduled check-ins	$15.99 a month or $95.99 a year

When to pick Fitbod instead

Fitbod is the better choice if you’re already in a gym three times a week and want what only it has: a library of over 1,000 exercises with videos, and sessions built from your recovery, with loads that climb with every set you log. Strongr Fastr’s free routine picker is a similar generator. Choose Nym when your question is where to start and you want a log built around the answer. You get no exercise video library from Nym.

By hand

On paper, you put three appointments in your diary and Ridge’s four lines beside them. Tick each one off, write one word for how it felt. That’s enough for two weeks. The point is showing up.

Next step

Read Ridge’s full answer on the Personal Trainer page, then try the workout generator on this site with the equipment you have and the minutes you can spare.

Try the workout generator · Explore Personal Trainer

Sources

Reviewed 2026-09-19. Read Ridge’s full answer on the Personal Trainer page and check Nym pricing.