I wanted something better than Notes.

What I needed was something much more direct.

I wanted to set up my routine once, using a simple structure:

And from that point on, I didn’t want to have to think about it anymore.

I open the app and it should tell me what is next. Workout A, start. Next time, Workout B, start.

That way I don’t even have to remember which workout I did last or what I’m supposed to do today. The app should remember that for me.

The same applies inside the workout.

When I get to an exercise, I want the sets to already be there, either with the values I originally entered when I created the program or directly with the values I used the previous time.

Basically, when it’s time to do that exercise, I want what I did last time to be literally right there in front of me.

If I’m doing the same thing today, I just complete the set.

If something changes, I update the value.

And most importantly, I didn’t want to constantly use the keyboard.

During a workout, most changes are tiny anyway. You add a set, do one or two more reps, increase the weight by a couple of kilos.

I wanted to be able to do all of that with one finger, quickly, while holding the phone however I happen to be holding it between sets.

I had a similar problem with workout history in pretty much every app I tried.

I’ve always hated how they tend to fill everything with charts, statistics and metrics. You open a screen and sometimes it’s not even clear what you’re supposed to be looking at anymore. At least to me, half of the information often feels like it’s there just to fill the app.

I wanted something much simpler.

I wanted to understand which direction my training was moving in.

So I decided to focus mainly on tonnage, together with weight and volume, giving me just a few useful numbers to understand how my training is progressing.

I’ve already been training for years and I have my own routine.

I don’t want AI getting in the way and telling me how to train. I don’t want automatically generated programs, and I’m not interested in turning everything into gamification.

I want to train.

And I want the app to take things out of my head, not put more things into it.

So, unfortunately, at some point I decided to build the thing I wanted myself.

That’s how Raout started.

I say “unfortunately” because by now it has stolen a fairly ridiculous number of nights from me. I build it after work, in the evenings and on weekends.

Obviously, I’m completely biased. I built the thing.

But at the same time, I also consider myself an extremely demanding user and, honestly, a bit of a pain in the ass about small details.

I actually use Raout to train, so every little thing that slows me down or annoys me eventually ends up under the microscope.

And I still believe I can’t be the only person who wants something like this.

Over time I’ve added quite a few features and a lot of small refinements that users have asked for, but I always try to evaluate them through one very simple question first:

“Does this make training easier, or does it make the app heavier?”

If a feature gives you more possibilities but at the same time makes the basic act of opening the app, training and logging what you did less immediate, then for me it’s probably not worth it.

When a request does make sense, I try to ship it as quickly as I can, because one of the things I care about most is making workout tracking less annoying for the other people using Raout too.

The app works offline and syncs your data to the server when a connection is available.

I’ve also tried to keep as much freedom as possible in the free version.

Of course, servers, the domain and everything else needed to keep the project running cost money, without even considering all the time I put into it.

I’m also extremely against ads inside apps.

It’s one of my weird kinks, lol.

So I preferred to avoid that model completely and instead try to keep the premium pricing low and, in my opinion, fair.

The goal is pretty simple: cover the costs of keeping the project alive and, maybe, every now and then, pay for a dinner as compensation for all the nights Raout has stolen from me :D

At the end of the day, that’s why Raout exists.

Not because I thought the world simply needed another fitness app.

I needed something that kept the speed and freedom of Notes, but could remember for me what I’m supposed to do, what I did last time, and with which values.

Something that helps me track my workouts without turning workout tracking into yet another source of stress in my life.