What can ChatGPT do for training today?
A good deal more than the version researchers tested in 2023. Five features on OpenAI's help pages, read on 16 October 2026, matter for anyone training:
- Memory. When it is on, ChatGPT can remember relevant preferences and details from your chats and other available sources, so you spend less time explaining your Tuesday club night again. OpenAI says it does not keep every detail, and you can review, correct or delete what it remembers. OpenAI: Memory in ChatGPT
- Projects. A project keeps related chats, files and instructions together, so a training project can hold your plan, your notes and how you want answers written, and you can start on one device and continue on another. OpenAI: Projects in ChatGPT
- Scheduled tasks. ChatGPT can run one-time or recurring tasks and monitor for changes, and tell you by push notification, email or both. A weekly check-in is the obvious training use. OpenAI: Scheduled tasks in ChatGPT
- ChatGPT Images. It creates an image you describe, on the web, iOS and Android, and can edit one you upload. OpenAI: Images in ChatGPT
- Health, in the US. For eligible, logged-in users aged 18 or older, on the web and iOS, Health can connect Apple Health (which needs an iPhone) and use it to inform answers, for example how sleep, activity and workouts relate to your routine. OpenAI's page says ChatGPT only reads that data; it does not write back to it. OpenAI: Health in ChatGPT
You can also hold a voice conversation instead of typing, on the web and in the phone apps (OpenAI: ChatGPT Voice). Put together, ChatGPT can remember who you are, keep your training in one place and nudge you on a schedule. That is more than a list on a page, and it is fair to say so.
How good are its own plans?
Two peer-reviewed studies give a fair picture, one on plans and one on answers. Both tested versions older than today's.
Plans: rated below optimal, better with more detail
Peter Düking and colleagues asked ChatGPT (version 3.0.1, on 23 May 2023) for a six-week plan for a fictional 20-year-old male runner, three times: once with no details at all, once with his age, his two weekly runs and his aim, and once with his heart rate, his health, a numeric goal and the testing kit he had, followed by questions to refine it. Ten coaching experts, averaging seven years of coaching in endurance sports, rated every plan on 22 criteria drawn from the literature.
The overall plan scored a median of 2, 3 and 4 out of 5, from the barest request to the most detailed, and the detailed plan beat the bare one on 15 of the 22 criteria. The authors' summary: the plans are rated sub-optimal, quality rises with more input, and ChatGPT does not cover parts of a coach's job such as motivation, monitoring and adjusting the plan. They advise against using its plans without an expert coach's feedback.
Answers: rated above personal trainers
Brecht D'hoe and colleagues collected the questions nine working personal trainers (European qualification level 4) hear most, such as how often you need to train for it to work, along with each trainer's own answer. They put each question once to ChatGPT (version 3.5, default settings, no extra context). Eighteen personal trainers and nine topic experts then rated both sets of answers for scientific correctness, actionability and comprehensibility.
ChatGPT's answers scored higher overall on six of the nine questions, and the trainers' answers scored higher on none. The authors read the result as exploratory, because they recruited fewer trainers than they had planned.
In these tests, ChatGPT (version 3.5) was strong on the questions trainers hear most, version 3.0.1 was fair at a first plan, and the plan improved the more it was told. Neither study followed a plan past the day it was written, into a week where a match moves. That week is what the rest of this page is about.
What does it not do by itself?
A chatbot knows what you tell it; keeping the plan right as your week moves is the part you carry. Memory and tasks make that easier to carry. Four things a training week needs are not described on the OpenAI pages we read on 16 October 2026:
- Rebuilding a calendar plan when your week moves. A scheduled task can remind you or check for changes on a schedule, but the pages do not describe ChatGPT keeping a training calendar of its own. You tell it what moved, it rewrites the week in the chat, and you keep track of which version is current. A plan that cannot see Saturday's match can put hard legs on Friday.
- Counting a class as training. ChatGPT can plan around your Thursday class when you describe it in a chat. The OpenAI pages we read describe no setting that keeps a class in your week as training already done.
- Running the session. The pages do not describe guiding you through a workout one step at a time, with sets, rest and left and right sides.
- Putting sessions on your watch. Health reads Apple Health for eligible US users. Sending a workout to a watch is not described.
None of that makes the plan wrong on the day you write it. It means the plan is only as current as the last thing you told it. What to do in the gym the day before a match has its own page.
Not stated means we searched OpenAI's help centre for class, timetable, race, coach, workout, fitness, human and person and found nothing either way, not that ChatGPT cannot do it.
If you use ChatGPT anyway, what should you tell it?
Düking's study makes the case for detail: the barest request scored a median of 2 out of 5 and the most detailed one 4. So give it the facts a coach would ask for, in your own words. This is a checklist, not a prompt to paste:
- Every sport and class you do, which days they fall on, how long they last and how hard they feel.
- Which of those are fixed, like a league fixture or a class timetable, and which can move.
- Your goal, and its date if there is one, such as a race or the start of a season.
- How many other days you can train, for how long, and the kit you have.
- Anything that hurts. A chatbot is not a clinician: for pain that lasts or gets worse, see a physio or doctor first.
Then keep it current. This is where the features above earn their place:
- Keep your training in one project, with your sports and goal written into its instructions, so every chat starts from the same facts.
- Set a weekly scheduled task that asks what moved: a fixture, a late night, a niggle.
- When something changes, say so straight away, and ask it to list exactly which sessions it changed and why.
- Have a qualified coach look the plan over if you can. That is the advice of Düking and colleagues.
What does Smash Coach plan?
Smash Coach starts from the other end: you add your sports and classes, and with Pro or during your trial your coach plans around them instead of on top of them. As the help centre describes them:
- Your sports and classes. Add a sport under You, SPORTS STACK, + ADD, and with Pro or during your trial your coach plans around it instead of on top of it. A class from GROUP CLASSES counts as training you have done, so with Pro or during your trial your coach adjusts what it gives you instead of adding on top; it starts on Fixed days, because a timetable decides when it happens. Add a sport or a class
- Changes when your week does. With Pro or during your trial, your plan is rewritten when something real changes, such as a sport you add or an injury you report, never on a timer. A session you move stays where you put it. When your plan changes
- A coach that knows your week. With Pro or during your trial, chat with your AI coach, which already knows your week. A change arrives on a card, and nothing reaches your plan until you tap Confirm. Tap the microphone to talk instead of typing; nothing is sent until you send it. Your coach keeps short notes about durable things you tell it, and you can read and delete every one under You, Settings, Collected personal data. What you can ask, Talk instead of typing
- Sessions written close to their day, with Pro or during your trial, so each one reflects how the days before it went. Mark a session done with an effort rating from one to ten and a note; the help centre calls the rating the single strongest signal your coach has about how the plan is landing. Mark a workout done, A session still being written
- The session itself. Workout mode walks you through one step at a time, counting sets and rest, with left and right sides as separate steps. Exercises are shown as clean illustrations: the movement on a plain background, with nothing extra. The team is exploring video and moving images. Workout mode, Exercise illustrations
- Reminders. Turn on notifications for a morning note with the day's plan and an evening check-in when a session is still open. Turn on notifications
Which should you choose?
Our view is that Smash Coach is the right choice for an athlete who does more than one sport, because it plans one week around every sport and class you do, with Pro or during your trial. With Pro or during your trial it also has a coach you can talk to and changes the plan when life does, and it shows each exercise as a clear illustration. That balance of features and simplicity is our view too, and you may weigh it differently.
For a quick training question, ChatGPT is where we would go: D'hoe's study gave version 3.5 the edge over working trainers on common questions. The same goes for anything outside training, since Smash Coach's coach stays inside training by design. Who ChatGPT suits, in one line: Someone who wants quick answers and a reasonable first plan, and is happy to keep it current by telling it what changed.
What Smash Coach lacks, plainly. There are no human coaches: your coach is AI, and feedback you send reaches a person, not a queue. Garmin is the only watch it works with. HYROX is the race you can add today, with ATHX, DEKA, GYMRACE and running races from 5K to the marathon coming soon. It installs from the website to your home screen, not from the app stores. And it shows illustrations, not videos yet.
Weighing a person instead? AI coach or personal trainer covers that choice. A runner should read Runna and Smash Coach, and every comparison starts from the same criteria.