The Sub-7 Experiment

Tag: AI Coaching

  • The Sunday I Nearly Skipped

    And we are back. Sunday morning.

    There was ice on the car. The heating was on in the house. Everyone else was warm and cosy. It would have been very easy to stay in bed, put something on the TV and write the whole morning off as “rest.”

    Instead, I scraped the ice off the car, put my gym gear on and went.

    Same routine as the last few days: I took my WHOOP scores and fed them into ChatGPT. Recovery, strain, sleep, stress, all of it. This time the response was different. Instead of another rowing session, it came back with a strength and conditioning workout.

    The plan was very specific. Exact machines. Exact reps. Exact weights.

    There was only one problem. The weights it suggested were based on the numbers from a couple of months ago, pre-surgery, when I was training regularly and feeling stronger. I am not quite there yet.

    So I asked the obvious question: are you sure about those weights, given that we have not done this in a while?

    To its credit, Coach GPT backed off. It lowered the recommended loads to something more realistic, and in the end they felt pretty much perfect. Hard work, but not stupid.

    There was another small win before I even started. On Thursday I had left my heel wedges at the gym. I assumed they were gone. When I walked in this morning, the receptionist handed them back. Someone had found them and turned them in. A tiny thing, but it felt like a good sign.

    Session done, I finished on the rower with two 250 metre sprints. The first one was fast but messy. I got a bit carried away, my wedges slipped and my feet came out of the shoes with about 18 metres left. Almost there, not quite. The second sprint was much more controlled.

    I am counting all of this as prototyping for the wedges. When the rower finally arrives at home, I want that setup dialled in so I can just strap in and go.

    Right now the car thermometer says minus 0.5°C. It is still cold, but I feel great. I have a solid session in the bag, I am not wrecked, and the next job is to go home, rouse the rest of the house and get everyone out for a walk around the lake.

    Training done. Family next. A good Sunday.

    Another good session logged. This is The Sub-7 Experiment. And it continues.

  • When the Numbers Say “Go”

    Today’s session felt very different from yesterday.

    Yesterday was a “didn’t want to go” day. Recovery in the yellow, head not really in it, and a steady, controlled endurance session to keep things moving.

    Today was the opposite. All the dials were pointing in the right direction. Sleep was good. Recovery was good. Strain and stress from yesterday were reasonable. Heart rate variability looked solid. It was one of those mornings where WHOOP was basically saying, “You can do something here.”

    So I fed the stats into Coach GPT again.

    This time the plan that came back was not long and cruisy. It was a power session. A decent warm-up to get everything moving, then five 500 metre sprints on the rower. Each one at a set pace, hard enough to demand focus but not so fast that form would fall apart. Tunes on, eyes on the monitor, simple structure.

    It felt great.

    Every interval was controlled. No wild spikes, no heroic last-gasp strokes, just repeatable effort. By the fifth rep I knew I had worked, but I was nowhere near the point of dreading the next one or wanting to lie down on the floor.

    That is the thread running through these last two days. Yesterday, the plan was to turn up and not overdo it. Today, the plan was to lean in a little and build some power. In both cases, the decision came from the mix of WHOOP data and what Coach GPT built on top of it.

    I walked out of the gym feeling strong, not wrecked. I feel like I have done something meaningful, and I am ready to get on with the rest of the day at work.

    This is The Sub-7 Experiment. And it continues.

  • Trusting the Data on a ‘Meh’ Day

    I have just come out of the gym after my first proper session in a while. Last week was a family trip to London, which was brilliant, but it knocked me out of my routine.

    This morning was one of those days where I really did not fancy going at all. WHOOP had my recovery in the yellow. Sleep was fine, stress and strain yesterday were nothing dramatic, but I still felt flat. It would have been very easy to decide that today was not a gym day and leave it at that.

    Instead, I tried the new approach I have been talking about. I took my WHOOP numbers and dropped them into ChatGPT. In return, I got a clear session plan with target figures that matched how my body was supposed to feel on a “medium” day.

    The structure was simple. Five minutes of warm up at a set pace to get moving. Then three blocks of 2,000 metres on the rower, again at a set pace. Nothing heroic. Just long, steady, repeatable work.

    On paper it looked almost too easy, especially with that “you should probably train” yellow score. In reality it was exactly what I needed. Each 2,000 metres felt long and cruisy. Hard enough that I knew I was doing something, nowhere near the point of blowing up. By the end of the third block I felt like I had trained, but I did not feel broken.

    The bigger difference was in my head. I walked into the gym tired and not really in the mood. I walked out feeling lighter and quietly pleased with myself. The combination of WHOOP data and ChatGPT as coach gave me just enough structure to get over the hump of not wanting to start.

    It is early days for this experiment, but right now it has promise. If this is what a “didn’t want to go” day can look like, I am curious to see what happens on the days when I actually feel ready.

    This is The Sub-7 Experiment.

  • So. What’s The Experiment?

    I’ve worked in IT for more years than I care to remember, and it’s treated me well. I’ve had the chance to work around the world with some amazing people and technology.

    Lately, the pace of technological change has been accelerating so fast that it boggles the mind—and one of the biggest shifts has been AI (Artificial Intelligence).

    I’m not an AI expert, but I’d call myself an AI hobbyist. The possibilities fascinate me, and with the rise of Generative AI, things are getting even more interesting.

    What is Generative AI?

    You’ve probably heard of ChatGPT. Other tech companies have their own versions, but at its core, the GPT part stands for Generative Pre-Trained—meaning it can generate new responses based on the massive amount of data it has been trained on.

    And the Chat part? That’s where the real magic happens. Unlike traditional AI systems, anyone can talk to it in normal language. No coding, no technical knowledge—just type a question, and it responds.

    But how does it actually work?

    The best analogy I’ve come across is this:

    Imagine every person on the planet has a parrot on their shoulder. That parrot listens to everything they say and remembers the patterns. Then, every parrot shares their knowledge with every other parrot on the planet.

    Now, if you ask your parrot “How are you today?”, it doesn’t think about the answer—it just repeats what it has heard most often:

    “I’m very well, thank you. How are you?”

    It’s not true intelligence, just pattern recognition on a massive scale.

    So… Who is My Coach?

    My coach is ChatGPT.

    • It helps structure my training and keeps me accountable.
    • It refines my blog posts, making them clearer while keeping them mine.
    • It helps me reflect on progress without getting lost in my own head.

    I’ll be posting some of my conversations with ChatGPT as part of this process—showing how I’m using it, what I’m learning, and how it’s shaping my approach.

    Is It Cheating?

    No.

    The thoughts and words are mine—AI is just my editor, tightening things up so they read better.

    And AI isn’t the one sitting on the rowing machine. I am. I will get that sub-7-minute 2,000 meters. This is The Sub-7 Experiment.