Training planning without Excel: spreadsheets and chats compared
Many coaches plan in spreadsheets and send the plans through messaging apps. It is flexible and familiar, but with several athletes it quickly becomes hard to keep track. This comparison shows where it gets stuck, when a spreadsheet is enough and what training planning without Excel looks like in Tletify.
Spreadsheets are flexible and familiar; to plan just for yourself, they often suffice.
With several athletes, spreadsheet and chat get stuck: many versions, old plans, values to retype.
In Tletify, every set has a planned and an actual value, which the athlete logs.
Health information lives in the daily check and body profile, visible only with permission.
Export as PDF and CSV stays available, and the CSV opens in Excel.
Public launch on 1 January 2027; until then, join the waitlist or apply as a beta tester.
Spreadsheets and chats
What spreadsheets do well and where they get stuck
A spreadsheet in Excel or Google Sheets takes minutes to set up and gives you full freedom over columns, formulas and colors. Almost anyone can read and print it, and most people already use a messaging app such as WhatsApp. For getting started, that is often just right.
Every extra athlete adds effort. Each change creates a new version, but the old one stays in the chat and someone keeps training from it. Actual values arrive as messages, so you retype them, maintain formulas and gather plans, feedback and tests from files and chats.
Health information is the sensitive part. Pain, injuries or a cold quickly end up in the group chat, where everyone reads along and the messages sit on many personal phones. Yet data protection rules such as the GDPR treat health data as especially sensitive.
What Tletify does differently
Training planning without Excel: plan and actual values in one place
In Tletify, you build a program from sections, exercises and sets and send it to up to 20 athletes. They open it in the web app or mobile app with one account. There is no second file: you change the program itself, and its history records every change.
Every set has a planned and an actual value. In workout mode, your prescription is already in the field: the athlete confirms it or logs what they actually did. Afterward, they can rate intensity and satisfaction. Intensity and duration then give you training load for load management, with no formulas to maintain.
Health information has its own place: the daily check with sleep quality, energy level, muscle soreness and mood, and the body profile with injuries. You only see them with the athlete's explicit permission, which they can revoke at any time. Tletify documents; it does not replace a medical assessment.
Side by side
A spreadsheet alternative for coaches, task by task
The table compares typical tasks: how they usually work with a spreadsheet and chat, and how Tletify handles them for coaches on Pro or Team. Which rows matter depends on how many athletes you coach and how much comes back.
Task
Spreadsheet + chat
Tletify
Sharing the plan
File or screenshot in the chat
Sent to up to 20 athletes, in web app and app
Current version
A new version after every change
One program, changes recorded in its history
Actual values
Arrive as messages, you retype them
Athlete logs them set by set, your prescription stays
Session feedback
Free text in the chat, no fixed format
Intensity and satisfaction, optionally with a note
Analysis
You maintain formulas and charts yourself
Analysis and load metrics calculated automatically
Health information
In the group chat, everyone reads it
Daily check and body profile, only with permission
Printing and sharing
Print or send the file as it is
Export as PDF and CSV, the CSV opens in Excel
Freedom of layout
Any column, any formula, any layout
Fixed structure of sections, exercises and sets
Typical tasks; Tletify with Pro or Team, October 2026
The last two rows show where the spreadsheet stays strong: Tletify sets a structure, and not every quirk fits into it. In return, you don't maintain it yourself. See how programs and cycles work under training planning.
Switching
Switching from spreadsheets: how to get started
First, you create your programs in Tletify: from scratch, from a methodology or as a copy of a week you already planned. A methodology fills in sets, reps and rest with its average values and suggests exercises from the exercise library of more than 1,600. If one is missing, add your own.
Then bring in your athletes. A connection exists once both sides confirm, and whole groups can be picked when sending a program. With Team, you invite athletes by email as subaccounts, with contact, group and permissions set up in one step.
Start small, for example with one group or a four-week block. You don't have to give up your spreadsheet: programs as well as macro-, meso- and microcycles export as PDF and CSV, and the CSV opens in Excel.
Block templates such as EMOM 10' or Tabata 8×20/10
Week copy, optionally with progression
Templates for whole macrocycles
An honest assessment
When a spreadsheet is all you need
If you only plan for yourself and don't share anything with a coach or team, a spreadsheet often works well. The same goes if you plan few sessions, need no analysis or want a format of your own. Then software would mostly mean extra work.
Things change once several people work from the same plan and actual values, feedback and health information come back. That is what Tletify is for. It is a subscription with no free plan and a 30-day free trial from launch: Basic for your own training, Pro or Team to plan for others. See features and prices.
Questions and answers
Can I still open my plans in Excel?
Yes. Programs, cycles, tests and the analysis all export as PDF and CSV. You open the CSV in Excel or any other spreadsheet app and keep working there if you like. Tletify does not create .xlsx files.
Do I still need the group chat?
Not necessarily for training. In Tletify, messages are tied to a program, test, competition or injury, and there are group chats and announcements to a whole group. Whether you keep your old group for logistics is up to you.
Where is my athletes' data stored?
On servers in Switzerland, with encrypted transmission. Tletify uses no advertising or profiling cookies and does not sell data. You only see an athlete's daily check, body profile and analysis with their permission, which they can revoke at any time.
Does training work without an internet connection?
In the app, yes: workout mode runs offline if the program was opened online once, and logged sets are sent when the connection returns. The web app needs a connection. Prefer paper? Print the program as a PDF.
When can I start using Tletify?
Tletify launches publicly on 1 January 2027, along with the apps in the App Store and on Google Play. Until then, join the waitlist or apply as a beta tester in the preorder. From launch, there is a 30-day free trial; you add a payment method at sign-up.
