How to Use Exercise Tags Effectively

Exercise tags help you filter, program, and personalize workouts more accurately in ABC Trainerize. While tagging your custom exercises is not required, they are important to support accurate exercise substitutions and allow the AI Workout Builder to generate workouts that better align with your goals and prompts. 

This article focuses on how to tag exercises correctly, outlining the tagging logic used in the ABC Trainerize Exercise Library, so you can confidently apply it to your own custom exercises.
 

Why Exercise Tags are Important

Using tags on your custom exercises improves how exercises are searched, filtered, substituted and generated across Trainerize.

While clear and consistent naming conventions are important for identification, tags provide the structure Trainerize uses to determine relevant and context.

• Exercise names: Identifies the movement.
• Exercise tags: Determines how relevant the exercise is for a specific muscle group, level, goal, use case, etc.  

If custom exercises are not tagged (or are lightly tagged), Trainerize will rely more heavily on the fully tagged Trainerize Exercise library. Therefore, if you want greater control over how your custom exercises appear, substitute, or are selected by the AI, adding tags can make a difference.
 

Exercise Substitutions and the AI Workout Builder

The Exercise Substitution and AI Workout Builder feature rely heavily on tags to find relevant and appropriate results. If a custom exercise is missing tags or tagged incorrectly, it may: 

• Not appear as a substitution option
• Be replaced with an unrelated exercise
• Be replaced with a fully-tagged Trainerize exercise
• Not appear at all in generated workouts by the AI Workout Builder

How to Tag Custom Exercises

You can add tags to custom exercises when creating or editing a custom exercise on both web or mobile app.

Adding Exercise Tags on the Web:

1. Navigate to the Master Exercise Library from the left-hand menu.

2. Create a new exercise or edit an existing custom exercise.

3. From the pop-up window, select Add Tags.

4. Add the appropriate tags for your custom exercise.

5. Click Apply to save the tags.

Adding Exercise Tags on the Mobile App:

1. Navigate to the More tab in the bottom right corner.

2. Select Manage Exercise Library.

3. Create new custom exercise by selecting the blue + icon, or edit an existing custom exercise in your library. 

4. Select Edit next to Tags.

5. Add the appropriate tags for your custom exercise and save.

For detailed steps on creating a new custom exercise, visit:

• How to Add Custom Exercises on the Web
• How to Add Custom Exercises on the Mobile App

Exercise Tagging Best Practices

ABC Trainerize follows a consistent tagging logic across the Exercise library. Using the same approach for your custom exercises will ensure the best results. 

Core Principle

Tag what defines the exercise- not everything involved. Ask yourself: "If I filtered by this tag, would I expect this exercise to appear?" If the answer is no, don't tag it. 

For example: Squats require core stabilization, but although the abdominal muscles are working, you wouldn't expect squats to appear when filtering for ab exercises. Since abs are not the primary reason someone would choose squats, abs should not be tagged as the muscle group.

Muscle Group Tagging

Available Muscle Group Tags:

• Abductors, Abs, Adductors, Back (lower/middle), Biceps, Calves, Chest (inner/mid/upper), Forearms, Glutes, Hamstrings, Lats, Neck, Obliques, Quads, Shoulder (front/side/rear), Traps, Triceps

Rules:

• Tag primary working muscles only
• Isolation exercises: 1 muscle group
• Select 5 muscle groups at the maximum (only for true combo/multi-movement exercises)
• Do not tag secondary or stabilizing muscles 

Equipment Tagging

Available Equipment Tags:

• Balance board, Bands (handles/loops), Barbell, Battle ropes, Bench, Body weight, BOSU, Box, Cable, D-ring, Dumbbell, EZ bar, Foam roller, Jump rope, Kettlebell, Lacrosse ball, Landmine, Machine, Mat, Medicine ball, Mini band, Plate, Pull up bar, Sandbag, Slam ball, Sled, Sliders, Smith machine, Suspension, Swiss ball

Rules:

• Tag all equipment required to perform the exercise
• Tag Body weight when it is the primary resistance (e.g., Push ups)
• If an exercise is bodyweight but requires equipment, tag both (e.g., Pull ups = Pull up bar + Body weight) 
• If equipment is required, don't reply on Body weight only

Movement Tagging

Available Movement Tags:

• Alternating, Anti-extension core, Anti-rotation core, Bilateral, Contralateral, General conditioning, Hip dominant, Horizontal pull/push, Ipsilateral, Knee dominant, Mobility, Plyometrics, Static stretches, Unilateral, Vertical pull/push

Rules:

• Unilateral: One side works at a time (requires left/right versions). Especially important for interval workouts so both sides are programmed)
• Bilateral: Both sides work at the same time
• Do not choose both Hip and Knee dominant- choose one or neither. 

Mechanics Tagging

Available Mechanics Tags:

• Compound, Isolation

Rules:

• Compound: Multi-join, multi-muscle movements
• Isolation: Primarily targets one muscle group. Important for targeted muscle group workouts (e.g., bicep focused)

Level Tagging

Available Level Tags:

• Advanced, Beginner, Intermediate

Rules:

Trainerize uses a point system to determine difficulty. 1 point is added for each category that applies:

1. Compound/multi-joint movement
2. Balance or stability demand
3. External load complexity (free weights, unstable loads)
4. Technical skills/co-ordination/ complex setup
5. Power, explosiveness, or high joint load

Classification:

• Beginner: 0-1 points
• Intermediate: 2-3 points
• Advanced: 4-5 points 

Tagging Priority for Best Results

If you're unsure how many tags to add to your custom exercises or where to start, focus on adding small number of high-impact tags. 

Recommended priority:

1. Muscle Group
2. Level
3. Equipment
4. Mechanics
5. Movement

Even adding 2-3 well chosen tags per exercise can significantly improve search accuracy, substitutions and AI-generated workouts with the AI Workout Builder.

How to Bulk Add Exercise Tags

Bulk tagging allows you to add tags to multiple exercises at the same time. This is especially useful for applying consistent tags for search, substitutions, and AI generated workouts.

1. From your Master Exercise Library, select multiple custom exercises using the checkboxes. 

Tip: Use the filter icon on the right to filter by custom exercises first before selecting.

2. Select the three-dot icon menu and choose Add Tags.

3. Apply the shared tags you would like to add.

4. Click Apply to update all selected exercises at once.