Coaching on orcatrain

Coaching on orcatrain is a direct connection between one lifter and one coach: the lifter names the coach they want, and once the coach has accepted, that coach can review the lifter’s logged workouts. A lifter has exactly one coach at a time, or none, and the connection only ever exists because the lifter created it themselves — nobody can add themselves as a lifter’s coach, and nobody can put a lifter onto a coach’s roster without that lifter having asked for it. A coach’s ability to see a lifter’s training comes entirely from the lifter’s own choice to connect them, and it lasts only as long as that choice stands.

A coaching connection shares the connected lifter’s list of logged sessions: for each session, its date, the lifter’s own notes, and how many sets it contained. It shares nothing more than that. A coach does not see the individual exercises, weights or reps inside a session, does not see the lifter’s bodyweight log, and does not see their profile — only the shape and cadence of the lifter’s training, and the notes they chose to write. And a coach sees none of this until the connection has been accepted: while a connection is still a pending request it grants the coach no access at all. A lifter who has not connected a particular coach is completely invisible to them — on orcatrain a training log is private to its owner by default, and a coach only ever sees a lifter who has deliberately connected them and whom the coach has accepted.

A lifter connects a coach by naming that coach’s account, which sends the coach a connection request. Until the coach accepts, the request is pending and grants the coach nothing; accepting is what turns the connection on. Because a lifter has a single coach slot, naming a new coach replaces the old connection rather than adding a second, so there is only ever one coach who can see a lifter’s training. A lifter can remove their coach at any time, without needing the coach’s agreement, and doing so ends the coach’s access immediately — the connection is gone and the coach can no longer read that lifter’s workouts. Removing a coach the lifter has already removed is harmless and simply leaves them with no coach.

A coach gets a roster: the list of lifters who have connected them, with pending requests shown separately from lifters the coach has already accepted. The coach decides each request — they can accept a lifter, decline a request, or later drop a lifter they had accepted, and declining or dropping removes the connection entirely from both sides. For each connected lifter, the coach can review the sessions that lifter has logged, as described above, and can assign a training program to them — a copy of one of the coach’s own programs is placed into the connected lifter’s account. A coach can do these things only for lifters who have connected them and whom they have accepted, and nothing at all for anyone who has not.