Ranks you have to earn
Each reward here is tied to something you logged: a workout you finished, a full day of food, a lift that went up. Opening the app earns nothing, and a hamstring rank comes from hamstring training you logged.
A level number for the XP you earn
XP comes from things you log: finishing a workout, logging a full day of food, weighing in, hitting a PR, completing a weekly check-in, finishing a challenge, and posting to the community. Each level costs more XP than the one before.
A level is a number and nothing more. Level 5 means 1,213 XP. It makes no claim about how long you have trained: you tell MuscleBuddy your experience at signup, and your program reads that. A workout is worth 50 XP and a fully logged day of food 30, so the first few levels come fast. Level 13 takes 8,760 XP, and the number keeps climbing after it.
Your level shows on your profile, on your posts and on any leaderboard you appear on.
A rank per muscle, computed from your lifts
XP counts how often you train and says nothing about the muscles you skip, so MuscleBuddy also ranks each muscle on its own: chest, biceps, triceps, forearms, quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves, adductors, abductors, abs, obliques, traps and neck, with front, side and rear delts and your lats, erectors and mid-back ranked separately instead of as "shoulders" and "back".
Each lands on a tier (Wood, Stone, Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Legend, with Dirt before you have logged anything) from three weighted inputs: how often you trained that muscle over the last twelve weeks (30%), how much volume you put on it relative to your bodyweight (40%), and whether the lifts that train it are going up (30%).
You can be Gold on chest and Iron on hamstrings, and the diagram shows it. Coaches read it in program reviews to decide where volume goes. Recompute it from the same training data and you get the same rank.
Six nutrition ranks, same idea
Nutrition has six ranks on the same Wood-to-Legend tiers: overall nutrition, protein, supplement consistency, body composition, health tracking and micronutrient coverage.
Overall nutrition scores the last 30 days on four parts: how close each logged day came to your calorie, protein, carb and fat targets (40%), how many days you logged (25%), food quality from fiber, diet quality and micronutrients (20%), and whether your intake pointed the way your goal needs (15%). Each part counts for less when you have logged fewer days, so a handful of perfect days cannot max it out. Protein has its own rank as well, since it matters most for muscle.
The other four cover supplements taken as planned, weigh-ins and measurements kept up, bloodwork and check-ins recorded, and micronutrients against daily targets. Coaches see all six on a client's dashboard and can work on the weakest.
A gym for your buddy to stand in
Your ranks shape your figure, and your equipment list furnishes a room for it: a small diorama of your gym on your profile, with your Muscle Buddy standing in it.
The room grows with tenure alone, from a corner to a garage, a basement and then a warehouse, based on lifetime sessions and the number of separate weeks you have trained. It does not shrink for a bad month, an injury or a layoff. Your figure and the leaderboards show how strong you are; the room shows how long you have been training.
Visitors see equipment silhouettes and how long you have trained. They do not see your gym's name, where it is, your equipment list or what you lift there. One toggle turns the room off.
Streaks, challenges, and leaderboards
Separate streaks count consecutive days of training, food logging and check-ins. Your workout streak ends when you miss a day your program schedules for training; a scheduled rest day or a logged trip keeps it going, and you get one streak freeze a month for anything else.
Challenges are competitions you opt into, such as a streak, a volume total, a PR on one lift or a bodyweight change inside a window. One rule scores every entrant, the board updates as you log, and finishing pays XP.
Leaderboards are global by default. You can narrow one to the people you follow, or, if you train at home, to other home-gym lifters in your area; that board appears only once enough people are on it that no one can be singled out. Rank by XP, volume lifted, PRs or nutrition consistency. Muscle ranks have a board of their own.
Frequently asked
- Is gamification free, or behind the Pro tier?
All of it is free: every rank, level, streak and achievement, plus the gym scene your buddy stands in. Pro adds coaching and analytics and has no effect on where you place on a board.
- Can I turn off gamification?
Yes, in layers. Leave any leaderboard (training, nutrition, health) from Settings → Privacy & data, which takes you off that board immediately. Turn off "Show level, streak, PR count and badges" in the same place to drop those four off your public profile while keeping your posts and follower counts visible. Everything keeps being computed in the background, so nothing is lost if you turn it back on; setting your whole profile to Nobody hides all of it at once.
- How is XP earned?
From things you log: completed workouts, full days of food logging, weigh-ins, PRs, weekly check-ins, finished challenges and community posts. Opening the app earns nothing.
- How are muscle ranks calculated?
Training frequency over the last twelve weeks (30%), volume relative to your bodyweight (40%), and progression on the lifts that train it (30%). The total places you on one of nine tiers, Wood through Legend.
- Do leaderboards show my real name?
Only if you want them to. You set your display name, whether that is your real name or a handle, and you can stay off leaderboards entirely.
Earn ranks from the training you log
XP, ranks, streaks, challenges and leaderboards are free, and each is earned from what you log.