The VBTcoach velocity logbook is a great tool to help you save and review your velocity based training data, but let’s be realistic, its a little cumbersome to be swapping back and forth between the Metric VBT app and Google sheets all session long.
It’s even more cumbersome to be bringing your laptop into the gym for your workouts!
Luckily there is a solution. In just a couple of steps and with a little help from the image text reader, Apple Shortcuts, and a nifty little code snippet you can very quickly have your training data automatically pushed across to your logbook with just a quick request to Siri.
Thank you Quinn!
All the credit goes to one of our earliest Metric Beta testers Quinn, for building this super cool functionality, great lateral thinking and incredible skills to build this automation into the Velocity Logbook.
Here is how to do it
Watch the video or read the instructions below, whichever you prefer.
To set up this shortcut you will need three things.
- The MetricVBT app installed on your phone →
- Your own copy of the VBTcoach Velocity Logbook v2.0 (get your free copy when you join the VBTcoach newsletter at the bottom of this page)
- The Apple Shortcuts app installed on your phone →
Step 1: Authorise the code snippet on your copy of the Velocity logbook.
This is best done on a laptop or desktop computer.
When you first open your logbook, go into extensions → app scripts via the top menu, this shows the code snippets.
From here with MetricVBT integration selected in the left panel hit the deploy button in the top right of the screen. This opens a modal allowing you to customise how the code will work.
Click the gear icon and select Web app. Change the Who has access field setting to Anyone. This will allow the shortcuts app on your phone to read and write data into your logbook.
You will now be asked to authorise access → confirm which Gmail account. This will then present an alert saying Google hasn’t verified this app. Click on Advanced and select Go to MetricVBT Integration (unsafe), then press allow.
The code snippet will not pull or save any data outside of your spreadsheet, it simply needs permission for the shortcuts app to send data into the sheet from Metric.
The final stage within the App Script is to copy the Web App URL. You will need this URL on your phone for the next step, so send it to yourself via notes or a messaging app then proceed to step 2.
Step 2: Setting up the Shortcut.
This step it to be done on the iOS device you will be using to run MetricVBT and record your training with.
To begin, make sure the Shortcuts app is installed on your phone and open the shortcut URL on your mobile phone.
This link is found in your emails when you join the VBTcoach newsletter and download the velocity logbook.
This should take you directly to the shortcuts app, preparing to set up your MetricVBT integration.
On the setup page in shortcuts, there are three things to do.
- Paste the URL that was generated at the end of step 1. This tells the shortcut what Google Sheets document to send the data too.
- Confirm the name of the sheet you want the data to be pushed into within the logbook. DO NOT CHANGE FROM THE DEFAULT, this will only work if your sheet is named Individual Logbook (the shortcut is not set up to work for the groups logbook)
- Finally, customise the notifications you want to receive during your training as True or False. True metrics will be shown in the notification, while false metrics are not shown.
Note: Having the PR metrics set to True will add a delay to the time taken for your notification to show (3-6 seconds). Be patient waiting for your notification to come through.
Step 3: Customise the shortcut for your phone.
Now we need the shortcut to be as low friction as possible, as close to automatic as possible. There are two speedy ways to run the shortcut, the first is with a Siri request, the second via an Accessibility → Touch setup.
Let’s start with the Touch option.
On your iPhone go into Settings → Accessibility → Touch → Back tap
Inside Back tap you have the option to set up a double or triple tap shortcut. Choose double tap and scroll down to your shortcuts and find Send to Velocity Logbook.
Now, every time you double tap the back surface of your phone it will trigger this shortcut to run; asking you for an RPE, taking a screenshot of the Metric data, read your velocity data in the screenshot, and send your results across to the logbook!
A few moments later Shortcuts will display your chosen training data in a notification pulled directly from your VBTcoach Velocity Logbook.
The Siri option is even easier, all you have to do (with Siri enabled on your phone), is with the set summary page open in Metric say “Hey Siri, Send to the Velocity Logbook” and Siri should then run the shortcut for you!
Siri is set up to detect and understand the name of your shortcuts, so feel free to rename the shortcut to something shorter or personalised to you. Mine is “Hey Siri, how did I go?” (I named the shortcut “How did I go”). You can do this by pressing the three dot menu button on the shortcut and then tapping on the Shortcut name at the top of the screen.
On my phone I have both the Siri and back tap options enabled, so I have redundancy if Siri isn’t fully onboard or the gym music is too loud!
!Important! Screen view when running the shortcut
When you run the shortcut, you must be inside the MetricVBT app with the Set Review screen scrolled all the way to the top. The easiest way to tell this is by the size of the 'Set Review' heading. It should be large are left aligned. With the screen in this setting the shortcut should run as expected.
Future MetricVBT app updates
We are busy working on integrating the logbook functionality and data storage features into the Metic App natively, so soon all of the features that can be found in the velocity logbook will be automatic and beautifully integrated directly into the MetricVBT app.
For now, this handy little work around should speed up your training flow.
Any questions please reach out on Twitter or Instagram, I am happy to help!