What's new
New exercises and grading improvements shipping in CalmArms, newest at the top.
October 2026
Single-leg lifts stop getting graded on your elbows.- Fixed
Stiff-leg deadlift stops flagging your back on clean reps
On the stiff-leg deadlift, the back check was stricter than on a regular RDL, even though a stiff-leg hinges just as deep. A clean rep could get the red back warning and lose about 10 points. It now uses the same back check as the RDL, so the warning is for real rounding, not a normal deep hinge.
- Improved
Stiff-leg deadlift: stopping at the knees is a full rep
The grading was expecting you to hinge well past your knees, so a clean stiff-leg rep that stopped at the knees lost range points and got the "bar stopping above the knees" cue. Taking the bar to your knees now counts as full range.
- Improved
Tempo on RDLs and stiff-legs counts every rep
Your descent speed was only being timed on reps that went extra deep, so your tempo score jumped around depending on depth. Now every rep that reaches a normal bottom gets timed, so tempo stays steady from rep to rep.
- Fixed
Single-leg lifts stop getting graded on your elbows
On the single-leg leg extension, leg curl, calf raise and RDL, part of your grade was coming from how still your elbow stayed, which has nothing to do with the lift. That part is gone, so your grade is about your leg and your reps.
September 2026
One-arm lifts stay on the arm you're actually working.- Fixed
One-arm lifts stay on the arm you're working
On single-arm work like a dumbbell row, the app could switch mid-set and start grading your resting arm instead. It usually happened in a dim gym, where the arm doing the work is the harder one to see. Now it locks onto your working arm once you start repping, so your grade is about the arm that actually lifted.
August 2026
Overhead tricep extension grades right again.- Fixed
Leg extension counts your reps even when the machine hides your foot
On the leg extension machine, the seat pad and your other leg block the camera's view of your ankle, and the app leans on your ankle to read each rep, so it would freeze up and only log a couple reps of a full set. It now keeps counting through the blocked view, so your whole set actually registers.
- Fixed
Overhead tricep extension grades right again
Filming the overhead tricep from the side hides part of your working arm, and the app had started throwing out those hard-to-see reps, so it was handing you harsh grades and quietly not counting the set toward your bests. It now trusts that camera angle again: you get a real grade on your reps, and a strong set sets a personal best like it used to.
- Fixed
Pec deck stops crying imbalance from the camera angle
Filming the pec deck from a front 45° angle makes your far arm look shorter than your near arm even when you're pressing dead even, and the app was reading that as a left-right imbalance. So it flashed a scary 'fix this to avoid injury' warning on clean even reps and shaved a few points off the grade. It now scores the pec deck on the arc it can actually see (your stretch and squeeze), so an even set isn't dinged for the camera angle.
July 2026
Single-arm lat pulldown grading fixed.- Fixed
Single-arm lat pulldown stopped failing clean reps
Clean side-view reps were landing Fs because the grading was watching your shoulder while the score expected your elbow, and it docked you for the shoulder movement and elbow travel this exercise is supposed to have. The whole grade now tracks the actual pull: your hand going from arms-overhead down to face level.
June 2026
Bench press, squats, and floor-pull deadlifts now in the catalog.- Improved
Barbell lifts no longer get a free 'balance' score
On two-arm lifts like bench, shoulder press, and squat, the symmetry score used to be handed out as an automatic 100: about 15% of your grade you got for free no matter how lopsided the rep was. Now that part of the grade is shared out across the things we can actually see (your angles, range, and tempo), so a clean rep earns its A on real form and a lopsided one can't hide behind a freebie. Single-arm exercises are unchanged: their symmetry is genuinely measured.
- Improved
Grinding one rep forever no longer scores perfect tempo
Slow, controlled reps still earn full tempo marks: eccentric work and rehab-paced reps are completely safe, all the way up to about 2.5x a normal rep speed. But stalling out and resting mid-rep used to read as 'perfectly controlled' and bank free tempo points. Now, past that point, your tempo score slides down the longer you stall, and a true 20-second-per-rep grind drops all the way to a poor tempo score, the same as a rep done with pure momentum. A genuine slow rep is rewarded; parking and resting isn't.
- Fixed
Bench press is now graded on its own settings
Bench press was quietly falling back to the app's generic grade weights instead of a setup tuned for the lift. It now grades on what actually matters on a bench (your press path and elbow angle, how far you lower to your chest and lock out, and your tempo) instead of a one-size-fits-all default.
- Improved
Half-reps can't sneak a high grade anymore
Cutting a rep short used to mostly cost you on range of motion while the rest of your grade stayed high, so a half-rep could still land a B. Now, when you don't take a rep through most of its range, your form score gets pulled down to match. Go about 85% of the way or more and nothing changes. Come up well short and a true half-rep lands around a C instead of a B. Limited-range reps still earn partial credit (it's a slope, not a cliff), but you can't bank a near-full grade on a rep you didn't finish.
- Improved
Sloppy reps now grade like sloppy reps on every exercise
We tightened the grading so a lazy rep scores like a lazy rep no matter what you're doing. Leg machines were the worst offender (they used to hand out an A almost no matter how you moved), so a sloppy leg extension now grades on the same scale as a sloppy shoulder press. Clean reps still earn their A (and your phone can still sit on the floor or a bench; clean reps are protected from the camera angle), but half-reps and rushed, drifting form actually show up in the number now instead of getting buried under near-automatic points.
- New
Bench press is now graded
The bench press joined the catalog: barbell and dumbbell, flat and incline. Set the camera to the side in landscape and the app reads your press: how far you lower the bar to your chest, how far you press to lockout, your tempo, and whether you're actually at the bench angle you picked. Dumbbell sets also grade left-vs-right evenness; barbell sets ease up on that since the bar locks your hands together.
- New
Conventional, sumo, and trap bar deadlifts are now graded
The deadlift family grew past the RDL variants: conventional, sumo, and trap bar floor pulls are now supported. Unlike the RDLs, these grade your knees too: the grading expects them to bend to reach the bar and extend to lockout, instead of staying soft-locked, so a real floor pull no longer loses points for normal knee bend. Sumo leans on hip drive and full lockout since the wide stance hides exact knee angle from a side camera; trap bar is graded as the most squat-like pull, rewarding the deeper knee bend and upright torso. Stand sideways in portrait, full body in frame.
- New
Squats are now graded
The squat family shipped: bodyweight, goblet, BB back, and BB front are all supported. The grading window adjusts per variation: BB back gets a forward-lean allowance, BB front demands a vertical torso. CC-4 back-rounding is the primary safety check on every squat rep. Stand sideways to the camera in portrait, full body in frame.
- Improved
Squat grading stopped under-marking clean reps
Pristine, lightweight squats were stuck around a mid-B because the angle score was too strict: filming from the side naturally makes your knee and hip look 12-18° off through the middle of the rep even on a perfect squat, and that was quietly capping the grade. Squats now get the same side-camera forgiveness the deadlift and leg machines already had, so a clean set lands the A it deserves while sloppy reps still get flagged.
- Fixed
Single-arm and close-grip lat pulldown now use a portrait camera
Both variations were stuck on the wide-grip landscape framing. Single-arm now uses a portrait side-view camera and grades the working arm by elbow flexion: hand goes from arms-overhead to face level. Close-grip stays back view but now portrait, which fits the narrower hand path. Wide and reverse grip keep their landscape back-view setup.
- Improved
Reverse crunch was removed from the catalog
Reverse crunch covered the same supine flexion pattern as crunch and sit-up without adding a meaningful grading signal. Dropping it keeps the core catalog tight: Crunch and Sit-Up for the supine fundamentals, Hanging Leg Raise for the harder bodyweight progression.
- Fixed
Crunch reps are now actually getting counted
Crunch grading was reading from the shoulder, which moves only 15-25 cm during a clean rep and gets partially hidden by your elbows when your hands are behind your head. It now reads from the elbows: they move further, they're always visible in the canonical hands-behind-head form, and the rep counter actually catches each rep instead of missing most of the set.
- Fixed
Lat pulldown rep counting handles off-center cameras
If your phone isn't dead-centre on the seat, the rep counter no longer double-counts your reps. Four reps now reads as four, not seven.
- Improved
Lat pulldown grading no longer penalises clean reps for camera angle
Range of motion, angle accuracy, and bilateral balance scores are all more forgiving when the camera is filming from slightly off-axis. Clean reps now land where they should instead of getting dragged into C territory by the camera angle.
- Improved
Lat pulldown ROM windows tuned per grip
Wide, close, reverse-grip, and single-arm lat pulldown now each get graded against a window that matches what that grip actually looks like: wide-grip lifters don't need to fully lock out arms overhead, close-grip gets credit for the tighter peak it can actually reach, and the single-arm setup accounts for the cross-body angle the camera can't see directly.
- Improved
Deadlift grading is stricter on lockout deviation
Heavy-rep deadlift sets where bar path drifts mid-pull now lose more grade points so the score reflects what your training partner sees.
- New
Hanging leg raise achievements
Hit milestones for clean hanging leg raise sets. Three new achievements joined the catalog.
May 2026
Tempo grading rebuilt across the whole catalog.- Improved
Tempo grading rebuilt across every exercise
A new tempo synchronizer evaluates the up-phase and down-phase of every rep against the ideal cadence for that lift, so momentum-driven sets get caught everywhere, not just on a few exercises.
- New
Single-arm dumbbell row added to the row family
A portrait-orientation single-arm DB row variation is now graded with the same five-axis system as the rest of the row catalog.
- Improved
Romanian deadlift false-positives down
A more conservative body-english check and per-variation thresholds cut the number of clean RDL reps that were being penalised as momentum cheating.
- Improved
Leg-machine exercises score more reps
Leg extension and seated leg curl thresholds were tightened so the grading engine accepts the natural range of these machines instead of demanding more depth than the seat actually allows.
Have a request for a new exercise or variation? Tell us at hello@calmarms.com.