Round Connect Functional · for functional training and HIIT
Everyone’s own version of the class. Heavy only when ready.
Round Connect Functional is software for HIIT classes and functional training gyms. It gives every person their own version of today’s class: fewer rounds for a newcomer, a different move for a sore shoulder. It tells the coach who isn’t recovered before the barbell, and it remembers every weight. One coach, twenty people, and nobody guessing.
Free for small studios · Works with the straps you have · Members never pay
In the room today
One plan on the whiteboard. Twenty different bodies.
A newcomer tries to keep up with the room on their first day and does far more than their body is ready for. Someone with a sore shoulder doesn’t like to ask what to do instead of the overhead press. A tired member picks up a heavy barbell before they’ve caught their breath. Nobody remembers what they lifted last time. And after three months of “just hard”, many people stop coming.
Heart-rate screens show effort. They don’t show who is new, whose shoulder hurts, or who isn’t ready for the next station.
How it works in a functional or HIIT class
Working on our test stand
- Everyone’s version of the class
- Scaling in the coach’s brief
- Readiness before heavy stations
- Remembered weights
- The next weight suggested
- Signals on the coach’s tablet
Still to come
- Rower data inside a class
- Watch: Wear OS in pilot, Apple Watch later
- Outdoor heat version
Everyone gets their version
Before class, Round Connect builds each person’s version from what it knows: first weeks, today’s notes, a stage of returning after a birth or a break, last time’s weights. The coach sees the scaling by station — in the brief and on the tablet — before the warm-up.
Heavy only when ready
During class, recovery in the rests is compared with each person’s own normal, after a few classes with a strap. Before a heavy or complex station — barbell, overhead, deadlift, sled — the coach’s tablet lists who isn’t ready, and why. A Wear OS watch, in pilot, will too.
The class remembers
One tap on your phone after a set — the weight, and easy, OK or hard. Three “easy” in a row at the same weight, and the next weight is suggested. A sudden big jump is flagged to the coach. After class: your sets logged, your personal records.
For the coach
At their station before they lift.
The brief has the newcomers with their version, the shoulder and back scaling, the postnatal stages and last time’s weights — by station. During class, a station and a name appear on your tablet only when you need to walk over: someone isn’t recovering, or isn’t ready for the heavy station next. They also appear on a Wear OS watch (in pilot).
- Scaling is a suggestion; you decide
- Three useful signals beat thirty you learn to ignore
- A short voice note becomes a safety-log entry that can’t be deleted
Who to watch
For the member
A goal keeps people longer than points.
A race in March. A first barbell lift. A whole class without stopping. Each member has their own path: a goal with a date and its predicted finish, a record they didn’t know they had — and, in development, the part of the race where they lose the most time.
For people whose heart rate doesn’t reflect their effort, colours can come from how hard it feels rather than from a number: a 1–10 rating they switch on themselves. Nobody is told they’re slacking when they’re giving everything.
Where you lose most: the run after the sled — 40 s per km.
Deadlift 62.5 kg — the strongest you’ve been.
One class, step by step
Sam and the barbell
| Moment | What happens |
|---|---|
| Before class | Sam has eight years of training and a shoulder that “sometimes clicks”. Last time he lifted 50 kg; today he wants 60. |
| The brief | Coach Ben sees: “Sam — shoulder; suggest front squats instead of overhead, or 50 kg.” Scaling is ready before the warm-up. |
| Round 3 | After the rower, Sam’s heart rate hasn’t come down, and the barbell is next. Ben’s tablet: “Station 2 — Sam: not recovered, shoulder.” |
| The decision | Ben is there before the lift and offers 20 seconds of rest and 50 kg. Sam agrees. |
| After | The card: an even pace across all five rounds — a record for consistency, not weight. His first class in a year without a sore shoulder. |
| A month later | The owner sees fewer shoulder and back complaints than before. |
An illustration built from typical gyms — not a real member.
Made for the whole gym
For owners
New members who come back. Shoulders and backs looked after. A functional zone that earns outside class times. Retention through goals, not discounts.
For coaches
Scaling ready before the warm-up. A signal before the barbell, not after. A small group run like a personal session.
For members
Your plan, and you in it. Your weights remembered. Your own scale, not the room’s.
Honest about the data
Heart rate shows effort and recovery. Not technique.
Round Connect can’t see how someone holds their back under a barbell. It shows the coach where to look. Heart rate is compared with each person’s own normal; what matters most is how they come back down in the rest, not the peak.
Works with what you already have
Keep your straps, rowers and software.
Heart-rate straps from any maker that use standard Bluetooth or ANT+ work, including the ones already in your gym. The computer behind the gym screen receives them. Data from rowers and ski ergs that broadcast it is still in development inside a functional class. Outdoors, members’ own Android phones can send their heart rate, and the coach’s phone as a receiver is in development. Webhooks and an open API are coming, to bring in programmes and records from the software you use. No device of ours is needed.
How it compares with heart-rate screens and programming apps →
Plans for functional and HIIT gyms
Everyone’s version of the class, scaling from profiles, memory of weights and the safety log are in every plan.
Basic
Free for small studios; more locations — the first is free, €149 for each other one. Before and after class. Nothing to install in the gym.
Digital
€229 per location a month. Plus the gym screen with personal tiles, heart rate and recovery, signals for the coach (on the tablet today, on a Wear OS watch (in pilot)), rower data (in development), goals with a date and voice notes. The main plan.
Round Connect Functional starts with partner gyms: an independent functional gym, a HIIT boutique and a club with a race-training zone. Recovery thresholds and newcomer versions are tuned with experienced coaches. It runs on Round Connect, with the other six products of the platform.
Preparing people for a fitness race? Round Connect Race adds the care around it: readiness before the ticket, the whole week’s load, simulations and life after the race.