Synthetic Sweat
A love letter to muscle, mortality, and handmade code.
This is not your average trainer website. No stock photos of smiling couples doing yoga on the beach. No inspirational quotes in italics. Synthetic Sweat is my unapologetically analog take on digital presence—a static, hand-crafted shrine to real work, real progress, and the occasional existential crisis in the squat rack.
Glitches, Gains & Grids
Built pixel by pixel, glitch by glitch, this site fuses my two professions—frontend design and holistic strength coaching—into one cohesive, contradictory experience. It's retro, a bit grimy, and proudly resistant to trends. Think: glitch animations, JS-driven color drift, and a layout that wouldn't look out of place on a forgotten mid-2000s server. And yet—every byte serves a purpose. Every word, every shift in hue, every motion is aligned with my training philosophy: resilient, intentional, and efficient.
Think it's just a look?
Think again. This is engineered discomfort.
Behind the aesthetic cynicism is something deeply personal: a manifesto for sustainable transformation. No gimmicks. Just intensity, clarity, and the courage to sweat—synthetically or otherwise.
Tech notes: No frameworks. No CMS. Just HTML, CSS, vanilla JS, and a ruthless editing eye.
Update 2025: Synthetic Sweat HIIT Timer
Or: What happens when you actually listen to your clients
Running a real training site means hearing what people want—but the trick is spotting what they need. After enough clients complained about juggling glitchy timers and stubborn heart rate apps, it hit me: they craved convenience, but what really moves the needle is accountability.
I built the -> Synthetic Sweat HIIT Timer—a web tool forged from user feedback, personal frustration, and the stubborn belief that "how hard could it be?" (Spoiler: pretty hard.)
Project highlights:
The 4×4 Protocol, digitized
Four intervals of four minutes at 90–95% max heart rate, separated by three minutes of active recovery (translation: trying not to die). Used by Norwegian Olympians. Now available to anyone with a browser and questionable life choices.
Bluetooth heart rate support
Pairs with Polar, Garmin, Wahoo, and other devices—but only in Chrome, because Web Bluetooth has commitment issues. Still, it works, and it works well.
Built with vanilla JS
No frameworks. No dependencies. No excuses. Just clean, intentional code that does exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.
Why this matters (beyond my ego)
The HIIT timer isn’t just a feature—it’s the next step for Synthetic Sweat. The site drew people in. Coaching kept them engaged. The timer? That’s where real change happens.
It does what no other timer does: it gamifies staying at 95% max heart rate—not with badges, but with relentless, real-time feedback. People hit their zones and hold them. Even I’m training harder–and I invented the damn thing.
When you stop building what people want (another app) and start solving what they need (a reason to push through), behavior shifts. My VO2max went up. So did my clients’. It works.
