Terms of Service

Groundwork is provided by:

Groundwork Sports UG (haftungsbeschränkt)
Fischerweg 13A
85410 Haag an der Amper
Germany
[email protected]

In these terms, "we" and "us" mean this company, and "Groundwork" means the app, the website and what they do for you.

Groundwork is a training log with a coach. You record your strength training; the app keeps your history, helps you plan sessions and shows how your training and your body change over time. If you allow it, Groundwork also reads sleep, heart rate and workouts from Apple Health to judge how recovered you are.

The coach is software. Its replies, its analyses and its suggestions are written by an AI language model that is given your training record. Section 6 says what that means for how far to rely on it.

• You are 16 or older. If you are under 18, you need the permission of a parent or guardian.
• You use it for your own training. One account is for one person. Groundwork is not made for running other people's training through your account.
• You have an invitation. While Groundwork is in beta, a new account needs one.

You sign in with your Apple or Google account. Groundwork has no password of its own, so the security of that account is the security of this one.

Keep access to your account to yourself. Under Settings → Sign-in and devices you can see where you are signed in and sign a device out. If you think someone else has used your account, write to us.

Give Groundwork true details about yourself. Your date of birth, height and gender are not decoration: heart-rate zones, reference values and the coach's suggestions are worked out from them, and wrong details make for wrong advice.

Groundwork is not a medical product, and nothing in it is medical advice.

It does not diagnose, treat or prevent any condition. Heart-rate zones, rest and recovery verdicts, body-composition readings and comparisons with reference values for your age are estimates, made from the data you give and from published averages. They are information for your training, not a finding about your health.

• Ask a doctor first if you have a health condition, are pregnant, are coming back from an injury or an operation, or are unsure whether training is safe for you.
• Stop and get help if you feel pain, dizziness, chest discomfort, unusual shortness of breath or anything else that worries you. No plan in the app outranks that.
• Train within your limits. Strength training carries a risk of injury. Use equipment the way its maker intends, and choose weights you can control.
• The decision is yours. Groundwork suggests; it cannot see you, the room or the bar. What you do in the gym is for you to decide.

We do not promise a particular training result. None of this section limits what we are liable for under section 14.

The coach is an AI, and it can be wrong. It can misread your history, suggest a weight that is too much or too little, or miss something a person standing next to you would see. Treat what it says as a suggestion from software, and check anything that matters.

Its replies are written by language models that other companies run. What is sent to them, and what is not, is listed in the Privacy Policy. We may change which models the coach uses.

Every reply costs money to produce, so the coach has an allowance: an amount per account for each day and each month, and a daily ceiling across all accounts. When one is used up, the coach tells you and says when it is back. Logging and your history keep working in the meantime. We may adjust the allowances.

Your training record, your notes, your measurements, your photo and your messages to the coach stay yours.

To run Groundwork we have to store what you put in, work with it, show it back to you, and pass parts of it to the services named in the Privacy Policy, for example to the model that writes the coach's replies. You give us permission to do that, for that purpose only and for as long as your account exists.

Nothing you record is shown to other users. Groundwork has no feed and no public profiles.

Put in only what you are allowed to: a photo that is yours to use, and nothing unlawful. If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them to improve Groundwork without owing you anything for it.

Please do not:

• use Groundwork for anything unlawful;
• try to reach another person's account or data;
• get around its limits and protections, the coach's allowance included;
• read it with scripts, scrapers or bots, or put a load on it that a person using the app would not;
• use the coach for anything other than your own training;
• copy, resell or rent out Groundwork, or take it apart further than the law expressly allows you to.

Groundwork works together with services that belong to others: sign-in by Apple and Google, Apple Health, Apple's notifications and the store your app comes from. Each is provided by its own company under its own terms. Apple and Google are not parties to this agreement and are not responsible for Groundwork. When one of their services is unavailable, the part of Groundwork that depends on it may not work.

The names and pictures of machines and equipment in the catalogue belong to their makers. They are there so that you can find what you train on. Groundwork is not affiliated with those companies.

Groundwork is free while it is in beta.

We plan to offer paid plans once Groundwork opens to everyone. Before anything costs money, you will see the price, the billing period and how to cancel, these terms will be updated to cover it, and you will be asked to agree. Nobody is moved onto a paid plan without that.

Groundwork is still being built. Features are added, changed and sometimes removed, and the app can be unavailable for maintenance or because something broke. We work to keep it running, and we do not promise that it always will be.

We may change Groundwork to improve it, to keep it secure, to follow the law, or because a feature costs more to run than it is worth. If a change takes away something you rely on, we tell you beforehand where we can.

Your data is not deleted casually. Still, this is beta software: keep your own note of anything you would be sorry to lose.

The app, the website, their design and texts, the Groundwork name and logo and the mascot belong to us or to those who licensed them to us. While you have an account, you may use Groundwork for your own training. That permission is personal, cannot be passed on, and ends with your account.

You can end it at any time by deleting your account in the Account section: in Settings on the iPhone, on your Profile page on the web. Deletion takes effect after 30 days. Until then, signing in again and choosing Keep my account brings everything back. After that, your account and what belongs to it are removed for good, as the Privacy Policy describes.

We can end it with 30 days' notice, by email or in the app, so that you have time to ask for a copy of your data.

We can suspend or close an account that seriously or repeatedly breaks these terms, or where the law requires it. Unless there is a reason to act at once, for example to stop harm to other people or to Groundwork, we tell you first and give you the chance to put it right.

The right of either side to end the agreement for good cause stays as the law gives it.

We are liable without limit for damage we cause deliberately or through gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, where we have given a guarantee, and under the German Product Liability Act.

For slight negligence we are liable only where we break a duty that is essential to this agreement, meaning one whose performance makes the agreement possible in the first place and on which you may ordinarily rely. In that case our liability is limited to the damage that is typical for an agreement of this kind and could be foreseen.

Beyond that we are not liable. The same limits apply to the people who work for us and on our behalf.

We may change these terms when Groundwork changes, when the law changes, or to make them clearer. We tell you at least 30 days before a change applies, in the app or by email, and say what is different. The date at the top of this page moves with it.

A change that does not put you at a material disadvantage applies from the date we name. For any other change, a price included, we ask for your agreement. If you do not want the new terms, you can delete your account before they apply.

German law applies to this agreement. If you are a consumer living in another country, you also keep the protection of that country's law that cannot be set aside by agreement.

If one part of these terms turns out to be invalid, the rest still applies.

If something has gone wrong, write to us first at [email protected]. Most things can be sorted out that way. How we handle your data is in the Privacy Policy.