The Spreadsheet Problem: Why GZCL and nSuns Deserve Better Than Google Sheets
The Google Sheets Era
If you've spent any time in lifting communities over the last decade, you've seen the ritual. Someone asks "what program should I run?" and the answer, more often than not, is GZCL or nSuns. Both are excellent. Both are free. And both come with the same unspoken requirement: download this Google Sheet.
This isn't a minor detail. For thousands of lifters, "running GZCL" and "maintaining a Google Sheets spreadsheet" are the same activity. The program templates are distributed as shared Google Docs. You make a copy, plug in your maxes, and every training session becomes a back-and-forth between the barbell and your phone's browser, squinting at column G while your rest timer runs in your head.
It works. Thousands of people have gotten dramatically stronger this way. But "it works" and "it's good" are not the same thing.
What You Lose in a Spreadsheet
Spreadsheets are general-purpose tools being forced into a specific job. They handle numbers fine. They handle everything else poorly.
No training history. A spreadsheet shows you this week. Maybe last week if you've been diligent about archiving tabs. But six months of progression data? A year? You'd need to be obsessive about record-keeping, and most people aren't. When you finish a training block and start fresh, that data effectively disappears.
No rest timer. You're either running a separate timer app, counting in your head, or — most commonly — scrolling Instagram until you feel ready. Rest periods matter for progression. A spreadsheet can't help you with them.
No exercise guidance. A cell that says "T1 Squat 5x3" doesn't tell you anything about form cues, tempo, or what to do when you stall. The program knowledge lives in a Reddit post you bookmarked eight months ago and can no longer find.
Fragile data. It's a shared Google Sheet. You accidentally delete a row. Your phone's browser refreshes mid-session and loses your edits. You switch Google accounts and lose access. You go offline in the gym and nothing saves. These are not hypothetical problems — they are weekly occurrences on r/nSuns.
No portability. When you finish nSuns and want to switch to GZCL, you start from scratch in a new spreadsheet. Your training history doesn't carry over. Your exercise data doesn't transfer. Every program transition is a clean break.
What These Programs Actually Are
For those finding this article while searching for templates — here's what you're looking at.
GZCL is a tiered training system created by powerlifter Cody Lefever around 2012. Every workout is organized into three tiers: T1 (heavy compound, 5x3), T2 (moderate compound, 3x10), and T3 (light accessories, 3x15+). The structure gives you clear intensity targets while letting you choose exercises that address your specific weaknesses. The built-in failsafe progression — drop from 5x3 to 6x2 to 10x1 before resetting — means you never truly hit a wall.
nSuns 5/3/1 LP is a high-volume linear progression program that appeared on Reddit around 2016. Each day has 9 sets of a main lift and 8 sets of a secondary lift, all at specific percentages of your training max. The key innovation is the AMRAP (As Many Reps As Possible) set at 95% of your training max — your performance on this set determines whether your weights go up, stay the same, or come down. It's Wendler's 5/3/1 with weekly progression instead of monthly.
Both programs are well-designed, battle-tested, and responsible for an enormous amount of collective strength gains. Both also happen to be perfect examples of programs that outgrew the medium they were distributed in.
A File Format for Programs
There's an alternative to the spreadsheet approach. Not a different app — a different concept entirely.
The .trn format (Training Notation) is an open file format for describing workouts and programs. It's plain text, human-readable, and machine-readable. A .trn file for GZCL contains every workout, every tier, every exercise, with notes on progression, form cues, and alternatives. The same is true for nSuns — all five days, all the percentage schemes, all the accessory recommendations.
The difference from a spreadsheet: a .trn file is portable. It imports into the TRN app, which handles the tracking, rest timers, and history. But the file itself is yours. You can open it in a text editor. You can modify it. You can send it to a training partner. If you stop using the app tomorrow, your program data is still a readable text file on your phone.
This isn't about replacing spreadsheets with a different kind of lock-in. It's about the idea that a training program should be a file you own, not a tab in someone else's cloud service.
Try It
We've built .trn files for both programs:
- GZCL Method (4-Day) — the full T1/T2/T3 template with progression notes
- nSuns 5/3/1 LP (5-Day) — all five training days with percentage schemes and accessories
Download them. Import them into the TRN app. Or just open them in a text editor and read them — they're plain text, and the program structure is right there in a format that makes sense without a spreadsheet tutorial.
Your training data deserves better than column G.