Program Settings is where you choose how a program advances your sets, reps, and load over time: one progression strategy for main lifts, and a separate one for everything else. It sits at the top of the exercise editor for any program you're building or editing.
Where to find it
Open a program you can edit (a new build, or an existing saved program) → Program Settings, near the top of the workout list.
Main lifts vs. everything else
Kenso splits progression into two independent choices:
- Progression for main lifts applies to exercises tagged as a main lift: the primary compound movement on a day, such as Bench Press, Squat, Deadlift, Overhead Press, Row, or Pull Up.
- Progression for everything else applies to every exercise that isn't tagged as a main lift: accessories, isolation work, and any compound not designated the day's primary mover.
Each has its own dropdown of strategies (Double Progression, Linear, Score-based, Top Set + Backoff, RPE Target, Pyramid, Reverse Pyramid, Wave Loading, Undulating, Volume Progression, or Manual). See Progression Strategies for what each one does.
Tagging a main lift
Whether an exercise counts as a main lift is a per-exercise toggle you set when adding or editing it, not something Program Settings decides on its own.
Rep range suggestions
Some strategies work best within a certain rep range. If your main lifts are tagged with a range that doesn't match the strategy you picked, Kenso shows a banner offering to apply the suggested range to all tagged main lifts in one tap. You can dismiss it instead.
Good to know
- Manual strategy is free for everyone; every auto-progression strategy other than Manual requires Pro.
- You can override the program-level strategy for a single exercise. See Strategy per Exercise.
- Changing a program's progression settings follows the same edit rules as any other change. See Edit a Program.