Anyone who knows me even a little knows that “tech-savvy” is a word that does not describe me. I didn’t get a smart phone until 2012 and I’m writing this on a computer that’s older than a third grader. All that said, even my Neanderthal self has managed to find some good uses for the bane of many a coach’s existence: the smart phone. So unlock your screens (which you’ve already done if you’re reading this on a phone) and let’s get going on what you can use that device for, besides taking selfies of your bum and posting them on the internet.

Programs. There was a time where you needed to have a notebook with your workout written in it. If you had a plan for the month, you’d have to sit and write the whole thing by hand, carry it around, and try desperately not to get too much sweat on it for fear of turning it into a ball of salty, soggy pulp. Fortunately, those days are gone and now we have the miracle that is Excel and Google Drive. You make the spreadsheet (and if you don’t feel like going to that trouble, most popular programs can be found online,) toss it in your Drive folder, and pull it up when you get to the gym. And if that’s still too much, many programs now have apps that go along with them. Thank god for these options, because I definitely don’t miss the days of opening my workout notebook and trying to decipher the sweat-smeared and faded ink from previous workouts.

Clock/Stopwatch. Remember when you wanted to time your rest periods and had to wander over to the nearest clock, stand in front of it, and, with glazed eyes, wait for the second hand to hit whatever time you needed? We now have phones that have timers set down to the second. We have apps that can be set up for interval schemes, the complexity of which rivals the equations NASA uses. And if you want to perform your exercise with a five second eccentric, three second isometric, and one second concentric phase, there are metronome apps to help you do just that. There has never been a better time to have crazy, time-dependent lifting protocols than now.

Food Tracking. I saved the best for last. Because I’m at the point where the words “These kids today…” have come out of my mouth more than once, I remember a time when you had to have a copy of THE BOOK if you wanted to track food. I mean the book you had to buy that was essentially a giant spreadsheet of all the foods and their nutrition facts. You’d have to sit at the table with this book and a pen and write all your food down in a notebook. Then you’d whip out a calculator to find out whether you’re on track or not. Good god, no wonder people ate exclusively chicken and broccoli. You’d eat almost anything if it meant you didn’t have to spend time sitting with that infernal tome like a worker of the dietary IRS. Thankfully, times and technology have changed. We now have apps that, in addition to having nearly every food known to man, can also scan barcodes. You can also create recipes, copy meals from previous days, and have the app figure out your calorie breakdown and make suggestions. These apps are the reason I can eat things like beef burritos, Pop Tarts, and shrimp scampi (I said eat them, I didn’t say “eat them in gargantuan quantities”) and still get down to single-digit bodyfat. Apple crisp and leanness? Sign me up.

Though our phones are the source of much suffering in our modern lives, these are three things that your phone can be good for. Normally, I try to keep them out of the gym (or at least lifters’ hands,) but next to nothing is truly black and white. This is no exception. Phones can be used wisely or poorly. When they’re used wisely, they become powerful tools to help people achieve their goals. Just remember, as a Knight Templar once said, choose wisely.