Legal
Terms of Service
Effective Fitness is in public beta. That is not a disclaimer we are hiding at the bottom: things break, features change, and you should read the beta section below before you rely on this service for anything that matters. These terms are the agreement between you and us.
Last updated: 5 September 2026
Effective Fitness is in open beta
It is an independent project rather than a company, so these terms cover what the site actually does today. Where something genuinely is not settled yet - the forum that would hear a dispute, the commission on coach sales - this page says so rather than inventing an answer, and it is updated before that thing goes live.
Who you are agreeing with
These terms are between you and the person who runs Effective Fitness. It is an independent project in open beta, not a registered company. Where these terms say "we" or "us", that is who is meant. You can reach us at privacy@effectivefitness.org. If it becomes a registered business, this section will name the company and its address before it does.
By creating an account or using the site you accept these terms and the privacy policy. If you do not accept them, do not use the service.
This is not medical advice
Read this one properly
Effective Fitness publishes training programmes, exercise instructions, wiki articles and posts written by coaches, creators and other members. None of it is medical advice, and none of it is a substitute for a doctor, physiotherapist or registered dietitian who knows your history. Lifting weights carries real risk of injury.
Talk to a qualified medical professional before starting any programme, especially if you are pregnant, injured, recovering from illness, or managing a condition. Stop if something hurts. You choose to train, and you train at your own risk.
Coach verification means a coach showed us a certification, not that we vetted the safety of any particular programme for you. Unverified coaches are labelled as such. Anything a member posts is that member's opinion, not ours.
Your account
Age
You must be at least 16 to have an account.
One person, one account
Accounts are personal. Do not share your login, and do not create an account for someone else. Sign-in runs through Clerk, so keeping your login secure is between you and them, but anything done from your account is treated as done by you.
Honest details
Keep your email current so we can reach you, and do not impersonate anyone, whether a coach, a brand or another member.
Roles
Member, Premium, Coach, Content Creator, staff and admin roles come with different abilities. We grant and remove them at our discretion, and losing a role does not entitle you to a refund of anything you did not pay for.
Premium, and paying us
What is paid
The free account covers workout tracking, the wiki, the community feed and public plans. Premium is a subscription that unlocks premium plans, premium articles and the other benefits listed on the pricing page. Prices shown on the pricing page are what you pay.
How billing works
Premium is billed monthly or yearly through Stripe, and renews automatically at the end of each period until you cancel. Your card details go to Stripe, not to us.
Cancelling
Cancel any time from Settings > Billing, which opens the Stripe billing portal. You keep Premium until the end of the period you have already paid for, and you are not charged again. There is no cancellation fee.
Refunds
Cancelling stops the next renewal rather than refunding the period you are already in, so a part-used month or year is not refunded as a matter of course. If you paid for a period you could not use because something on our side was broken, email us and we will put it right. Statutory consumer rights in your country still apply either way, and these terms do not take them away.
Failed payments
If a payment fails, Premium access can be suspended until the payment succeeds. Your data is not deleted because of a failed payment.
Price changes
We can change prices. If we do, we will tell you before the change applies to your subscription, and you can cancel instead of accepting it.
Selling as a coach
Coaches apply through the coach onboarding form. We review applications and can approve or reject them for any reason. A verified badge means we saw a certification.
Selling paid plans directly to members is not switched on yet - during the beta the only payment the platform takes is the Premium subscription. When paid plan sales go live we will take a commission on each sale, at the rate published on the pricing page at the time of that sale, and coaches will be told before that rate changes. Nothing here is a promise of any level of earnings, visibility or client volume.
What you post
You own your content
Your posts, comments, programmes, articles, photos and videos stay yours. We do not claim ownership.
What you let us do with it
By posting, you give us permission to host, store, display and share your content within the service, and to show it in previews and link cards outside the service. That permission lasts as long as the content is on the site, and it exists purely so we can run the product.
It has to be yours to post
Do not upload anything you do not have the rights to: other people's programmes, copied articles, photos of people who did not agree to be photographed. If you tell us something infringes your rights, email us and we will look at it and remove it if it does.
We can remove it
We can hide, lock, flag or remove any content that breaks these rules, and we keep a moderation record of what was removed and why. We do not have to explain every decision, but we will if you ask and it is reasonable to.
Things you must not do
- Harass, threaten, dox or abuse other members, coaches or staff.
- Post sexual content, hate speech, or content that encourages self-harm or disordered eating.
- Give medical advice you are not qualified to give, or sell supplements, drugs or "transformation" schemes through the community.
- Spam, mass-DM, scrape the site, or run automated tools against it.
- Try to break the site: probing for holes, bypassing paywalls or role checks, or accessing anyone else's data. If you find a security flaw, email us instead of using it.
- Fake activity - manufactured workouts, alt accounts, vote or leaderboard manipulation.
- Use the service for anything illegal where you are.
You can report content that breaks these rules from the post itself. Reports go to our moderators and record who filed them.
It is a beta, and we mean it
The service is provided as it is, with no promise that it will work, be available, be accurate, or keep your data safe from loss. During the beta specifically:
- Features can change or disappear without notice.
- Data can be lost. Keep your own record of anything you would be upset to lose.
- Statistics, streaks, personal records and leaderboards can be wrong or be recalculated.
- The service can go down, and we do not promise any uptime.
To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for lost data, lost profits, missed training, or any indirect or consequential loss arising from your use of the service. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot legally be limited, including for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for fraud. Effective Fitness is free to use and in open beta, so there is no fee to refund and no service level promised.
Ending your account
You can stop using the service at any time. There is no in-app delete button yet, so account deletion during the beta happens by emailing privacy@effectivefitness.org. What we delete, and what survives deletion, is set out in the privacy policy.
We can suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, that puts other members at risk, or that we are legally required to close. Where it is fair to, we will tell you why first. If we close a paid account for a reason that is not your fault, we will refund the unused part of the period.
Changes to these terms
We will change these terms as the product changes. When we do, we will update the date at the top, and if the change matters we will tell you in the app before it takes effect. Continuing to use the service after that means you accept the new terms.
Governing law
If you are a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory laws of the country you live in, and you can bring a claim in your local courts. A governing law and forum will be named here if Effective Fitness becomes a registered business.
Contact
Questions about these terms go to privacy@effectivefitness.org. See also the privacy policy and the cookie notice.