Designing Ascent: A Modern Training App for Athletes
Mike Montgomery
Ascent
The work behind the athlete.
Designing a modern training experience for athletes and the coaches who help them get better.
Ascent is a training app built to connect coaches and athletes through the work that happens beyond game day. From hockey and football to volleyball and climbing, it helps bring structure and purpose to the training that builds stronger, more capable athletes.
The vision: create a focused, motivating digital experience that makes training feel less like another task and more like a meaningful step toward becoming better.
Discipline over distraction. Progress over perfection.
The opportunity
Great athletes are built when nobody is watching.
The moments everyone sees — the game-winning goal, the perfect climb, the explosive play — are only a small part of an athlete's journey.
Behind every performance are hours of preparation, strength training, repetition, recovery, and guidance from coaches who understand what it takes to improve.
But the work behind the performance can be difficult to keep organized and consistent. Athletes need direction. Coaches need a way to guide development. And both need a clearer connection between the work being done today and the goals they're working toward.
The opportunity was to design a training experience that brings greater structure, clarity, and motivation to that process.
Not another generic fitness app. A product built around the mindset of athletic development.
The challenge
Make the work feel worth it.
Training is repetitive by nature. Progress takes time, results aren't always immediately visible, and motivation can fluctuate between the moments that make sport exciting.
The product challenge was to make the training experience feel purposeful without adding unnecessary complexity.
Three principles shaped the direction:
Clarity over clutter. Athletes should be able to understand what they need to do and focus on the work ahead.
Progress over isolated sessions. Training should feel connected to a larger journey, not like a collection of disconnected workouts.
Motivation through meaning. The experience should reinforce the discipline, commitment, and incremental improvements that lead to better performance.
The goal was to make Ascent feel serious enough for dedicated athletes while remaining approachable across different sports and levels of experience.
The design approach
Built around the mindset of an athlete.
Ascent needed a visual identity and product experience that communicated focus, performance, and forward momentum.
Rather than relying on the familiar visual language of colorful fitness dashboards, badges, and gamification, the design direction embraces restraint.
A monochromatic foundation creates a focused environment. Strong typography establishes hierarchy. High-contrast imagery captures athletes in moments of intensity, effort, and movement.
Every element serves a purpose: help athletes understand the task, feel connected to the bigger goal, and get back to training.
The result is a direction that feels closer to a premium performance brand than a conventional workout tracker.
The visual system
BLACK → ATHLETE → LIGHT
The visual language is built around contrast.
Black creates focus and removes visual noise.
Athlete brings the experience to life through powerful, close-up action photography that captures the intensity of real sport.
Light creates contrast, directs attention, and gives the interface a sense of clarity and precision.
The photography follows the same philosophy. Black-and-white imagery, dramatic lighting, tight framing, and authentic moments of exertion create a cinematic, editorial quality.
From the climbing gym to the ice rink, the athlete is always the focal point.
This isn't about making training look easy. It's about respecting the work it takes to improve.
The product experience
Turn intention into action.
The product experience should make the connection between coaching and training feel clear and immediate.
Rather than overwhelming athletes with information, the interface prioritizes the next meaningful action and the context needed to complete it.
The experience is designed around three connected needs:
Know what comes next. Make training direction clear so athletes can spend less time figuring things out and more time doing the work.
Stay connected to the plan. Help athletes understand how individual training sessions fit into their broader development.
Make progress visible. Create opportunities to reflect on the work completed and maintain momentum over time.
For coaches, the opportunity is to create a more connected training relationship — one where guidance translates into action and the athlete's development remains the focus.
Designing for every sport
Different sports. One mindset.
Athletic development doesn't belong to a single sport.
A hockey player building strength, a football player improving explosiveness, a volleyball player developing power, and a climber working on physical capacity may have very different goals. But they share a commitment to getting better.
Ascent is designed around that common ground.
The product's visual and interaction principles create a consistent foundation, while the training context can reflect the athlete's sport and objectives.
The result is a broader vision of performance training: an experience that can support different athletic journeys without losing its identity.
The bigger vision
The best version of yourself is built one session at a time.
Ascent is about more than completing a workout.
It's about helping athletes build the habits, discipline, and confidence that compound over time — and giving coaches a better way to guide that journey.
The ambition is to make the work behind performance feel more focused, more connected, and more rewarding.
Because progress rarely happens in a single moment.
It happens in the sessions nobody sees, the standards you hold yourself to, and the decision to keep showing up.
Ascent. Earn your next level.
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Posted Oct 9, 2026
Designed Ascent, a training app for professional athletes and coaches to enhance training experience.
