A library of 419 exercises is a gift right up until the moment you have to scroll through it. The value is not in the size of the library. The value is in how quickly you can get from 419 to the eight moves that belong in tomorrow morning's class.
That is what the Filters sheet is for. One tap on Filters, a few chips, and the whole library reshapes itself around the class you are actually teaching.
The problem with a big library
Most instructors do not plan in a calm studio with an hour to spare. You plan on the tram, between clients, in the ten minutes before a 7am group class, or the night before while half-watching something. In those moments, scrolling is the enemy. You do not need inspiration in the abstract, you need the four warm-up moves that work supine with a red spring, and you need them now.
Search helps when you know the name of the move. Filters help when you know the shape of what you want but not the name. Which, if you are honest, is most of the time.
What you can filter by
Open the Filters sheet and you get seven ways to cut the library, all combinable, with a live result count at the bottom so you always know how much is left.
Hearts. Four colour-coded hearts, plus the empty one. This is your own system, not ours. Red for moves you trust in any class, blue for the ones you are still learning to cue, yellow for client favourites, empty for everything untouched. Filter to a colour and you are looking at your own shortlist inside the big library.
Category. Warm up, main block, finisher, cooldown, stretches. This is the backbone of a class, so it is the fastest way to plan in order: filter to warm up, pick three, switch to main block, pick six, finish with a cooldown filter. You build the class in the same sequence you will teach it.
Body position. Supine, prone, side, seated, kneeling, all fours, standing. Position is the hidden cost of a class plan. Every change of position is a transition, and transitions are where classes lose their rhythm and beginners lose their confidence.
Body focus. Core, obliques, back, glutes, full body, upper body, lower body. The honest answer to "what are we working today".
Level. Beginner / Intermediate, or Advanced. One tap to make sure nothing in your plan is going to blindside a first-timer.
Sides. Both sides or one way. Small filter, big effect on timing, because one-way moves quietly double.
Accessories. Short box, long box, floor box, ball, ring, resistance band, dumbbells, ankle weights. Filter by what is actually in your studio, not by what exists in a catalogue.
And at the bottom: Show 419 results, counting down live as you tap. You never guess whether a combination is too narrow. You watch it happen.
Real situations where this earns its keep
1. You have a beginner walking in at 9am
Level: Beginner / Intermediate. Body position: supine and seated. That is it. What is left is a class you can teach without a single moment of "actually, let's skip that one". No mid-class improvisation, no client watching you hesitate.
2. The studio only has two boxes and someone borrowed the rings
Accessories: uncheck what you do not have. Or filter to no accessories at all and build a clean, equipment-free flow. Planning around a half-stocked studio is one of the most common reasons a good plan falls apart on the day, and it takes two taps to avoid.
3. You are teaching back-to-back and want minimal transitions
Body position: supine only for the first block, then prone only for the second. You end up with a class that flows in position groups, which means fewer carriage resets, fewer spring changes, and a room that stays in rhythm. Your clients will not know why the class felt smooth. You will.
4. A regular says "my lower back has been sore"
Body focus: core and glutes. Level: Beginner / Intermediate. Position: exclude prone if that is uncomfortable for them. In under a minute you have a sensible, conservative pool to build from, without scrolling past 200 moves you were never going to use.
5. Friday finisher energy
Category: finisher. Body focus: full body. Sides: both sides. Pull three, stack them, and you have the last eight minutes that people leave talking about.
6. You want to teach something new without risking the class
Hearts: blue, the colour you use for "still learning this one". Filter to it and you get exactly your practice list. Slot one new move into an otherwise familiar class. That is how a repertoire grows without a class ever feeling like an experiment.
7. Two classes, same hour, different rooms
Filter once, build the beginner version, then loosen the Level filter and swap in three advanced variations for the second group. Same skeleton, two levels, one planning session.
8. Someone books a private and wants "just abs"
Body focus: core and obliques. Duration adds up fast, so you also see immediately whether you have enough range to fill 50 minutes or whether you need to widen out. The result count is doing the thinking for you.
Why the live result count matters more than it sounds
Filtering in most apps is a leap of faith: you tap, you close the sheet, and you find out whether you overdid it. Here the button itself tells you. Show 419 results becomes Show 34 results becomes Show 6 results, and the moment it drops too low you know to release a chip before you have wasted a single scroll.
It changes how you plan. You stop being precious about filters and start using them as a dial.
Filters and routine tags are two halves of the same idea
Routine tags organise the classes you have already built: Wednesday, Beginner, Sarah, whatever names your teaching week uses. Filters organise the raw material you build them from.
Together they cover both directions. Filters get you from 419 exercises to a class. Tags get you from a library of classes back to the one you need on a Wednesday morning. Neither asks you to remember anything.
A small habit that pays off
Spend one week hearting as you go. Every time a move lands well in a real class, give it a colour. Within a few weeks your hearts filter becomes the single most useful view in the app, because it is not a curated list from someone else. It is your teaching, sorted.
Try it
Filters, hearts, categories and 419 curated exercises with video, level, body focus and recommended springs are all in ReformerFlow, free to try for 14 days.