GH Lift

Introduction Section

GH Lift is a content-generation toolkit that transforms structured workout JSON into polished, print-ready training posters, PDFs, and a complete static program website. Built for the Godwin Heights Football strength and speed program, it turns a season's worth of training — organized into phases, weeks, and sessions — into consistent, professional visuals that athletes and coaches can browse online or hang on the weight room wall.

Status: Completed — The toolkit reliably generates the full multi-phase program: poster PNGs, PDFs, and a navigable single-page site, all deployed automatically to a VPS via Docker and GitHub Actions.

Problem & Solution

The Problem

Distributing a structured training program to athletes presents recurring challenges:

Inconsistent formatting — Hand-built workout sheets vary in layout, branding, and quality
Tedious manual design — Producing dozens of session posters by hand is slow and error-prone
No single source of truth — Workout details live across spreadsheets, docs, and printouts that drift out of sync
Hard to update — Tweaking sets, reps, or cues means redesigning each sheet individually
Limited accessibility — Printed sheets don't travel well; athletes need program access on their phones
Missing technique guidance — Static sheets rarely link to demonstration video for speed and lift days

The Solution

GH Lift addresses these challenges through a data-driven generation pipeline:

JSON-defined workouts — A single structured contract describes every session, exercise, and cue
Automated rendering — Playwright renders HTML/CSS templates into pixel-perfect posters
Multiple output formats — Generate PNG posters, print-ready PDFs, or both from the same source
Branded layouts — A polished "Godwin" navy-and-gold theme (and a classic layout) ensure consistent branding
Static program site — A single-page app lets athletes navigate phases, sessions, and exercises on any device
Embedded video — Speed-day sessions link to YouTube playlists for technique demonstration
Automated deployment — GitHub Actions builds and ships the site to a VPS on every change

Technical Implementation

The system is a Node.js CLI built around a headless-browser rendering pipeline:

Data Layer (Workout JSON)
- A documented JSON contract defines sessions and exactly eight exercises each
- Supports two layouts (classic and godwin) selectable per-workout or via CLI flag
- Optional fields for program metadata, headlines, and lift/speed day labels
Rendering Engine (Playwright + HTML/CSS)
- HTML templates are composed from workout data and styled with CSS
- Headless Chromium renders each template to a high-resolution PNG or PDF
- SVG exercise icons are inlined and sanitized for safe, theme-aware rendering
Static Site Builder
- Generates a single-page program site with hash-based routing (#phase/0/workout/0)
- Stable, shareable links by poster filename (#poster/<slug>)
- Warmup and core-finisher blocks injected on lifting days
- Responsive YouTube playlist embeds on speed-day sessions
Deployment Layer
- Dockerized build served by Nginx behind a reverse proxy
- GitHub Actions CI/CD builds posters and deploys to a VPS on push

Key Features

Data-Driven Poster Generation

Every poster is generated from a structured JSON definition rather than hand-designed. Each workout declares exactly eight exercises with names, coaching cues, sets, reps, tempo, rest, and a "what it builds" summary — guaranteeing consistent, complete sessions across the entire program.

Multiple Layouts & Output Formats

GH Lift ships two visual layouts: a clean classic template and the branded Godwin navy-and-gold grid used for the program. From the same source data, it can emit:

PNG posters for the web and quick sharing
Print-ready PDFs for the weight room
Both at once via a single build command

SVG Exercise Icons with AI Assist

Exercises can carry inline SVG icons or figures. The toolkit includes an "asset brief" generator that produces a prompt for an LLM, plus an OpenAI-powered CLI and an optional n8n flow that generate icon SVGs automatically. A validator sanitizes incoming SVG — stripping scripts and unsafe patterns — before rendering.

Navigable Static Program Site

The build produces a single-page program website where athletes can:

Browse the program by phase, then drill into individual sessions
View the full-size session poster with a lightbox and hide/show toggle
See warmup and core-finisher blocks automatically on lifting days
Watch YouTube playlist embeds for speed-day technique work
Share stable links tied directly to a poster filename

Automated, Self-Hosted Deployment

A GitHub Actions workflow rebuilds the program posters and static site whenever workout data or templates change, then deploys the Dockerized, Nginx-served site to a VPS behind a shared reverse-proxy network — keeping the live program always in sync with the source data.

CLI Workflow

The toolkit is driven by a small set of npm scripts and CLI flags:

npm run build — Render posters from the sample workouts (PNG)
npm run build:pdf — Render print-ready PDFs
npm run build:all — Emit both PNG and PDF
npm run build:program — Emit the full program data and render it with the Godwin layout
npm run build:pages:prod — Build the static program site from the rendered posters
npm run merge-svgs:llm-godwin — Generate exercise icon SVGs via OpenAI and merge them in

Educational Applications

This project is a practical reference for developers and coaches exploring:

Headless-browser rendering — Using Playwright to turn HTML/CSS into pixel-perfect images and PDFs
Data-driven design systems — Generating consistent visual assets from a single JSON source of truth
Static site generation — Building a navigable SPA with hash routing and shareable deep links
Safe SVG handling — Validating and sanitizing user/AI-provided SVG before rendering
AI-assisted content — Wiring OpenAI and n8n into an asset-generation pipeline
Self-hosted CI/CD — Automating Docker builds and VPS deployment with GitHub Actions

Target Users

The platform is designed to serve:

Strength & Conditioning Coaches — For distributing consistent, branded training programs
Football Coaches & Athletic Directors — For program-wide organization and presentation
Athletes — For accessing their full program and technique videos on any device
JavaScript Developers — As a reference for Playwright-based generation pipelines
Sports Programs — For modernizing how training plans are produced and shared

Future Enhancements

Planned improvements include:

Expanded exercise library — A larger catalog of reusable, icon-backed movements
Athlete tracking — Logging completed sessions and progress over time
Print kits — One-click bundles of every poster for a phase
Additional themes — More layout and branding options for other programs
Richer media — Per-exercise demonstration clips alongside playlist embeds

Conclusion

GH Lift demonstrates how a thoughtful, data-driven pipeline can replace hours of manual design with a single source of truth. By rendering structured workout JSON into branded posters, PDFs, and a navigable program site — and shipping it all automatically to a VPS — it gives a strength program professional, always-current training materials that work on the wall and on the phone.

This project is deployed and in active use. The complete source code is available on GitHub for reference and adaptation to other programs.